Connects Refunded

[bryan_wade]

Hello, a job that I proposed to was closed, yet I was not refunded my connects.  What can I do?

[marcelaga]

Hello there

I have a couple of jobs I applied to were closed without any hire happening, still I didn't get my connects back. Is this normal ?  Do I need to requeste the refund one by one?

Specially now that the connects are such a luxury this should be a priority action.

Also could be posible that when the client doesn't look at the job posting for more than 15 days the freelancers get the connects refunded automatically? It is frustrating to see how you wast the connects and the when you are doing your check the client haven't even looked at the job posting for 15 or more days.

Many thanks

[AveryO]

Hi Marcela, 

I checked your account and in your Connects History page (Settings > Membership & Connects > View Connects History), I can see that you were recently refunded for a job post that was closed. Connects are automatically refunded when a job post is closed if the client didn't hire, or if the job was closed for a violation of the Upwork Terms of Service. 

[marcelaga]

Thanks for your answer Avery however I can't see the connects refunded from the **Edited for community guidelines**which was closed and client didn't hire anyone.

[BojanS]

Hi Marcela,

We return Connects when a client closes their job without hiring or we find a job post has violated our Terms of Service. 

A job is canceled either by our team in case it's in violation of Upwork ToS or by the client if they don't want to proceed with it. A job expires after 30 days of inactivity but clients are still able to review proposals and hire freelancers after the mentioned time frame. Hope this helps clarify the difference between the two. You can find more information here.

Thank you!

[waqasali81]

Hello Avery

Can you please check my profile. My connects are not refunded to me for both jobs that were closed and removed. I am unable to send new proposal due to shortage of connects

regards,

Waqas Ali

[g_vasilevski]

Hi Waqas,

Please reach out to me via PM (click on my name) and share the job posts URLs or titles with me so that I can investigate it further. Thank you.

[AveryO]

Hi Bryan, 

Let me go look into this and I'll come back here once I have more information. 

[AveryO]

Hi Bryan, 

A member of the team has reached out to you to assist you further with your concern. 

[5c940dba]

Two of the jobs (maybe three) that I sent proposals to have been suspended and the ads removed due to TOS violations. I do appreciate Upwork trying to keep us safe from scammers, however the connects that I spent have not been restored to my account.

What gives?

If I'm supposed to have connects refunded shouldn't it pretty much be instant and show immediately on my account once Upwork takes action and suspends the offending account?

[lauranky]

It's supposed to be automatic. Unfortunately quite a few freelancers have not been receiving the connect refunds when a job is closed for a ToS violation. 

[AveryO]

Hi Laura, 

I checked the last 10 jobs in your archived proposals page and can confirm that the jobs were closed either because the job post expired, or because the client was able to hire a freelancer for the job post. As such, none of the Connects used for these job posts were refunded.

[BojanS]

Hi Wendy,

Please allow time for our team to complete this process and once they do you should get connects back if the job post was in violation of Upwork TOS. You can view your Connects History in the Settings> Membership & Connects and find more information here.

Thank you!

[5c940dba]

How much time should I allow?

I have 70 connects a month and I think at least 12 but possibly more were spent on proposals to jobs that have been removed. I risk not being able to make proposals on legitimate posts if many more get tied up.

Someone should at the very least be able to tell me a general time frame. A day? Three days? Five weeks?

[pudingstudio]

---

Wendy W wrote:

How much time should I allow?

I have 70 connects a month and I think at least 12 but possibly more were spent on proposals to jobs that have been removed. I risk not being able to make proposals on legitimate posts if many more get tied up.

Someone should at the very least be able to tell me a general time frame. A day? Three days? Five weeks?

---

You should be aware that those mean nothing to you.

You will be spending for connects enough not to care about having them refunded.
At some point, you'll have too many connects.

You'll either accept that idea or give up.

[5c940dba]

---

Antun M wrote:

You should be aware that those mean nothing to you.

You will be spending for connects enough not to care about having them refunded.
At some point, you'll have too many connects.

You'll either accept that idea or give up.

---

---

---

If I were here for a few more months and had more connects accumulated, but at this point of the 14 proposals I've submitted three (I went and doublechecked) have been removed for TOS violations, this is over 2 days. So that means just over 21% of the jobs I've sent proposals to on this platform were scams. If it keeps going at this rate I'll be unable to send out any more proposals in three days which means I'll spend the rest of the month working on other platforms.

Maybe I shouldn't care, but Upwork should definitely care enough about customer retention to refund my connects promptly and review their procedures to prevent scammers from wasting my time and connects. And they should definitely care enough to give me a time frame.

