Upwork

Upwork have been running me around in circles for about 5 weeks now on payments, getting paid these days is quite the task at Upwork.

I give them all the docs they request (once again), carry out the verification (once again) and still waiting on payments.

The support for freelancers seems to be just a smoke screen these days, before it was not that bad overall.

But now it appears they are just playing games with freelancers and using every trick in the book not to pay out earnings after they take a huge slice for themselves.

Anyways I work not with Upwork anymore, the negative feedback I notice about them online is now at an all-time high.

If you want the real facts about Upwork you should read all the 1 star reviews they are getting. As "real persons" who have been involved with Upwork tend to write honest reviews.

I was introduced to Upwork by one of my colleagues almost four years ago. I joined the platform and found immediate success. Infact, the experience that I gained from my early work here helped me in my conventional career as well. Four years on, during the pandemic, it helped me keep my savings intact by matching me with relevant jobs working from home.

I tried several online work platforms over the years and used a few of them.

Now I only use Upwork.
Yes., they have their issues, but no one is perfect.
Just because some people do not agree with a policy,,( I being one on the occasion), doesn't make it a bad policy.

Some of the clients can be out of line, yet I have always ended with a positive experience with the help of the customer service at Upwork.

Need work?. From home or even locally in an office, take a few weeks and try this platform.
Do not expect overnight results as a new freelancer, but once you get established with a good score,, people seek you out for work.
"try it, you'll like it"

Hard to use platform. Quite Expensive Fee with Incompetent staff know only words we need verification of of the time and then Suspend your account suddenly without providing any solid reason. They need to focus on more jobs as 90 percent of new comers are struggling and they get nothing. Big blunder.

Ive been using Upwork for a very long time and work with many freelancers at once. One of them made a massive charge on our account and will not pay us back. Upwork won't do anything about it. This is really wrong and unethical. Upwork doesnt really have your back when something like this happens... I'd rather trust other services...

They've really gone downhill since the merger a couple of years ago. I had a great experience with Elance and then saw that Upwork was nothing but a garbage site with $5 jobs, so I didn't transfer my profile.

Then they add insult to injury by upping the fee to freelancers to 20%, on a sliding scale: the more money you make with a single client, the smaller the percentage they take but you have to hit something like $1000 before you get a break. Since most jobs are one-off and under $100, they are killing their freelancers profit margins. Greed like I've never seen.

They also are having problems with hackers. They get into the site easily posing as clients and employers. NO FILTER system to keep them out. UpWork relies on the freelancers to spot the scammers. Disgusting.

If it's any comfort, the site is in real, not imagined, decline, per Alexa's website ranking system. See their graph attached.

I have had great success with similar platforms over many years so thought I would try Upwork. The developer ignored my entire requirements and just produced a single page that was more limited than our mock-up page. He managed to get me to pay half up front though and was demanding the rest! I tried to contact upwork about it and they passed it off to some other company for arbitration. They didn't respond for weeks and then asked a few obvious questions and then never showed up again. I cannot even leave a review on the project to warn others!
They don't care since they are holding my funds!
This is a total scam!
When I contact them they say they have too many claims to keep up with them so they cannot do anything!

After contacting them, being told they'd take my license and then having them refuse to even look at it was typical of how they behave. Today they did add a license verification system so at least they have solved that offensive issue. Now, I'll indeed see how the rest of it all works out... 20%, however is still a rip off, in IMHO.

I signed up to Upwork (still odesk then) in tandem with tour guiding; both freelance back in 2012. In 2013 we had a 7.2 earthquake, which stopped my tour guiding and I applied and found virtual assistance and translation jobs This gave me a security blanket that no matter what happens, I have a place to fall back on. Come 2020 and here I am again, but this time this is the online lifeline left. My biggest struggle before was to stay home, but now I learned to love it. Solo parenting even has become easier with working from home. Upwork is just and fair, I feel safe.

Upwork attracts not only successful specialists, but often also encourages people to change their profession in order to receive a salary comparable to Western countries. A similar thing happened to me=) The commissions are very high, which is offset by quality and safety. So i give 4, because of the commissions.

I used UpWork for the very first time and I lost over $500 from a scammer they admitted has been taking advantage of customers before. They referred me to their legal small print when asked about getting funds back and getting a way to take action on the provider. Highly recommend that you think twice.

