Upwork

I am going to describe about only true.
I have created my private upwork.com freelancer account in September.
Current I am using Freelancer.com now.
And I have invited my client to the upwork.com and I have worked client some project.
When I have finished first project, upwork team required Video verification(after upload the ID Card) and I have passed succussfully.
However there was the problem when I have got second project and started.
Some support member(Jeric Bambi Gaerlan) made my account as suspend.
After that Upwork support team member(Mike) asked again to upload my ID card and bank document.
Of course, This was not strange, In Freelancer.com aslo asked verification document(ID card and bank document and Passed and are using this).
As the result, I h ave uploaded the ID card and bank document, even this is private.
It also passed correctly, but some other support member(Lizzie B) made my account again as suspend.
So, I have sent the message to the suppor team about the reason.
Finally other support team member(Maya) sent message like this
"We've reviewed all of the information you provided, but will not be reinstating your account. The decision is final and your account is permanently deactivated. I understand this is not the outcome you were hoping for.

Please know we are unlikely to respond to further correspondence regarding this matter."
How can I understand about this?
I am very angry about this site support team member's working style.
I think it is easy to use Freelancer.com than upwork.com
Refund my client again From upwork.com

Upwork charges freelancers a 20% commission on work up to the value of US$500 (with each client). The commission rate drops for higher value projects, with 10% charged between US$500.01 and $10,000, and 5% once an individual client has spent over $10,000.

Some reviewers may find this unreasonable. I have a different take on it.

As a freelancer, I do most of my work myself. I don't hire anyone to help me. I do my own marketing, sales, billing, accounting, and then also have to do the actual work I'm hired for. As a soloprenuer, the economics aren't there to outsource some of the administration.

In previous years, prior to using Upwork, I've lost revenue because of being maxed out wasn't able to devote time to the administrative support tasks. With Upwork, I gained a significant amount of billable time back.

Let's do some math. The first $500 (per client) will cost me $100 (20%) to earn, so I only receive $400.

I could easily spend $100 on the following:
Finding sites,
Posting my resumes
Reading job postings
Writing Unique Cover Letters
Billing for my time
Accounting for the work I've done (justifying my billing)
Collecting on overdue invoices.

But with Upwork, I don't have to do any of that really. Once my profile was set up (easy migration from LinkedIn), I could start bidding on jobs immediately.

The system takes screen shots as I go (approximately every 6 or 10 minutes), and I don't have to worry about micromanaging what I'm doing. The screen shots are there for accountability.

I have the Time tracker open on my desktop, and it's another accountability tool. I keep an eye on how long it takes me to complete tasks, but don't have to also log the time while I'm doing the work.

Overall I would recommend UpWork to freelancers out there. My skills are in the area of administration anyway, so I find this is workable. (I don't know about other types of industries.)

It's better, easier, and right now, more efficient than paying an agent to represent me.

The customer support at UPWORK is terrible. The departments are seperated and the only way you can talk to a real person on upwork with no automated and generic replies, is with the customer support phone line. However, they can only solve problems to a certain extent because the department that handles the REAL problems can only be reached through e-mail.

My account was suspended because my client asked if I accepted payment outside of upwork--to which I said no. Who knew that just by ANSWERING that question, it was considered "discussing" payments outside of upwork which followed with my account being suspended. When I asked to resolve this, I only got automated and generic replies from upwork. When I tried to talk to customer support on the phone, they told me that they have no way to deal with this since it is not their department and that I can only reach that department through e-mail. I constantly tried to get through to the department so I can have a REAL conversation to try and resolve this matter, but NOPE. Generic copy and pasted replies, instead of someone who genuinely is there to listen and work things out.

This little mistep caused my permant suspension and ban from upwork. I would definitely advise people not to use Upwork in general. There are so many "little" misteps that are hidden underneath Upwork's agreement. I certaintly did not know that just by replying to a quesiton, it was considered as discussion, which left me with my account being permantly banned and with no one wiling to openly help resolve my case with care.

