Hourly based charging without permission

[#1]

My Freelancer has been charging me hour based work but she has not done any work for 6 months! The weekly bill email is in my SPAM folder and I only realised it yesterday she has been charging me for more than 6 months of close to 450 hours! I contacted her immediately and asked her for proof. She is unable to show me any proof but she went on to refund me for last week's payment. However, she has cheated me of more than $7,000! We have no contact or messaging on Upwork, why did Upwork continue to allow her to charge me? How can I get back the sum of money of my life savings??

[#2]

You are absolutely in the wrong if you are not checking this.  You must be rich that you haven't noticed thousands of dollars being withdrawn.  WOW!  Unfortunately, this happens often.  Know and accept that you are in the wrong - not UPWORK.  Upwork let's us know all the time when they have drafted money from our account.  Contact Upwork and know that your freelancer is responsible to make this right; not Upwork, although they will help you communicate effectively with the freelanceer. 

[#3]

People are different. An obvious scam to me might not be obvious to you, but I would still know who to blame if you got scammed.

There were talks about victim-blaming before. An analogy arises in the talk (not by me). When people are drag-racing in the street, we parents should take measures to prevent kids from playing in the street or talk about it with the community, especially when the authorities take forever to deal with the problem. That's human, they solve problems, and they don't blame the kids.

In any case, people should be able to take legal action against the authorities for failing to provide safety.

OP's other thread (will be merged in 3, 2, 1...)

[#4]

Hi Fanny,

I have requested the assistance of our team. One of our agents will assist you directly via a support ticket.

[#5]

You must have paused / end the contract in case you do not want the freelancer to work on the project. And I think you are responsbile for this action. Moreover there is a process by which client get emailed about the work freelancer has done and you need to act on that within time applicable. If you do not raise concern or take any action then it get approved by default. I think you missed on all the action. 

[#6]

Upwork didn't allow her to keep charging you -- you did. You didn't close the contract or pause it, either of which would have stopped her from billing further. You didn't dispute her charges, so Upwork had no reason to believe they were gone. And, if you're telling the truth, you must be the sloppiest business person on the planet to have seen your entire "life savings" drained away over six months without noticing the 26 charges that would have been processed in six months nor your dwindling balance. 

If the freelance scammed you, that's clearly wrong, and you should take whatever action you can. But, beyond her, it makes no sense to blame anyone else, as all of the controls were in your hands.