Cynical Upwork!!!!

[#1]

After the client released 1000$ escrow to me and closed the contract leaving me 5 star feedback, I got the following message from upowrk:

I am rephrasing because upwork deleted part of the message: “we have found evidence that your client was related to fraudulent activity, for your own security we are giving back the payment he already released and you are left with 0$”
**Edited for Community Guidelines**


I realize this is unexpected and apologize for the disruption to your work. We have reviewed this contract and found that it is not eligible for Upwork Payment Protection at this time. Unfortunately, fixed-price protection is not available when the client is removed from the marketplace for fraud.


How Cynical is that? Upwork steals my money and calls it caring about me?

How can they do that?

[#2]

It doesnt matter if I am first or not. I do not like being bullied, I will sell my belongings but file a court dispute because of this maltreatment and cynical behavior from large corporation. Upwork even hasn't tried to offer some kind of solution like giving me credits to no pay future Upwork fees or anything, 

[#3]

Why would Upwork give you compensation for something a client did? The client scammed you for 1k while Upwork made you earn 30k. And now you want to sue them? You have every right to be angry, just use that anger for good not for dumb.

[#4]

Upwork did not earn me 30k, I earned it and paid upwork solid fee.

Client did not scam me, client deposited funds on Escrow, and released the escrow, I pay Upwork 20% so it facilitates such an exchange, if I am not protected even through Escrow, why do I pay fees?

What a dumb logic is that - I am stripped of protection because client was fraud. At most Client scammed Upwork's Escrow system and Upwork makes me pay for it

[#5]

Any escrow service will revert a charged back payment or it would be basically an easy loophole drain the company dry. Upwork doesn't do anything special. 

Upwork needs to have better wording for these chargeback transaction. But I guess only disabling fixed project in general would solve this issue.

[#6]

You do not understand how the escrow works, if escrow just reverted payments whhen one side makes chargeback request, the whole idea of escrow/escrow arbitrage would be priceless.

[#7]

So here's Upwork's presentation of its escrow process, from the 2020 Annual Report:

Escrow Funding Requirements
As a licensed internet escrow agent, we offer escrow services to users of our work marketplace and, as such, we are required to hold our users’ escrowed cash and in-transit cash in trust as an asset and record a corresponding liability for escrow funds held on behalf of freelancers and clients on our balance sheet. We expect the balances of our funds held in escrow, including funds held in transit, and the related liability to grow as GSV grows and may vary from period to period. Escrow regulations require us to fund the trust with our operating cash to cover shortages due to the timing of cash receipts from clients for completed hourly billings. Freelancers submit their billings for hourly contracts to their clients on a weekly basis every Sunday, and the aggregate amount of such billings is added to escrow funds payable to freelancers on the same day. As of Sunday each week, we have not yet collected funds for hourly billings from clients as these funds are in transit. Therefore, in order to satisfy escrow funding requirements, every Sunday we fund the shortage of cash in trust with our own operating cash and typically collect this cash shortage from clients within the next several days. As a result, we expect our total cash and cash flows from operating activities to be impacted when a quarter ends on a Sunday. As of December 31, 2020 and 2019, funds held in escrow, including funds in transit, were $135.0 million and $108.7 million, respectively. To the extent we have not yet collected funds for hourly billings from clients which are in transit due to timing differences in receipt of cash from clients and payments of cash to freelancers, we may, from time to time, utilize the revolving line of credit under our Loan Agreement to satisfy escrow funding requirements. We drew down $25.0 million under the revolving line of credit for such purpose in each of March and June 2019, which we subsequently repaid in April and July 2019, respectively. We drew down $15.0 million under the revolving line of credit for the same purpose in September 2018, which we subsequently repaid in October 2018.

[#8]

Dear Petra, why do you feel entitled to tell me what I will and what I wont do?

Regarding escrow- can anyone tell me why escrow arbitrage exists? If one party can just revert already issued payment?

Non- specialists are trying to prove something here?

[#9]

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Giorgi N wrote:

It doesnt matter if I am first or not. I do not like being bullied, 

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Your anger is, once again, directed at the wrong party. 

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Giorgi N wrote:

 I will sell my belongings but file a court dispute because of this maltreatment and cynical behavior from large corporation.

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You won't. 

[#10]

So, Giorgi seems to have earned something like $30,000 gross through Upwork. That means that he paid at least 10% of that or $3000 to Upwork. I don't think he, or any of us, begrudge Upwork's cost-of-sales commercial formula; it is clearly stated up-front.

But for his contributions to Upwork's revenue over several years, can't he expect some protection from Upwork, by applying their considerable commercial experience and technical/technological power to keep him out of harm's way, and upon failing to do that, assist him in recovering his loss through Upwork?

[#11]

If the client is in the same country as you, it might make sense to file a civil suit, if you are confident you know their real name and address. If the client is in another jurisdiction, and you feel that strongly about being right, you might have to sell your house first, as you have indicated. 

[#12]

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Martina P wrote:

If the client is in another jurisdiction, and you feel that strongly about being right, you might have to sell your house first, as you have indicated. 

