Upwork

I'm an employer. I have been an Elance customer for more than a year and spent in excess of $20k, I was forced onto the Upwork platform this week. After noticing Upwork deducting funds from my paypal account without my consent or knowledge I tried to get answers, their listed phone number is an answering machine saying 'this number is no longer in use'.

I tried their online chat and got told, they deduct funds every Monday... and that was that! I removed permission for them to access my paypal account, and cancelled all hourly contracts. I had two fixed price contracts that were already paid in advance, Upwork had all the funds in escrow.

Upwork wrote to both freelancers that they had funds in escrow and told them to stop work or they would not be paid. I again asked Upwork to fix this, considering they already had the funds in escrow, their response was, re authorize access to your paypal account and the stop will be lifted.? I had already paid the entire contract in advance and they had the funds.

They refused to refund the money in escrow, I have had to revert to Paypal to get a refund. NEVER AGAIN will I hire through Upwork.

The platform is buggy and slow. Still, is is the largest freelancing site in terms of user base. With the acquisition of Elance, they are the only place to go. Enlace had way better interface, though Upwork still has some nice things, such as multiple categories for users.

As in most freelancing sites, the top 10% are getting 80% of gigs. The lower 10% gets another 10% of gigs, and the 80% down below gets 10% of gigs. It is very competitive, and many gigs are never awarded. Amateurs will not survive there, but pros can use it for certain amount of income.

It varies, as some months you earn a lot, others you earn nothing. I would not recommend to depend on it for your single income source until you have a killer profile and reputation. If you are really a pro and are willing to put up the time to create a killer profile, market it, study your competition, study market prices within Upwork, work and gather reviews for your profile, it can be a good income source. It can take anywhere from 6-18 months, depending if you are on it full time or part-time.

Upwork is a good platform and their service is very good.
They are very cooperative.
Thye deal with the client in a good manner.
Upwork support is also very good and they are very cooperative.

I earn my living with upwork. I have worked with many companies arround the world. With upwork, I win an experience that I could not have in my country.

I was scammed out of thousands of dollars by a "freelancer". The company did nothing to help verify the identity of the individual for the lawsuit I had so I had to drop the lawsuit.

I hate writing reviews but since I am always asking my clients to do so for my work I feel like it is only fair to do the same for the platform that has allowed my success to happen. Upwork is the best freelancer platform there is, and the reason why is not because if a friendly website but because it is a platform that connects people from all over the world giving them the opportunity to create amazing things when finding the right people. I have been using Upwork for the last 12 months and the first days are the hardest until you start losing jobs, in the past 6 months I have produced over 50k in revenue and working half the time I used to (pretty damn good for a freelancer that travels around the world with no set schedule and sometimes even works with a tall beer looking at palm trees.)

If you are hesitant about Upwork, just give it a try, its free and you go nothing to lose. Believe me, the squeeze is worth the squeeze.

If you ever need help or advise feel free to reach out to me since I know at the beginning it can be a bit hard but with time it gets a whole lot easier.

https://groupthink.myportfolio.com/

I liked the time once I worked at Upwork since they gave me enough opportunities to find suitable work to be completed and good clients.

There are plenty other marketplaces available in the internet but Upwork is best undoubtedly for it quality, users, customer support, professionals community. None can bet!

Upwork is a great money-making platform for freelancers and also for clients who want to get their work done at home without any hassle.
Keep it up.

Great platform to find quality work, I have worked with more than 100 clients and most of them were very professional and supportive

UPDATE: Upwork finally paid me the money it owed me as of April 29... on June 15. After taking its $150 fee for "facilitating" the project. I don't know if I'll ever take a job through Upwork again. Too much headache, no accountability.

ORIGINAL POST: Upwork is currently withholding $1,500 that I earned a month ago and refusing to transfer these funds to my bank account. I completed 25 hours of legal research work for a client through Upwork at the end of April 2016, relying on the fact that Upwork showed the job was funded for the agreed upon $1,500 project fee, signaling to me that the client had placed the money in escrow with Upwork and I would be paid promptly upon successful completion of the project. I completed the project end of April and the client authorized the $1,500 payment in early May, then Upwork notified me that due to unspecified "issues" with the client's account, they will not transfer funds to my bank, "in case we need to reverse funds from your client's payment that do not qualify for the Upwork Payment Guarantee." Don't take jobs through Upwork. They clearly do not have your back as a legitimate knowledge worker.

It was an awesome experience to work here. Upwork gives me a great chance to go ahead with my service and works

Upwork is the worst of them all...
Biggest mistake elance did was merge with odesk... suspended my account and i quote:

We are contacting you to let you know we have suspended your access to Upwork indefinitely.

Our decision is based on a careful review and the fact that you have submitted a high number of proposals for jobs on our site without many contracts or earnings. Unfortunately, this means the jobs posted by clients are not a good match for your skills.

I know this news is likely disappointing to you. But our goal at Upwork is to enable freelancers to successfully connect and collaborate with clients who need their skills and expertise. Unfortunately, this means we must part ways with freelancers whose skills are not in demand in our marketplace.

If you want to appeal this decision, you can email us at *******@upwork.com. Please note each case will be manually reviewed by our Trust & Safety team to decide if your account can be reinstated.

Please know we dont make decisions like these lightly and wish you the best of luck in your future endeavors.

Regards,

Upwork Trust & Safety

What BS... since elance and odesk merged, i havnt gotten 1 client... i have a score of 5/5 from about 15 projects... not only i didnt get a client, i never got 1 response from a bid ive done... these new "staff" screen your bids...
DO NOT USE UPWORK. WASTE OF ENERGY, EFFORT... its good for cheap labor and cheap clients

I've been working on upwork for a while, and i love working as an independent freelancer.
Their payment protection is awesome.

Upwork is secure, trustworthy and reliable both for clients and freelancers. If you want to avoid bad experience! Sign up now!

Upwork has given me opportunity to work with different client across the world and learn new skills and technology.
Loved It...

I was a newbie and had gotten tired of looking for freelance work that wasn't a scam, but then I was reading about upwork sites kept recommending them as legit. The past two weeks I have wasted time interviewing with so called HR people on Google hangouts. One company claimed to be City Group bd which means in Bangladesh. The other claimed to be located in Turkey. I gave it the benefit of the doubt because I thought maybe a global company could be on the site, but no they wanted my online banking id an password and when I said no. They said it was necessary for the job. I told them they could pay via PayPal, or through the site they tried to press the issue. They still tried to convince me to complete the fake orientation tasks. I actually had to do alot of research to finish the tasks before I realized that this is B. S. I have since deleted the upwork app an not looking back. I contact their feedback support and let them know also I told them I would just take my chances freelancing on Craigslist at this point. I will now just go back to my original plan of starting a business. I just hate I took this detour trying to find work from home jobs.

I really enjoy working on upwork as graphics designer but it is not easy to get work on the platform.

One of the best platform for freelancing. After one month I got my first client.
Nice experience. Thanks to upwork

Stay away from these freelancers: Modern Developers who is Navneet Kaur and Mahesh Salunkhe! Upwork does not do any background checks on these guys and they jump platforms to stay avoidable.

Very cool exchange, at first it is very difficult to take an order, but when you take an order, you fly away in the 7 sky with happiness: D
At the moment I like everything

It was not easy at first, but after knowing that the working system is very safe and comfortable, I hope that the cost cuts can be less

This site is a scam. Also working on this site may compromise your websites, hosting. Beware of phishing, virus attacks. Lots of complaints on the internet about elance.com.