I hope you read this doc till the end.

Hi! How are you?
I just wanted to discuss my business idea for both of us.
I'm never a faker or a cheater and I am really serious.
I am a full-stack web developer with good experience of 7+ years.
I want to work on a Upwork.com site.
I have worked at Upwork.com before and my Upwork account was closed for some reason a few days ago.
Upwork.com prefers European and American freelancers and they are well treated. (in the price of their works)
So I need a European or American account to get more money.(Other nationality maybe possible)
If I don't pay you, you can close the account any time, because you will have all access and the profile image is yours.
In this case, it will be a great lost to me. So there is no need to worry about the payment.
If you are interested in me, please contact me through Skype.
We can discuss more detail.
If you dislike mine, please don't be angry with me.
Business is business! But I want you.
To think once more. Believe me.
If you agree, I should work on your pc using anydesk or teamviewer because of my location.
**********************************************************************************************************
On your PC remotely, I ONLY use your computer for searching jobs on upwork.
I won't access/use any of your data on your computer but just need to access Upwork.com and work there only.
After I get hired, on my PC I will work on a project.
If I login to Upwork on my pc, the account will be closed soon. So, I need to work on your pc.
***********************************************************************************************************
Eventually you will get money earned. You can choose one of 2 kinds of payments
• 10 % of my monthly income.(I can earn 3000$ after two months)
• 100$ per month.

My skype id:
Live:. Cid. 60f655b74ac5ada8 (username: ladyhand)

Thanks for reading.

Great Upwork, Recomended site freelance site for working online remote to meet client at worldwide, the best Upwork

What a piece of crap website. Possibly not quite as bad as Freelancer, through which I just suffered an appalling ordeal with a Pakistani woman who addressed me like a piece of $#*! on her shoe andwanted an article written like, the day before yesterday, for 7 measly dollars, and then didn't end up paying me, because I couldn't make amendments as soon as she asked for them because, hey, I have a life and do other things.

Anyway, I digress. Upwork's rates are crap, but not that crap. And I signed up in good faith, knowing that I'd have to take on some low-paying jobs in order to build up some sort of ranking, and I was fine with this. Took on a couple of jobs within a couple of days, and worked my socks off to beat deadlines, for low prices. One of my guys was pleased, gave me a bonus, wrote me a stellar review. Other girl was also pleased, and throug these two jobs I amassed something like $80. I work in England, so that's not great for the number of hours, but fine.

Then I started getting these emails from Upwork, saying that they suspected dodgy dealings with my clients... but not explaining what these were, due to 'privacy'. They asked for samples of my work, which I sent gladly, hoping that they could get to the bottom of whatever it was. Except, the clients didn't seem to know about the issues when I spoke to them, and so I was left wondering whether it was the clients that I couldn't trust, or Upwork themselves!

Next, Upwork started sending me emails asking for me to scan in photo ID and utility bills, again not explaining why, so that I could 'verify' myself? But, surely the texts that I proofread, and the happy customers, was verification enough? Why do they need that sort of information? I asked all these questions, and so far have no answers... and no money. Not sure where I stand legally, but *surely* I shouldn't ahve to give them this information after I've done my part of the deal? Surely there are other ways of verifying?

Upwork owner are greedy for money after elance merged with. They charge freelancer for non. Thet want money mony mony and mony. Shameful policy.

Just go to the link: https://hackernoon.com/why-you-should-never-use-upwork-ever-5c*******bdf46#.8e2qxi5jx

I've worked with several freelancers from Elance with about 60% success but recently I had a horrible experience with one of their freelancers and received very unsatisfactory support. The freelancer is Scoped Design. Here is what happened.

