Upwork

Upwork allows freelancers to bill you without delivering work and OBLIGATES you to pay them. It is not fair that there is no protection. I hired an app developer for my startup, and he took my money and delivered nothing. So I have no app and loss of funds. On top of that when fraud occurs all they do is cancel the job and do not offer you a refund for service that was paid with no delivery because they continuously state that their platform ONLY serves as a place for you to hire and process payment.

Once funds are released, they have NO MEANS TO GO AFTER YOUR LOSS. As a client, they will only refund you the 10% in fees that you paid but what about the charges that the platform incurred from the fraudulent freelancer which is 30%. They do not even bother to refund you that 30% fee because by not addressing the Fraud they are monetizing from it.

They advertise payment protection and top quality freelancers by showing their high job success, and the income earned based on the completed work, so you trust that this person is legit and knowledgeable. I would never think that they would take my money due the qualities that they portray on the platform. For a long-term project, I did not suspect anything until I realized that more than 50% of the payment was coming out and the delivery of the work kept delaying. Upwork sent me a message stating that this freelancer was committing fraud and ended our contract. Upwork accidentally cc'd me on another clients email that encountered the same problem as I, and they too were creating an app.

Coincidence? I think not. I started noticing that the trends of the scammed clients were working on big long-term projects. Upwork needs to be investigated!

I am looking for a lawyer that is willing to take on a case like this.

Slow as crap. Slow page loads, partial pages loaded, and "Wait" buttons pop up constantly. This is a legitimate business? WORLDS WORST WEBSITE!

Filed a dispute after a horrible outcome on the job, and Elance forced me to pay for work I couldn't use... NEVER use this site

I'm new to Upwork as a customer. I know this name through Elance that is mentioned on so many website for its content writing. I need to hire contents for my website. Unbelievable! The price of an article is processing fee + fee from the client + fee from the writer. Even they suggest me a fee for posting a job that can be seen by many writers.

I need a review article for Amazon products and I send an offer with links. They remove all the links and send me a message for violating their TOS.

Today, I again receive a message that talks me not pay for a writer without specific reasons. I don't know what is this, I also pay for my offers, even there are some articles that I can't use because broken English. They told me that I violate their TOS and threat to disable my account.
Here is the message:
"Hi Sieu,
We are contacting you to let you know we have removed a job you recently posted.
We recently learned that your job post was requesting unpaid work from a freelancer, which is against our Terms of Service. Unpaid work includes requests for sample work related to the job post, free advertising, charitable work, agency recruiting, requests for working relationships outside of Upwork, and offers of positive feedback instead of payment, among others.
As a result, we deleted the post and removed any proposals that had already been submitted.
Going forward, we welcome you to post jobs. However, Upwork only supports projects where clients pay the freelancer money for their work.
We suggest you review our complete Terms of Service by visiting Terms of Service. Please note that future violations of our terms might result in further action being taken on your account, including deactivation.

Regards,
The Upwork Trust & Safety Team"

There are a lots of good services out there in the market for me to hire contents, why I have to use their bad service? I decide to remove all my financial information from their system and say good bye forever to Upwork.

I've been a member of this site (and a few other freelancer sites for years). Recently I went to site again as I didn't get many (ANY) sales to see what's new.
I was now required to upload a real photo as part of their new requirements. My previous photo was just of a certificate, now I uploaded my real photo... I'm African American (black).

Despite being an approved member before (without seeing my photo), they reviewed my profile and sent me an email in about 30 min stating it was not approved because "they had enough persons with the skills I offered".

I decided to close that account completely and setup a new account with a different email address to add more of my qualifications. Added my same real photo and again in about 30 min got rejected for the same reason.

Wanting to prove a point to myself, I ONCE AGAIN created a 3rd profile. I listed the exact same skills and certifications as the last account. This time I only changed my name and used a Caucasian (white) individual's photo. Took more than 30 min but the very next morning, the profile was approved!

They have rejected a profile twice because of SKIN COLOR!

I understand the need for real photos on some of these site, however if your site & management are RACIST then you are clearly in the wrong business!

IT'S A SHAME THAT IN 2017 THERE IS STILL SO MUCH RACISM GOING ON. AVOID THESE PEOPLE!