Let's look at the math: As a member I'm paying 20¢ per commit instead of 15¢, presumably because the other benefits of membership are worth that difference. So far I've spent about 25% of my connects on proposals made to scam posts.

This doesn't inspire confidence in the platform.

[lysis10]

---

Wendy W wrote:

---

Antun M wrote:

You should be aware that those mean nothing to you.

You will be spending for connects enough not to care about having them refunded.
At some point, you'll have too many connects.

You'll either accept that idea or give up.

---

---

---

If I were here for a few more months and had more commits accumulated, but at this point of the 14 proposals I've submitted three (I went and doublechecked) have been removed for TOS violations, this is over 2 days. So that means just over 21% of the jobs I've sent proposals to on this platform were scams. If it keeps going at this rate I'll be unable to send out any more proposals in three days which means I'll spend the rest of the month working on other platforms.

Maybe I shouldn't care, but Upwork should definitely care enough about customer retention to refund my commits promptly and review their procedures to prevent scammers from wasting my time and commits. And they should definitely care enough to give me a time frame.

Let's look at the math: As a member I'm paying 20¢ per commit instead of 15¢, presumably because the other benefits of membership are worth that difference. So far I've spent about 25% of my commits on proposals made to scam posts.

This doesn't inspire confidence in the platform.

---

I'm on Premium too. You won't accumulate after 3 months. I always start off with 210 every month because I gain 70 connects but the ones older than 3 months expire. If you are paying for premium, I wouldn't even worry about connects. You will lose money on them anyway.

[pudingstudio]

---

Wendy W wrote:

---

Antun M wrote:

You should be aware that those mean nothing to you.

You will be spending for connects enough not to care about having them refunded.
At some point, you'll have too many connects.

You'll either accept that idea or give up.

---

---

---

If I were here for a few more months and had more connects accumulated, but at this point of the 14 proposals I've submitted three (I went and doublechecked) have been removed for TOS violations, this is over 2 days. So that means just over 21% of the jobs I've sent proposals to on this platform were scams. If it keeps going at this rate I'll be unable to send out any more proposals in three days which means I'll spend the rest of the month working on other platforms.

Maybe I shouldn't care, but Upwork should definitely care enough about customer retention to refund my connects promptly and review their procedures to prevent scammers from wasting my time and connects. And they should definitely care enough to give me a time frame.

Let's look at the math: As a member I'm paying 20¢ per commit instead of 15¢, presumably because the other benefits of membership are worth that difference. So far I've spent about 25% of my connects on proposals made to scam posts.

This doesn't inspire confidence in the platform.

---

Yet the platform works.

There are sooooo many freelancers. Some of which are looking to find El Dorado. Most of which are sending bogus proposals.

All that is rest are still ssssooooo many people. Ones that are giving their best to work long term as freelancers.

Find out which YOU are and go with that. Connects are something one is prepared to spend for their business.

Kinda like what one would spend for marketing and escrow, or for all the bills needed to operate from an office.

(in this case)
Your math is awesome, I presume. You don't have to care about it. Don't care about it.

[5c940dba]

---

Antun M wrote:
Yet the platform works.

Does it? So what if there are so many freelancers? That has nothing to do with anything in this topic. 

I pay my expenses as part of regular business however 20-25% loss of use, especailly when that use is a service and the stated policy assures me of indemnity on that loss is 100% unacceptable. You may not think that's a big deal but what kind of review would a client give you if you only delivered 80% of a project?

That's very problematic.

[pudingstudio]

---

Wendy W wrote:

---

Antun M wrote:
Yet the platform works.

Does it? So what if there are so many freelancers? That has nothing to do with anything in this topic. 

I pay my expenses as part of regular business however 20-25% loss of use, especailly when that use is a service and the stated policy assures me of indemnity on that loss is 100% unacceptable. You may not think that's a big deal but what kind of review would a client give you if you only delivered 80% of a project?

That's very problematic.

---

You've got the official answer considering your connects.

Yup, you still don't know how much time they might need to review the jobs and do their thing.

You (for whatever reason) need to know that and that IS awful for you.

We are on your side.

"We" is "freelancers". All of us are in the same boat, we are all rowing, engine is out.
Boat exists. It is preventing us from floating.

All is good, I think.

[AveryO]

Hi Wendy, 

I checked all your proposals that were archived, and I can see that two jobs were closed for a Terms of Service violation, but you were not refunded for these Connects. I can also confirm that for the other proposals that were archived, your client was able to hire for those jobs. As such, Connects will not be returned in this case. 

As for the first case, I'll go ahead and ask the team to reach out to you so that this can be investigated further. 