I STRONGLY URGE YOU TO PROCEED WITH CAUTION. This freelancer completely swindled me out of $500 and did not deliver the work of customizing a wordpress theme based on Zeyn theme. S/he is the most dishonest person I've dealt with on this service. I had significant correspondence with freelancer prior to accepting job. Scoped_Design then contacted me stating that one of his jobs had cancelled for the week and offered a discount. Now, I of course know why the previous job backed out. They smelled something fishy. He asked for $500 up front stating that he needed to pay the outsourced SEO team, so since we'd had so much correspondence and he was very responsive I (stupidly) released funds. INSTALLED INCORRECT THEME: At that point, Scoped_Design installed a completely different theme on my wordpress site that I'd requested. This process took over a week. TOOK THE MONEY AND RAN: When asked to conform to original job request he did finally install requested theme and then I never heard from him again. ELANCE SUPPORT refused to assist in getting the monies back. They approved my claim agains Scoped Design but since the funds had been released, they seemed to have just dropped it. Good luck with them if you ever need assistance. I'm dismayed that they don't police their freelancers any better than that.

This review and message is for the people sitting on hot chair of Upwork's payroll:
'YOU', people being placed at the top most position, would treat this mail / message like any other junk mail and be if ignored by. But still would be taking out my frustration and pass on this message to you.

As per what happened recently, we are all incapable of earnings, who received the irregularities in our account. We landed up to your site of upwork in a hope that we might get into a life changing deal one day.

We also know, these things come up from the higher management to reduce number of people ( freelancer -who are of no use to your company).

You are throwing us out of your system like we have committed serious crimes and are held responsible for imaginary fraud activities. It gives us a feeling like we don't belong to your cream layer and we are just the corner dirt lying on the road.

The day when I saw that my account is getting closed without prior intimation, it was like I was being punished for serious offence, and I did cross check too that did I really cross any line while searching job. But hey! It took me 3-4 days to accept it that I am not a valuable person on this Earth, not because I committed some fraud, but as not being a consistent earner.

I have purchased the connects, still half of it unused. Yes 12$ it is which I spent to buy connects to see your robotic mail chain that ' irregularities in your account', "cross check, and found hard core evidence against you, " ' we may not be able to reply to your message', ' once closed you would be kicked out of the system even when you are a genuine user.

I have earned around 30+ $ till date and spent 12$ to take your services to search job. This is how you build trust in the company? Are the job providers going to believe your commitment to provide same freelancer who are in project, whom they trust?

Being a multi-million or billion company doesn't mean you have the right to blame people for what they didn't do, it's the guts in which you say it right on the face that ' you are just tiny piece of electron in my universe and are not capable of earning till date', not that we are hard core criminals. Just such filthy feeling I got out of those robotic mail chain. It's being fooled even after paying for the services.

I asked for reimbursement of my payment for services, for which they reply the ticket is closed and give you feedback about upwork. So this mail is my feedback.

Current situation might be favoring you, but one day when clients trust break, you all would be standing behind us in this queue of jerks..

Upwork allows freelancers of all sorts to apply for jobs posted by clients. The freelancers can have free accounts where they purchase "connects" that can be used to apply for jobs, OR the freelancers can have a paid account and he/she will be given 70 connects each month. It used to cost two connects to apply for any job, but Upwork has now started charging 2,4, or 6 connects to apply for a job, depending on the value of the job. Upwork used to charge freelancers $10/month for a "Plus Account" (where they would get 70 "free" connects) and they have now started charging $15/month. Freelancers can buy additional connects for 15 cents each in various quantities.

What all this really means is that freelancers are now paying WAY MORE for the privilege of bidding on jobs. On top of this, Upwork charges 20% commission to the freelancers for the agreed contract price. This is DOUBLE what Freelancer.com and some other freelance websites charge!

Upwork pushed a video explaining the price increases, saying that the new system would decrease the number of freelancers bidding on jobs and therefore increase a freelancer's chances of getting a job. THAT WAS TOTAL BS! The exact opposite has turned out to be true. Many freelancers are now only applying for low value jobs in order to only be charged two connects rather than 4 or 6 connects.

