First a big thank you to Heather for this post, and to others as well, for joining in.
I thought I was going crazy. For my fixed price contracts in the past week, the upfront payment button wasn't working, the oDesk fee went wonky, and suddenly there were strange messages about milestones. Like others have commented, I certainly did not get an email from the powers that be at oDesk announcing this not-insignificant change.
Again to be clear, this has just cropped up for me in the past week. How can that be, you ask?
I didn't see this thread until just now, so I called the oDesk help desk earlier today and the nice man explained that a) an email message was sent out sometime in January (which I didn't receive) and b) it's being rolled out in phases. I must be one of the freelancers in the second or later phases then.
For anyone who couldn't locate it, here is the link to the new policy:
https://support.odesk.com/entries/23133488-New-Fixed-Price-System-for-Clients
Please note, everybody, that it has been styled the "New Fixed-Price System for Clients"--that's for sure! While I understand the risks for clients and I don't object to the removal of the upfront payment, I find the new process cumbersome, not to mention heavy-handed and overly-complex for small value contracts. The 14-day waiting period seems excessive for small projects, and is downright ironic when clients are requesting a fast turnaround time (although that is something they can invoke rather than something that is automatic, unless they exceed the 14 days and then the payment is released). I also don't know what the client is "seeing" on his/her screen, but from my viewpoint, the screens are not user-friendly and the new system is not intuitive.
One of my experiences has been anything but smooth and I might even qualify it as a minor disaster. The client clearly had difficulty interpreting the policy: the client did not build in milestones; added one when I identified that a milestone would release a payment; added a second milestone that involved a whole new set of tasks outside the original scope of work; and finally has invoked a "15" day review period drawing my attention to "the contract" (I can see no "contract" and the only place one finds the waiting period is in the policy.)
It is my great hope that the bugs will be worked out sooner rather than later.
Thanks again to Heather and other posters.