[lauranky]

Wendy, I have no idea why Antun went in the direction they did. Transperancy matters, and Upwork has not been refunding connects when they state they should for awhile now.

There's been a lot of issues the past week. This is worth checking it, it includes the refund issue. https://community.upwork.com/t5/Freelancers/Are-These-Fake-Jobs-Being-Posted/m-p/722656 
Hundreds of spam jobs were posted over the span of a week with many freelancers applying. Then it turns out Upwork was never bothering to refund those connects unless they were called out. 

[AveryO]

Hi Laura, 

I would like to reconfirm what Vladimir has shared on his response on the thread you referenced on your post. As mentioned, the issue with Connects not being refunded automatically for jobs that were closed (for a violation of the TOS) is not related to the main issue/topic on the thread. The thread you referred to discusses scam jobs in the Upwork marketplace which is being investigated and actioned on by the team. The issue on this thread is a technical issue being investigated further by our engineers. 

As a gentle reminder, and to avoid confusion among the other readers and members of this Community, please make sure to keep the discussion within the same threads to help our team (the Upwork moderators) monitor and report these cases more efficiently. Thank you for your understanding.

[aecah]

Okay So I just made my account here like few days ago and I applied for a job which took my 4 connects. And today I got the mail that the job has been closed because it didn't match upwork standards or something. By what I can understand by the policies that if a job get closed that way the freelancer would get their connects of that job back. I checked and I didn't get my connects back. Kindly let me know how does it work exactly. Waiting for your response.

Best Regards

[yitwail]

Aeca, you’ll get your connects returned but it takes a few days for that to happen.

[AveryO]

Hi Aeca, 

I have shared this with the team so that they can investigate it further. A member of the Customer Support Team reached out to you to assist you further with your concern. 

[bundie702]

I've had to have two chats with customer service reps because my connects were not returned to me automatically for three jobs (a total of 6 connects). This is time-consuming and annoying. All three jobs were canceled, at least one of them for violating Upwork's ToS. It started happening last week.

[mohjam]

its bad for new freelancer , why the new dont get oprtunity 

[lauranky]

Many of us have had the same experience.
Turns out upwork would have made thousands (and freelancers lost thousands) thanks to the spam job postings.

It's infuriating how little upwork seems to care.

[VladimirG]

Hi Bettye,

I moved your post to a thread on which the same topic is being discussed. I'm sorry about the time you spent communicating with our Support team on this subject. Please note that our team is aware that Connects weren't refunded automatically for some jobs our team recently addressed for violating Upwork TOS. We are working to ensure Connects are refunded for all of these jobs, in line with our procedures and guidelines. We'll follow up once we receive an update from our team.

[jorgeson-kelsie]

When I get a notification that a job has been removed because it was not in compliance with terms of service, how long does it take for me to see a refund of my connects? 

[gilbert-phyllis]

I believe it can take a day or two. That part of the system seems to work very reliably, if not instantaneously.

[ilan18]

I didn't get my connects returned as the job is closed 18 days ago

[petra_r]

---

Vasanth S wrote:

I didn't get my connects returned as the job is closed 18 days ago

---

Why do you think you would get them back?

[983eefa8]

I sent a proposal for Hiring Manager but the job was closed. The job had been removed from the Upwork  marketplace. Shouldn't I get back 6 connects? Thanks.

Regards,

Khaleda

[VladimirG]

Hi Khaleda,

I moved your post to a different thread related to the issue of Connects not being refunded automatically for some recently addressed job posts. I checked and asked someone from our team to follow up with you directly with an update. Thank you for posting your concern in the Community and we apologize for the inconvenience this issue has caused you.

[64a423f7]

A proposal I sent in, the job was removed from the site due to Terms of Service issues. When should I see my connects back to my account?

[JoanneP]

Hi Sabrina,

I have shared this with the team so that they can investigate further. One of our team members will reach out to you to assist you further with your concern. 

[1b8e4407]

Two proposals I submitted went to the next step, the interview, and both employers (or their "hiring managers") wanted to conduct the interviews via Skype, outside of Upwork. I was able to connect with one of them and completed the questionnaire they sent me, then they asked me to send them my personal contact info so they could mail me a letter of employment. The whole conversation, which was written, seemed fishy (with poor English and the employer not answering my question of what the job or task was, which didn't seem to match the original job description), so I didn't proceed. I withdrew my proposal and flagged the employer, as well as the other one who never responded to my message accepting their interview request. How do I get the connects back for these proposals? 

[BojanS]

Hi Alex,

Connects are only returned when the job is canceled by the client or the Upwork team without a hire. Withdrawal of your proposal for a job posting will not refund the connects you've used. Please, see this article for more information.

Thank you!