Bottom line: Many of us are paying way more to work on Upwork and we are getting fewer and fewer jobs. WHATEVER YOU DO, STAY AWAY FROM UPWORK! HORRIBLE! GREEDY! AND THE WEBSITE IS ALWAYS HAVING PROBLEMS!

I should add that many of the clients who post jobs on Upwork are looking to have work done at RIDICULOUSLY LOW PRICES. Some ask to have designs submitted before hiring the freelancer. Be VERY careful and try to judge the client before you bid on a job!

I have been on UpWork for roughly 4 months now and overall I'm happy with it. It's a very healthy marketplace that makes it very easy to quickly find a job. I never needed to buy any credits because I got contacted pretty much on a daily basis by companies looking for my skills, so that was very encouraging.

There are, however, a few flaws that I'm hoping UpWork will work on to improve the experience for freelancers:

1) The types of jobs tend to be on the less strategic side and fairly straightforward. I have a lot of corporate experience that could come to good use, but I can't find jobs at that level.

2) I know that UpWork has an enterprise tier, but it's unclear how as a freelancer I can access those jobs.

3) UpWork has several badges for freelancers to recognise their skills. However, it's not clear how those badges are assigned. UpWork keeps the rules about that deliberately secret, to avoid freelancers hacking them. Whilst I do understand where they are coming from, it is a bit frustrating for freelancers who work well, have consistently high reviews and have been on the platform for long enough, to not get any badge at all and not be able to understand why that is the case.

4) What I really, really don't like about UpWork is their desktop timer. First of all, I had to contact customer support twice in the space of a month because of serious bugs. Given that a freelancer's revenue depends on that app, it should work 100% flawlessly. Second, it takes six screenshots an hour and sends them to the client as proof of your work. You can stop the screenshots from going out (you might have done some internet banking and don't really want your client to see your bank statements, for example). But if you prevent screenshots from going out, it detracts some working time from the desktop timer. What's worse, they recently also introduced some tracker that counts keyboard strokes and mouse movements and again adjusts the timer accordingly. That's really not, for a number of reasons: a) it's highly intrusive and against GDPR regulation in Europe; b) UpWork never asked me for permission, nor does it make it clear on its website that it tracks this way; c) linking revenue and quality of work to the number of keystrokes or mouse touches is plain silly and goes way too far.

5) UpWork's customer service team is very friendly and quick in responding. They genuinely care about freelancers, or at least that's my impression. However, the engineering team took around a month to fix the desktop timer. Again, freelancers' revenues depend on that timer, so to take a month to fix it is seriously burdening on freelancers, who then have to explain the issues to their clients.

So, overall it's a good platform to find jobs, but I do have some issues with it which I hope will get fixed soon.

Save yourself countless hours that lead nowhere and skip this platform, it's VERY unprofessional in many different ways.

I'll start off by saying I love upwork for the opportunities they have provided me with, but it for sure does have it's flaws and I'll point out two of the biggest ones.

1. The 20% comission UNTILL you reach 500$, which then turn into 10%. That would be fair and good if it didn't only count for ONE client. As of now, I've made almost 1000$ on upwork and, which Menas I've generated upwork atleast 200$ in commissions and even more in connects. Sadly, most of the projects people get on upwork are a one time deal and you almost never get the chance to reach that 500$ mark with just one client. I believe the 10% comission should be applied to anyone who has already earned 500 or 1000$ via upwork IN TOTAL.

Why? Because that would encourage people to really keep all the gigs and payments inside upwork, where reaching a "total earned" would actually benefit them. And of course, once you reach that 10% commission rate, the people would feel "appreciated" by the site and actually be more involved in trying to make more money via upwork (because no they make 10% more, technically). And that would go both ways, maybe it would be less comission, but it would result in more gigs, balancing it out if not exceeding the profits for upwork themselves.

