Freelancer is banned without any clear explanation and help

[2b37db385brv]

I have seen a freelancer's post who claims he's been mistakenly banned from Upwork. The Upwork support team replies with basic responses saying that he violated Upwork Terms of Service, giving only the ToS section number without any reasoning. He created a thread on the Upwork forum, but it was deleted too since a freelancer who is banned on the Upwork is banned on the forum as well. This takes away all opportunities for freelancers to solve their issues.

This is not the first time I hear such a story and every time it makes me worry. I know that sometimes Upwork can mistakenly ban a freelancer and when it happens it's very hard to solve the issue because the Upwork support leaves no room for such people who became victims of an error. How can I plan my future with Upwork if will not be able to restore my account when an error will happen to me? I want to have confidence that if something like that will happen to me I will be able to have proper help from the Upwork.

I'm making this public letter to draw attention to the problem of that specific freelancer as well as to the general problem of throwing banned freelancers without the ability to clarify misunderstandings. I can share his contact info with the Upwork team in private messages.

Inability to restore the account from the accidental ban is the number 1 reason for me to feel unconfident when working with Upwork. I know there are fraud cases happening sometimes, but I'm sure that cutting away opportunities for freelancers to clear themselves is not a solution anyone wants.

I hope the general issue will be addressed and you will improve the procedure of communication with banned users, giving clear reasoning and properly discussing a potential mistake directly with the banned user eliminating potential errors. I think the progress in that direction will be good for everyone.

[2b37db385brv]

The original post of a freelancer I'm referring to:

**Edited for community guidelines**

[BojanS]

Hi Egor,

While we can’t provide an update about the specific case in the forums you can check this help article for more information about the most common violations that may result in an account suspension and how to avoid them.

Thank you! 

[daniilre]

Hi Bojan.

I am pretty sure that this freelancer was originally banned for a reason. He has registred his account before he turned 18 and was banned for that reason, although he hasn't worked on any contract. After that he has tried to create an account with correct birthday (as Upwork support has suggested), but was banned again and his account was deleted again.

So here is how I see the full picture:

1) User was banned for registering an account before he turned 18 and for an attempt to register again with correct birthday. 

2) Upwork declares its mission to create economic opportunities so people have better lives. Upwork invests money to contribute to inclusive economy.

3) Upwork thinks that the person who creates an account before he turned 18 is a terrible criminal who should be banned and removed immidiately for trying to raise his problem here on community. 

Every time I supported somebody here on upwork community forum the first thing that we heard is a formal reply like "We can't say anything, but you can read some articles" and every time users were unblocked. 

Now let's read Upwork TOS:

Upwork offers the Site and Site Services for your business purposes only and not for personal, household, or consumer use. To register for an Account or use the Site and Site Services, you must, and hereby represent that you: (a) are an employee or agent of and authorized to act for and bind an independent business (whether it be as a self-employed individual/sole proprietor or as a corporation, limited liability company, or other entity); (b) will use the Site and Site Services for business purposes only; (c) will comply with any licensing, registration, or other requirements with respect to your business, or the business for which you are acting, and the provision of Freelancer Services; and (d) are either a legal entity or an individual who is 18 years or older (or have otherwise reached the age of majority in the jurisdiction in which you conduct business) in each case who can form legally binding contracts.

It is possible to register a company or sign up full time job contract since 16, it's even possible since 14 with authorization of parents. So I am not really sure if it was legit orignally. 

Bojan, you don't have to disclose any private information here, but you can initiate an additional careful check for this guy. This is what upwork represntatives already did a few times and it resulted in positive actions for people who we supported. I am not calling for any specific action, just, please, make some minimal effort to solve this situtation. It's a pitty to see how much efforts it takes for the community to convince upwork to at least try to figure out controversial situtations.

[researchediting]

---

Daniil R wrote:

....It is possible to register a company or sign up full time job contract since 16, it's even possible since 14 with authorization of parents....

---

This is not a comment on specific the specific case you outline, which Upwork seems to have handled badly at multiple points. I am sympathetic to that case, and grateful to you for outlining it.

That said, your statement I've quoted above is misleading.

• Contracts on Upwork are not "job" (employment) contracts. They are services contracts between two business entities.
• Upwork's legal basis is US or California law, as suits the case.
• In virtually all US states, only legal adults (age 18 or over) can enter business contracts.
• Law aside, Upwork can limit user access to its services however it chooses. (Many of us wish it would restrict access more than it does.)
• No one is obliged to use Upwork. Use of Upwork is irrelevant to whatever employment-contract rights one may have at age 16, or 14.

[daniilre]

Thanks Douglas. I should have clarified that I mean that it's possible in Russia. That's why I quoted this line from upwork TOS:

or have otherwise reached the age of majority in the jurisdiction in which you conduct business

[researchediting]

---

Daniil R wrote:

Thanks Douglas. I should have clarified that I mean that it's possible in Russia. That's why I quoted this line from upwork TOS:

or have otherwise reached the age of majority in the jurisdiction in which you conduct business

---

Thanks, Daniil, and sorry, I missed your having made that point.

It's interesting that Upwork would commit, in this context at least, to honoring our businesses' local jurisdiction. My impression has been that they often fall back on US and California law in ways that don't acknowledge the global marketplace. I suppose it depends on the case. That's certainly an intriguing wrinkle in this one.

Best,

Michael

[feed_my_eyes]

---

Egor K wrote:

I know that sometimes Upwork can mistakenly ban a freelancer and when it happens it's very hard to solve the issue because the Upwork support leaves no room for such people who became victims of an error.

