I have used Upwork for several months and always appointed freelancers on a fixed fee contract. However, in February 2019 and agreed to hire him under an hourly contract subject to the freelancer using time tracking. Eventually I hired him at $50 per hour. Upwork was charing my card $2000 per week and I was of the view that the money was kept in escrow. I had no email notifications what so ever from Upwork about hours and I assumed the $2000 was in escrow. The freelancer is from Belarus and turned up in our office in the UK without our knowledge / invitation and to our surprise and said he had a holiday planned and will work from our office for 3 weeks and we permitted. During his time in office, he demonstrated the work in his macbook and was taking a lot of time to deliver small improvements. As we became concerned, he left the UK. I became a bit concenred and contacted Upwork and requested them to remove my card. I was told the card cannot be removed and immeidately cancelled my card with the bank. Once the payments were declined, Upwork emailed me stating that they have reversed the hours $2800 worth of hours logged by the freelancer was cancelled as the hours logged were manual. I became concerned and then also learnt from Upwork that they have released $17,350 to the freelancer who has not committed any of the code he has written too. I contacted Upwork who attempted to mediate. However, the freelancer informed Upwork that until and unless I pay the $2800 cancelled by Upwork for manual hours, he will not provide the code and Upwork offered me $480 compensation for my loss of $17,350 - which is somehting I rejected.
I then spoke to my bank and disputed payments with my credit card company. Interestingly, Upwork challenged the dispute stating the Work was in fact delivered by the freelancer and provided screenshots of my login history and then separately stated that the I failed to review the worksheet and disptue the hours within 5 days of the invoice and therefore they released the monies to the freelancer.
I requested Upwork to advise where do I go from here and the response received from Uowork is simply we can't respond until and unless we have a Subpoena and keep repeating the same without any regard for the amount of money I have lost.
From the freelancers account, between February 2019 to June 2019, he has earned 920 hours between two clients (one of them is us) and this is highly suspecious. I understand from the other client that Upwork has suspended the freelancers account. Howveer, Upwork is not taking any responsibility or steps to give me any update / steps I should take to recover the monies.
Update (23 Oct 2019)
Following the incident, I have been working with an advisor to get down to the bottom of this. During the term of the above incident (towards the end), I also hired two other freelancers under a fixed hour agreement for a defined small peace of work (Agreed amounts were $52.50 and $600). I also a had written agreement (in upwork chat) with both the freelancers that if they do not deliver the work within the agreed hours and deliver the working modeuls, no payments would be made. The freelancers logged the hours and Upwork released $52.50 and $600 respectively to both freelancers from my escrow account. Sadly both the freelancers failed to complete the modules and I learnt that Upwork has released the money to them. I spoke to both the freelancers and both agreed that they will return the moneies to Upwork and Upwork did nothing. Subsequently I had to chargeback along with the above payments.
As soon as the chareback was requested, Upwork wrote to both the freelancers stating that their hours do not qualify for payment protection and deducted the amouunts respectively - both the freelancers consented as agreed with me.
Now, Upwork informed my bank that the work was delivered by both the freelancers and disputed the chargeback. Puzzled by this I wrote to Upwork's executive team and a lady called Katt from Executive Esclations exposed what Upwork is really about.
**Edited for Community Guidelines**
- Freelancers agreed that the work was not delivered and returned the money to Upwork
- I request a charge back. Upwork emails the Freelancers confirming that their hours do not qualify for payment protection and keeps the money with them.
- Upwork informs my bank that the services were delivered and I accetped - a false statement
- Upwork then advises that chargeback is against their terms of service and therefore they will attempt to recoup funds in order to re-pay freelancers.
Cardholders in the UK do have the rights under section 75 of the consumer credit act 1974. Upwork is ignorant enough to think that their terms (if its true) can supersede the law of a land.