Especially if you're from Europe, the 20% comission + the VAT that I have to pay from my own pocket ends up to turn into 30+% comission flat! And that is before taxes in my own country. The 10% comission also REALLY benifits your workers over seas like myself.

2. Im not quite sure why, because I haven't seen the page from a "Buyers" point of view, but atleast half of the time I feel like the clients never even see my gig application even when I've written a killer application, a lot of people tend to not respond at all (NEVER have been denied), which leads me to believe they never even get to see my application. I don't know if it's because their end gets flooded by people offering to do the gig for under what the minimum is (I saw that when I bought the upwork Plus account). But that should really get checked out.

Best regards,
Dāvis Paugurs

Upwork is a freelance site that connects CLIENTS WITH FREELANCERS, making itself a global market hub.

I create my account but there a very poor design and service i will never back on elance

I hired a freelancer and he did some work and repeated pushed me to close the job to only find out that he has changed the entire coding structure of the plugin as he pleased without sticking to the guideline. So I opened a dispute to get my money back, and upwork has been dragging this without making a decision while the freelancer is not replying to the dispute. The dispute was reported and told to be open May 9th, 2019, and I contact them via chat both on the 9th to open it, 14th May to check, for them to to only tell to check back 2-3 days later, and then again on the 15th May I went to the dispute center, and saw that they have actually opened the dispute on the 14th of May and NOT ON THE 9TH when I reported it. Then they give me more excuses (T&C quotes) about their darn policies and tells me that the freelancer has 4 working days to report back or they will take ACTION. Today is 23rd May, 2019 and they have given the freelancer another 2 working days to respond WITHOUT TAKING ANY ACTION as stated & providing me more T&C's to justify there incompetency. Wasting my time and holding my money. Will never use these thief's again, taking the side of fraud freelancers and taking customers for granted.

I hired a so called "Web design expert" on Upwork and what a complete waste of time and money this was. The freelancer did not deliver the job as per the work agreement in any way. The website that be built for me was nothing like I requested it was just a horrible job in every aspect.

The website design was nothing like I requested in the detailed contract provided, some pages had code errors showing when loading and the images he used were all fuzzy and out of shape on most pages.

Even though I asked for the website to be 100% mobile compatible when I tested the site it did not work correctly on smartphones.

He requested the payment milestone to be released, I said no you have not provided me the agreed upon work. He said he had given me what I requested which was complete BS.

The freelancer said he would not redo the website and it had no problems. I opened a dispute but this is where is goes from bad to a complete con for buyers on Upwork.

Upwork said they would not make a judgement on the quality of the website he built. Even though I spent hours detailing all the obvious problems to Upwork they said I had to work it out with him, "Upwork" said they would not get involved in the dispute and they would not refund my money. Why even have a dispute process in the first place if they won't help buyers when things for wrong!

As long as the freelancer says the work is "just fine" that's it, you have lost all your money in any disputes.

Upwork said it was all my fault if I did not check the freelancer properly before entering into a contract with him, the support quoted me their terms and conditions that cover everything in their favour, they will not accept responsibility for anything that goes wrong.

The quality of the work that I received did not match the posted resume on Upwork so I think he was just a complete fraud about his stated profile and experience. Don't take the profiles on Upwork as actually true or honest in any way.

I lost all my money on this job with no support from Upwork, anyway I hope my review informs enough people to stay away from Upwork.

It does not matter if you are getting a website built or getting anything else done on Upwork the dispute process is a sham, the terms and conditions cover them 100% when problems arise and you will just get nowhere with them.

PS. I did get my website built successfully with a local company that had an actual "shop front" with a real qualified "Web design expert".

