All my payments are reversed

[waqarmughal005]

All of payments are reversed!! I am new to upwork and Yesterday i got a project client told me to make a landing page with domain and hosting. I told him to pay up first he sent money in contract as a bonus. I bought the domain. In the morning I got email my contract in on hold! I stopped working. Then at night I checked and all of my payments are reversed and payed back to clients i think. Like What!!! I didn't even broke any policy. Why my payments are reversed. I am devastated with experience on upwork. I payed 200$ from my personal account for domain. Just trusting upwork and this is how they are paying back. By taking more of my money.

[lysis10]

$200 for a domain?

Welp, you bought yourself a domain. You have the password and access to the registrar dashboard right?

[waqarmughal005]

He gave me his sedo account and told me that he paid on upwork after confirming i bought that domain on this sedo account to start working. Now the access has been changed

[the-right-writer]

If you can prove that you bought the domain, you now have a $200.00 domain.

[waqarmughal005]

It was bought from my credit card but it was his sedo account. I can prove that with my bank statement.

[jaycrutcher]

Is that credit card secured? Will he be able to access any of your information since you used his account to purchase something?

[lysis10]

oooh I see you bought a used domain. This seems to be a popular thing for the programmers and SEO people. You're not the first person to fall for this one. 

[mydhir]

Hello!

All Upwork payments have a delay time of 5 business days from the day you receive the payment.

If the client agreed to pay you in advance, you must wait 5 business days to have the money valid. In addition, Upwork takes a small commission for withdrawing the money to PayPal (for example).

If you are new to this site, you may be more prone to fall into scams from supposed clients. I recommend the following:

1. Do not ask for money in advance without first having completed the work, so you can have proof with Upwork.

2. Before doing any work, accept your client's offer. Through this you will be able to keep a record of everything you do.

3. When payments are reversed, possibly it is the client who asked for the money back. At other times you can do it too. However, Upwork is first notified of the reason why the money was returned.

Finally, I recommend that you only go for clients who are reputable and have the "payment method" option enabled.

[waqarmughal005]

1. I accepted the clients offer first. After that he sent me money to buy domain and hosting to get the working started.
2. I didn't get any type of notification about the payment. I havn't got any type of email from upwork since your contract is on hold.
3. Payment method is enabled. I checked that.

[martina_plaschka]

Buying something for the client is a violation of ToS.

[waqarmughal005]

Even it's necessary to start the work? Like we developer need domain and hosting to start the working. The client told me he's too busy so I can buy it.

[feed_my_eyes]

If you choose to buy something for a client, then you're choosing to accept the risk that you won't get paid. Upwork clearly states that there's no payment protection for bonuses. You need to vet your clients carefully, because nobody else is going to do it for you.

[martina_plaschka]

Yes. Let the client buy it himself and don't accept any excuse why he can't. Too busy? Right.