I will skip the part about their huge fees which basically doubled last year, leaving a freelancer with about 70-75% of the money a client pays. I won't even complain about the stupid job completion getting ruined because a client left a contract open for possible work after completing the contract, and dropping my completion ratio for no reason and resulting in no more proposals.
What made me quit upwork was their overnight change in policy which requires a ton of information from me (a freelancer) that I refuse to provide - this is a completely unjustified invasion of privacy, I had no problem working happy with several clients without sharing my personal information.
And by refusing to comply with their overnight policies the money I earned fair and square are now blocked into their account - I have some doubts this is even legal.

Find another website, encourage competition to make things better. DO NOT encourage this trash.

Initially UpWork delighted with a clean user experience and easy setup. Unfortunately you will quickly find they are good at billing you, but reluctant to pay your contractors. We've spent four weeks trying to solve a payment issue with a contractor who we had told we would be paying every two weeks. Horrible customer service has pushed us off and failed to take quick ownership of the problems. We are taking steps to move away from UpWork as quickly as possibly.

I decided to believe in freelancing and turned to the best service in my opinion. During the first week I received my first order from a large baby food company.
I realized that my skills are useful and I can earn money from anywhere. Upwork is an excellent platform where I was able to prove myself as a professional on the world stage.
In the coming year, I want to transfer my entire team to work here.

Upwork has hurt my confidence so much and hindered me from starting as a freelancer. It feels like they're outright rude and not at all sorry to see anyone go. This is not a platform for people who are just starting out, who don't have much on their portfolio. Try Upwork after having a decent portfolio and video ready. I will not be coming back. I haven't had such a bad user experience anywhere else.

I've been doing some work for the past 6 mos with UpWork and during that time have been invited to work on jobs that were scams at 10 times. UpWork does pretty good trying to screen them but I think they could do better. Only thing is until a scammer gets a sucker some people may find it hard to tell they are job scammers. UpWork has a way to contact them and they answer pretty quickly so that's better than freelancer.com that scammers run wild on. It's too bad there are so many dishonest people. I just want to work a little to add to my disability but I guess that's too much to ask for in this troubled world.

I started filling out an online profile on this website so I could make a little extra money with my general admin and data entry skills. It asks you to basically fill out a new resume for some basic freelance work... ok. So I am in the middle of this and selecting jobs that I may interested in and Upwork is supposed to be verifying my bank account for payments etc.

Then I receive an email from Upwork support, before I have even completed my profile mind you, stating they are not interested in me and I am not qualified. They know nothing about me yet! I haven't finished filling out my current and previous work experience. What a joke!

Being able to work remotely and especially at my own pace is something that I am very grateful for especially during these unprecedented times. I'm so happy that I am still able to earn without risking my health outside.

Upwork is an amazing community to find clients based on your specialty. They are also generous for giving additional connects that let you apply for more jobs. Their customer service is responsive. I also love their Upwork Protection for payments so I do not need to worry about my clients not paying me. I feel more comfortable working knowing that Upwork got my back.

The only con with Upwork is their app being sluggish but you just get used to it and actually that's a very small con compared to so many pros.

I've been on upwork for over a year now, and I'd highly recommend it.
What i really love about upwork that the efforts you do will never be wasted as they insure you will get paid and support through any issues. This is really important thing to be secured and always know they got you covered!

Also it has a very wide range of different opportunities around the world which makes it perfect to find the best job match for yourself.

Great website!

I am very happy working on Upwork as it gives me great opportunities to work with business around the globe which otherwise I won't have got.

Most of the clients are very good with communication, requirements & payments. Obviously there have been couple of times where i faced difficulties but that's the case even when you work with clients offline.

Looking forward to work with more businesses and help them succeed in their goals and eventually grow during this process

I wasted 2 weeks working with a fraudulent freelancer on Upwork.com I didn't notice until after he got nearly $1500 out of me. Just 1 day he disappeared and stop responding to my messages. Worst thing about it is that Upwork refused to refund the money! No worries, I just called my bank to handle it but now I'm behind schedule and need to find a reputable freelancer to create my project. Beware of these scam artist, they are everywhere!

I am a freelance copywriter. I was struggling to find good-paying projects and to stay safe from scammers. Upwork is so far the best marketplace for me where I can workpiece fully without the fear of scams. The customer support is great, I can communicate with the client directly and show my skills.

Upwork simply doesn't have the client base to attract decent freelancers. On top of that their fee of 20% is way to high for what little protections and facility freelancers get from them. Last but not least, they bank your money and are slow to pay.