As a person, I am extremely fair in my life. I pay a whole lot of fees on Upwork, but accept that due to the reason that the platform helps me find new clients and of course that has a cost from them which they need to cover.
However, during the last 10 days, I have been facing many issues with the service and the customer support.
First of all, a client of mine wanted to send me a bonus of 50 USD and accidentally clicked 550 USD, which I immediately refunded. Then, for an unknown reason, one week later, I received the same payment again and I refunded it again. The client, however, was charged three times (!) for this transaction (they are telling the truth, I saw their reports). However, I didn't receive the amount for the third time. The have contacted Upwork a lot of times, but still hasn't received their money back and are now very frustrated with me too and I understand them. This is a big mistake from Upwork and I am facing the consequences of that.
Secondly, I added 3 new payment methods on my account, which were supposed to be activated on the 21st of July, but were not. I contacted their support, asking for the reason why the methods were not activated. They said that this is a mistake from their side and they would fix it so that I would be able to withdraw my money, which I needed and could not wait. We closed the chat and of course, nobody ever contacted me and the methods were activated one day after, despite them telling me that they will do their best and inform me about the outcome.
Last but not least, when I finally processed this payment a few hours ago, the exchange rate I accepted was 0,84 EUR/USD and the one I finally received was 0,833 after the processing, which means that I lost 15 EUR without accepting it. Note here that I contacted the banks that I split the amount to first and they both said that this is on Upwork's control. I should be receiving the amount that I accept. Would I ever receive more than I accepted? I really doubt that. This is obviously a hidden spread, which Upwork benefits from, I cannot accept that it is something different. I understand that they have no control over the exchange rate, but when I am accepting a price, I should be locking it. If the rate suddenly dropped to 0,7 EUR/USD, would I lose ~150 EUR just like that? Without my acceptance?
I am seriously thinking of moving to another platform, they never listen to the freelancers, their customer support only answers automatically and when they make a mistake, they pass it on to you. Whenever they are to receive fees for your work, they receive them immediately, no issues at all there, but whenever they are to pay you, you have to wait for days, contact banks, Upwork's support e.tc. This is unethical and against all work guidelines globally.