I am just trying and just in starting level
It is very fun for me

The freelancers consistently charge more than agreed- there is a lot of fraud and bad work on this site. DO NOT USE IT

Not sure how or where to start. Working through UpWork has been a nightmare. I'll try to summarize my experience. All I wanted was a simple game for both iOS and Android. Posted my job, received plenty of candidates and chose a freelancer based on her work portfolio. Her name was Natasha Korecki. I explained exactly what I wanted, gave her references, example of similar games and I even sent her a document with everything written of what I want. We agreed on hours, which kept increasing due to her not being able to finish on time. She started working ok design and graphics, which I did like, however, the final completed product was not even remotely close to what I wanted nor what she has been designing. At this point, we're at the ending and we're going back and forth about re-designing. Keep in mind, the whole time, I've been in contact with UpWork to makes sure they have my back. We agree agreed on redesign but she needed more more, which she had plenty of to finish and what we Agee did upon. Now, to save me the headache and stress, I agreed to just get it over with and keep the current design. The game was submitted and approved by Android, however, it was rejected by Apple. Once I went back to Natasha to fix the issue, she kept pushing me to start a new game with her. I explained, we'll discuss once my current game is approved and good to go. She has declined to fix it, unless I start a new game. She also declined giving me the source code to have someone else fix, unless I start a new game. I even received an email from UpWork stating that during their routine investigation, they found the freelancer being linked to a group that was kicked out for inappropriate conduct. Now to UpWork. I've been emailing them back and forth for over a month. All I keep getting is "unfortunately" this "unfortunately" that. I've been dealing mostly with Mark. I explained my experience over and over but I don't seem to be getting anywhere. Finally, he forwarded me to another team. Keep in mind, this was all over email, there is no support/customer service phone number anywhere, so it's frustrating to get my point across. I was excited to get a call from Michelle from the Talent specialist department. Once talking to her, and spent few minutes explaining my situation, she tells me, I only assist in helping with hiring freelancers, but she can let her team know. Now I'm even more frustrated. But wait, there's more. When I asked her to please have someone call me instead of email, she did not sound assuring as she stated, they may not be able to call, as we use emails for tracking. As that might be understandable, we are at a different level now and customer satisfaction should be first priority. Sorry for the long text, just wanted to share with everyone thinking about using them. You're basically on your own.

I completely agree it's not good to work. Not sure why some people not agree but there are plenty of guys who had bad experience. And very few get advantage from upwork especially buyer. They nowadays request profile verification for every new freelancer who is going to get in this website while theres no other website which is doing this. Furthermore, they reject the profile submit when first income to the upwork by saying they dont have enough place to work because already sufficient developers in those skill category. This will be very frustrating for newbies who wants to start business by relying on them. If someone cannot believe, just try it. Its very simple. Once you passed that after 9~10 times of failure, it will close your account unless you get a new job within 2 months which you will have only 20~30 chance to apply to new job in each month which will very few opportunities for newbies. For succeeded one who had hardly get at least $10 job, they immediately require video call verification which is all ok for me but something like I did criminal thing. Actually, there are no other sites are doing like this at least for freelancing area. When you success all this thing and continue work on website, when problem happens like client complaints you or disputed, they will suspend your financial account and sometimes revers all transaction you get earned by working even though you have significant work evidence and earned with your all burning effort. When you request to their support why this is happens, they says, because of your suspicious activity or because of terms of condition or privacy policy and not stating the exact reason. When you are complaint about this when you are 100% right, then they are answering as they have some bugs on their system.(Rare case of course but if you cant believe, just try it). Sometimes buyers are managing freelancers by threatening to giving 1 star rating even did good works which is definitely your effort is higher than 1 star rating but they are saying its freedom for buyers to left feedback according to their experience which is completely true. But in freelancer points of view, 1 star rating is definitely not good for future work award and even more, it doesnt affect anything if freelancer gives 1 star rating to client. So many of freelancers do some more free work to get account reinstated or 5 star rating for future work and it will make you like slavery to clients. Of course this all can be avoided if someone liked to be suspended and get 1 star rating and finish this website, whats the matter?

UPWORK made a big change to our working lives, it made life easy bcoz of work from home. KUDOS UPWORK!