Is the contract paused or suspended?

[hajvanho]

Hello to you all!

I have a contract that is shown as:

- "Paused" in the "My Jobs" tab with the following text - "This contract has been placed on hold"
- "Contract suspended" in the "Contracts/Contract Details" tab with the small explanation "Upwork is investigating an issue. Please do not resume work with this client until the contract is active again."

It has that status for almost a month and a half now [Initial topic here - Client does not want to end the contract/Keeps asking for free work ]

By reading various posts here, I found out that if it is "Suspended" then it does not count towards JSS, but if it is "Paused" then it will affect JSS if I end it on my own [And have a bunch of contracts with the similar story..].

I am now wondering if this contract is Paused or Suspended?

The reason why I am sort of worried is that I have one more contract [ Oh, the joy... - Upwork mobile application compressing images? ] that I will mostly like have to end on my own, so I am not sure how good will it be to end two contracts, one after another?

[kochubei_valeria]

Hi Nikola.

If it says "Suspended" on the contract page under "Contract Details," it means that due to issues with the client's account or payment method the contract had to be put on hold and the freelancer shouldn't do any work on it until they are resolved.

You can message the client and ask them to resolve the issues with their account if they'd like to continue using the contract. If you don't hear back from them after a while, you can close the contract yourself.

[hajvanho]

Hi Valeria.

Thank you for your comment.

My main concern is if there is any possibility that this specific contract could influence my Job Success Score if I end it on my own. As I already stated in the opening post, it seems that Upwork treats "Paused" and "Suspended" contracts differently when we are ending them on our own, is that statement true?

The job posting is from 14th of August. The job was completed on the same date, after what I waited 14 days for automated payment system + 10 days before reporting the issue. The client was not responding since then, so contacting him is definitely not an option.

[kochubei_valeria]

Nikola,

Freelancer ending the contract has no effect on JSS. Contracts without feedback, however, can affect JSS negatively but only if there is a pattern of such contracts.

[hajvanho]

Valeria,

I do understand that contracts without feedback [A good amount of them] do influence JSS negatively.  What came to my knowledge is that Upwork will not count the contract towards this pool of "the contracts with negative JSS influence" if it is marked as "Suspended" and not "Paused".

Is that statement true and is this specific contract of such type?

[kochubei_valeria]

Nikola,

That's not necessarily correct. There are different reasons why a contract may be suspended including a client's credit card being simply expired. If a client has been suspended for Terms of Service violations, then the client's feedback will not count against your score.

[hajvanho]

Valeria,

Thank you very much for your answer.

Now I am just wondering if I can somehow see if the specific client got suspended for ToS violation? Or if the client is suspended at all?

And if I personally can not see that, could you please check it?

[aocumen]

Hi Nikola, 

For privacy reasons, we cannot share more information about your client's account. We can, however, confirm that your client has an issue with his account, you may ask your client to to follow up on our notification in order to resolve the issue and resume their account and your contract.

[hajvanho]

Hi Avery,

as I stated before, the client is unresponsive since the date when I reported the issue. It has been almost a month and a half now.

As Valeria stated:

---

If a client has been suspended for Terms of Service violations, then the client's feedback will not count against your score.

---

 The client was reported for violation of ToS. As you stated yourself, client's account now has an "issue".

On my part, the contract alone has these two statuses displayed:

- "Paused" in the "My Jobs" tab with the following text - "This contract has been placed on hold"
- "Contract suspended" in the "Contracts/Contract Details" tab with the small explanation "Upwork is investigating an issue. Please do not resume work with this client until the contract is active again."

What are your suggestions to minimize the impact on JSS?

[petra_r · Accepted solution]

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@Nikola R wrote:

Hi Avery,

as I stated before, the client is unresponsive since the date when I reported the issue. It has been almost a month and a half now.

As Valeria stated:

---

What are your suggestions to minimize the impact on JSS?

---

 I would wait and see.

A month and a half is too early to worry.

[hajvanho]

Thanks Petra!

Could you please give me your rough estimation as for when should I start thinking of ending the contract on my own? After what period of time?

The job was posted on 16th of August [Pardon me for the mistake earlier on] and the milestone was officially ended on the same date. Payment was automatically processed on 30th August and violation of ToS reported on 13th of September.

That is 52 days of idle contract since the last milestone.

[petra_r]

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@Nikola R wrote:

That is 52 days of idle contract since the last milestone.

---

 Personally I'd leave it alone for another month and I'd make sure I get a number of great feedbacks in the meantime and work towards top rated status.

[hajvanho]

All right, one more month it is.

Although it bugs me that I have one more recent contract with a similar story. I guess I will keep that one idle until I hopefully get to the same conditions as the first one.

Thanks!

[dbb644c2]

Hi,

One of my contract "Muse Group Social Media Marketing Strategies" has been suspended yesterday. Also, my client hired me 1 month ago and from day 1 to till now, he has not provided me any work and now it is showing suspended. Please let me know what is the exact issue? What should I do?

[petra_r]

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Pooja J wrote:

What should I do?

---

Nothing. If the client has been unresponsive for a month, you may want to just close the contract.

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Pooja J wrote:

Please let me know what is the exact issue? 

---

That's between Upwork and the client and Upwork won't discuss the client's contract with you.

[ali1111111111]

Hi, If client has paid you an upfront half money and it goes into your pending balance, The next day client's account is suspended. Will you receive the money that is in your pending state? 

[petra_r]

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Asad A wrote:

Hi, If client has paid you an upfront half money and it goes into your pending balance, The next day client's account is suspended. Will you receive the money that is in your pending state? 

---

Only if the issue is cleared. It always looks peculiar when the contract is hourly at  $15.00 an hour and the client paid $3,500 up front for some reason....

[ali1111111111]

If client doesnot fix the issue on time. Will it go back to his account?

[petra_r]

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Asad A wrote:

If client doesnot fix the issue on time. Will it go back to his account?

---

It will go back to the payment method used to pay it, which may or may not be the same........

How did this play out? A $3,500 advance payment is... "unusual" on Upwork to say the least.

[ali1111111111]

The client looked at my portfolio and he had almost a similar application in his mind that i had already developed. He shared a document with me where we discussed about some modifications according to his requirement. This way he agreed to pay upfront and agreed that any modifications made in future and missing functionalities will be on hourly basis. So that was my luck! I shared the application URL with him in my cover letter when i applied for the job by looking at his requirement. 

[ariful64]

Hi

"Upwork is investigating an issue. Please do not resume work with this client until the contract is active again."

My Client account suspended. But Client said he solved the issue.  He already change card but wait for upwork to try new card. He going to see if the process is today if I would do it automatically himself in the morning. How much time to active my contract?

Thanks

Ariful

[g_vasilevski]

Hi Ariful,

Once the issue has been resolved our team will reach out to you to confirm this and lift the suspension on your contract. In the meantime please don`t start working on this contract until it is resolved. Thank you.

[odefree659]

Hi

"Upwork is investigating an issue. Please do not resume work with this client until the contract is active again."

My Client account suspended. But Client said he solved the issue.  He already change card but wait for upwork to try new card. He going to see if the process is today if I would do it automatically himself in the morning. How much time to active my contract?

Thanks

Tajul Islam

[bstojadinovic]

Hi Tajul,

While we can't share any details, please ask your client to follow up with our team on the notification they received and communicate with our team in order to resolve the issue with their account and resume your contract.

Please wait for the hold on the contract to be lifted before resuming the work on the contract.

Thank you!

[mohammed_sy]

I had the same problem, I hope to communicate with the customer and help him solve the problems related to his account, it has been about 5 days since the problem, and I had to deliver the work today