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simonerainieri
Community Member

Concern about payments for third parties.

I did a translation and after a milestone has been paid, the employer asked me to do more work. I had to find websites where he could pay to post his articles to promote his website. I accepted and found one that asked for 70 euros for each article. He told me that he would pay 78 dollars + 25 as my commission fee (translation + sales basically, I know). I asked him if he is sure that he wants to send me the money (the 78 dollars) to pay for the website posting through Upwork as it takes 20% of the fee + taxes over the fee + withdrawal to Paypal + bad Paypal dollar to the euro commission fee. I also gave him as an example that the previous payment that he made to me (200 dollars) resulted in 130 euros and I pasted the page with Upwork fees written on in the message. I was referring to the money that is not my payment, but the payment the website that I found asked. This morning I found an Upwork email saying that I've been signaled for asking money outside of Upwork. Indeed, I am not sure if I was breaching the terms of use but

1.I never specifically asked to send me money elsewhere.

2. That money was not part of my payment. Indeed, if he did the full payment it would have resulted that I earned money when in reality I am just the middleman that is not earning but yet would've resulted as such (and I should pay taxes over money that I did not earn).

3. I was trying to do a favor to him and to myself since I shouldn't pay taxes over money that I did not earn 

 

I would like to ask what are the rules in this situation as I did not ask for my payment outside of Upwork. I was asking if he is sure that he wants to pay the website through Upwork and explained what is the iter + fees + timing.

1 REPLY 1
petra_r
Community Member

First of all, the client should pay those websites directly and only pay you for the actual work you do. Otherwise you'd have to increase what you charge to include your costs, which include the Upwork fees.

 

If you agreed for the client to pay you (!) in ANY other manner, you could be banned from the platform as that is breaking the most important rule. It does not matter why you think about doing it, it's strictly forbidden.

 

You're very lucky (if) you only got a warning rather than being suspended straight away.

 

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