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He wants to sue Upwork, not the client..,

[#13]

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Petra R wrote:

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Martina P wrote:

If the client is in another jurisdiction, and you feel that strongly about being right, you might have to sell your house first, as you have indicated. 

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He wants to sue Upwork, not the client..,

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Ah right. Of course he does. 

[#14]

So, right now I'm negotiating a big fixed-price job contract with a first-time client through Upwork, and what I'm understanding from this discussion is that, Upwork doesn't really have my back on this, isn't really going to protect me if push comes to shove, and that "Payment Verification" and "Payment Protection" are really just slogans, BUT that I'm still going to have to pay the Upwork fee. Why should I make this arrangement through Upwork?

With all due respect to the gurus, I'd really like to get my answer from Corporate.

[#15]

re: "I'm negotiating a big fixed-price job contract with a first-time client through Upwork"

Here's how to do that:

If I have never worked with a client before, I don't assume that the client can be trusted with fixed-price contracts.

I work for the client using an hourly contract.

Or I start with a small fixed-price contract. No more than an hour or two worth of work for the first step. Then I submit the work. If the client releases payment as expected, and doesn't ask for any out-of-scope work, then I can trust the client with another, larger fixed-price contract.

As long as the client pays for the work as agreed, I can agree to increasingly large fixed-price contracts.

If the client is not a person who can be trusted with fixed-price contracts, then they will probably demonstrate that from the very first contract. But that was a small one. So I can walk away from it if necessary without having lost a lot time.

[#16]

For big fixed priced project look at the age of the client account. Chargebacks terminates their accounts.

If you still want it, then break it into smaller milestones to be paid once a week or so. 

Shame you don't trust "the gurus" since Upwork doesn't have this mechanism clearly explained anywhere, while it's a common scam. 

[#17]

It's not that I don't trust the gurus, but I want Upwork corporate to put greater effort into communicating and clarifying its policies, which quite often are only communicated in the form of an unpleasant surprise to freelancers. Upwork seems to have deprioritized its protection of and service to its primary source of revenue -- Freelancers.

My own issue is that, it's taking ten days to "claim" money that I have earned, and which my client paid "me" a week ago. I have been cited one onerous policy delay after another. Never mind that there is no longer any technological or processing reason for "security" or "clearing" delays to last any more than a single day (five days through Upwork!).

If the TOS are so arcane, then Upwork owes us more upfront explanations. Our priorities are completing jobs; Upwork seems to think that parsing the Terms of Service should also occupy our minds. Maybe the landing page should just have a cigarette package-type warning label on it.

[#18]

Viacheslav, Thank you for this:

"Upwork doesn't have this mechanism clearly explained anywhere, while it's a common scam.:

BINGO!

[#19]

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Joshua D wrote:

So, right now I'm negotiating a big fixed-price job contract with a first-time client through Upwork, and what I'm understanding from this discussion is that, Upwork doesn't really have my back on this, isn't really going to protect me if push comes to shove, and that "Payment Verification" and "Payment Protection" are really just slogans, BUT that I'm still going to have to pay the Upwork fee. Why should I make this arrangement through Upwork?

With all due respect to the gurus, I'd really like to get my answer from Corporate.

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Well, you only have to pay the fee if you get paid and get to keep the money. 

[#20]

Do I? Giorgi didn't get to keep the money.

[#21]

Well that's reassuring: Every couple of hours a freelancer feels like they're getting ripped off through Upwork.

If this kind of client behavior is so common and predictable, why doesn't Upwork do something about it?

[#22]

Well, I got a new message from support, you were all wrong it was not about chargeback,

The project was serious violation of upworks rules and the customer support advised me that once client resolves the issue I should ask for a bonus payment. Like they will refund the money to the fraudulent client and I should then Ask for that money again as a bonus?


How the gurus will explain that bs?

[#23]

**Edited for Community Guidelines**

How do you like that? Fraudulent client is getting back the money, you like it?

[#24]

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Giorgi N wrote:
We understand your frustrations and would like to apologize for the pain that this process is causing you. The job that your client posted, and you were hired to do, is a very serious violation of the Upwork terms, and the funds earned from this client were reversed back to his account and action taken. Please review section 4.1 of our Terms of Service.

Once your client has resolved his account issue, you may ask them to make a bonus payment to you for the amount reversed.


How do you like that? Fraudulent client is getting back the money, you like it?

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This hints that you did something you are not supposed to do, which seriously endangers your profile. Anything that you can think of?

[#25]

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Giorgi N wrote:
Well, I got a new message from support, you were all wrong it was not about chargeback,

The project was serious violation of upworks rules and the customer support advised me that once client resolves the issue I should ask for a bonus payment. Like they will refund the money to the fraudulent client and I should then Ask for that money again as a bonus?


How the gurus will explain that bs?

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That you bought crypto for somebody, or some other serious violation happened. 

[#26]

I never did something against upwork rules, it was just financial case, I have done 50 similar projects. Not even upwork says it was my violation