---

People are always claiming that they've been banned for no reason, but it doesn't mean they're telling the truth. From what I've seen, even freelancers who blatantly break the rules are given second and third and fourth chances; if anything, I think that Upwork is way too lenient, not too severe. And even if somebody is banned from the forum (and it makes sense that if your account is banned, you can't use this website any more), they can contact Upwork via social media and get a response that way.

---

Egor K wrote:

How can I plan my future with Upwork if will not be able to restore my account when an error will happen to me? I want to have confidence that if something like that will happen to me I will be able to have proper help from the Upwork.

---

You can read the terms of service and not violate them; that's the best way to avoid getting your account banned. You can learn a lot from the forum as well (mostly from reading posts about what NOT to do).

[prestonhunter]

Upwork has millions of users.

I'm sure that tens of housands or hundreds of thousands of freelancers (at least) have been banned.

I'm sure all of them could tell you that they were banned for no reason.

So what?

What seems more likely?

a) The Upwork system, which is governed by computer source code, randomly chooses people to ban

[or]

b) People get banned for a reason, but they don't agree with the reason. Or they began using the system without knowing enough about it to know that what they're doing would get them banned. Or they actually do know why they were banned, but they're not entirely forthcoming about that.

[yitwail]

---

Preston H wrote:

What seems more likely?

a) The Upwork system, which is governed by computer source code, randomly chooses people to ban

[or]

b) People get banned for a reason, but they don't agree with the reason. Or they began using the system without knowing enough about it to know that what they're doing would get them banned. Or they actually do know why they were banned, but they're not entirely forthcoming about that.

---

b) seems more likely, but Upwork could remove all doubt by explicitly stating in the suspension notice what specific actions by the freelancer led to the suspension, instead of something vague such as irregular or unusual account activity.

[prestonhunter]

John:
I completely agree.

It would simplify things for many people if there was a clear reason given.

I assume that this ambiguity is NOT an accident, but a decision made for security reasons.

Presumably Upwork doesn't want to provide extensive details, lest naughty people "probe" the system overly much and set up workarounds for their mischief.

[d_zharikov]

I remember there was a public discussion about a year ago about a freelancer being banned in similar circumstances. There was also no feedback from support team and no way to dispute the decision that one random person made. Banned for life, think about it. Fortunately that discussion gained so much traction that an actual Upwork employee of high rank came and helped to find a solution for that particular issue.

Sadly it didn't have any real impact on the way Upwork handles issues like this one: it seems like no steps were made to improve the transparency of this process. Even though there was such an intent.

Either way it's not a secret that upwork doesn't really care about freelancers that much since there are lots and lots of us. And it's not the freelancer who opens their wallet. But it feels like it's not a one-way street and everyone will remember the cases like this one when the time comes. Which is really sad cause everything doesn't have to be this way.

[kochubei_valeria]

Hi All,

Thank you for sharing your concerns. While we are not able to comment directly on specific cases, I’d like to address a few items brought up here:

• First, a person must be 18 years of age or older in order to use Upwork. Therefore, if an account owner is younger than 18, due to privacy and legal requirements, their account will be closed and the account information deleted. Once they have reached 18 they are able to sign up for a new account. Signing up for a new account in this case is not considered a violation.

• Second, the limit to details shared in Community forums is strictly to ensure the safety of all users. While we strive to share as much information as possible for the benefit of our customers, we are unable to disclose specific details of cases as this could pose a threat to the platform, and its users, by making it easier for dangerous actors to bypass our safety checks. Therefore, we are limited when discussing details of a specific account suspension and must also take into account the privacy of users in general when responding in a public forum. 

That said, rest assured that a thorough review is completed before a final decision to permanently close an account is made. The team also works with the user to provide a chance to appeal and supply more information to work towards an appropriate resolution when issues arise. 

Again, we thank you for your feedback and hope this information provides you with a better understanding of our limits to sharing information while at the same time working to ensure all of our customers are supported. We are committed to continually improving our processes and a number of improvements have been made to our detection mechanisms, verification processes as well as messaging sent to users about their account suspensions over the past year. While we aren't always able to share all details for security and privacy reasons, we are providing as much info as we can. 

[d_zharikov]

Valeria, thanks for a detailed explanation, that's really appreciated, especially in matters like this one. It's great that you helped to resolve the issue of ambiguity of wether the person is allowed to create a new account after their first one was closed due to age constraints. Although I still have a couple of concerns regarding a couple of key points of your reply. You said:

> That said, rest assured that a thorough review is completed before a final decision to permanently close an account is made. The team also works with the user to provide a chance to appeal and supply more information to work towards an appropriate resolution when issues arise.

Which doesn't seem quite accurate. Here's why: the freelancer in the question is my brother and I'm sure all the info he provided was correct and up to date. Secondly he was banned and got two emails from the support team containing the same copypasta Upwork sends to all banned freelancers; I saw a bunch of these when dealing with others' mistaken account suspends. The last and the most important point is that this particular discussion and some other media sources once again gained enough attention so that an Upwork employee contacted him and released the account hold because there was no violations whatsoever.

All this raises a couple of questions. Is this decision really made by a group of professionals and not by an unconcerned person/algorithm? If so, how come that another employee of a higher rank made a different decision? Is it going to be like this every time when an innocent freelancer gets banned? Do we have to raise an awareness of this issue again and again or there is another way? Maybe upwork can provide an alternative to a lifetime ban from the platform with no way to challenge the decision? Here's an idea, you can at least add an opportunity for banned accounts to have a paid dispute, in this case thousands of bots and other malicious parties won't proceed with it. It should be even possible to outsource such disputes.

I believe there's a way for all of us to work at both maximum efficiency and fairness. I'd like Upwork to grow even more and become the platform number one for remote work for long long years, but it's impossible to maintain such status without taking in consideration both sides' interests: clients and freelancers. I really hope to see some changes in the future. Thank you.