🐈
» Forums » Freelancers » Overcharged for Freelancer Plus membership
Page options
elisabethhudson
Community Member

Overcharged for Freelancer Plus membership

I signed up for a Freelancer Plus membership for $10/month on 6/20. The confirmation email I received says "Going forward, we will bill your account $10.00 each month."

 

Today, one month later, I was billed for $14.99. I was not informed of a price increase, and I did not consent to paying this higher price. How can I get a refund?

 

Thanks.

ACCEPTED SOLUTION

Hi Elisabeth,

 

One of our team members will reach out to you directly via support ticket and assist you further regarding your concern with the Freelancer Plus membership. Thanks.

~ Joanne
Upwork

View solution in original post

25 REPLIES 25
AleksandarD
Community Manager
Community Manager

Hi Elisabeth,

 

We have raised the price of the Freelancer Plus plan to reflect the fact that Connects now have a monetary value of $0.15 each. With the Freelancer Plus plan, you will continue to receive 70 Connects (a $10.50 value) plus all the other valuable perks, such as seeing competitor bids when you submit a proposal and rollover Connects. Learn more here. These changes are reflected in the Fee and ACH Authorization Agreement and Freelancer Membership Agreement of the Terms of Service.

 

Thank you.

~ Aleksandar
Upwork

Hi Aleksander,

 

I was not informed of this change, and I did not agree to the higher price. Thus, this is an unauthorized credit card charge. If you believe that I was informed of the price change, please provide proof that shows how and when I was informed. Otherwise, please give me a refund. Thank you for your swift attention to this matter.

 

Liz

Upwork should have at least informed those on premium plans - I understand that they couldn't be bothered to send emails to free plan users...

joansands
Community Member

Sanja - I have been on the Freelancer Plus plan since the end of January and I received at least two emails about the change in the monthly cost and the change in connects.

dzadza
Community Member

Joan,
apparently not everyone on the plus plan received those emails.  Not to mention that UpWork could have informed active freelancers who are on a basic plan - but I guess that  is too resource heavy for them.  If I remember correctly (from forum posts), some people on the basic plan also got those emails - but most didn't.

joansands
Community Member

Sanja - It is certainly possible that many freelancers received emails from Upwork about the changes they were making - but those emails may have gone into a junk or spam folder and the recipient never saw them if they don't check those folders. I think it is unfair to always blame Upwork. Some people never look at any of the emails they receive.


Joan S wrote:

Sanja - It is certainly possible that many freelancers received emails from Upwork about the changes they were making - but those emails may have gone into a junk or spam folder and the recipient never saw them if they don't check those folders. I think it is unfair to always blame Upwork. Some people never look at any of the emails they receive.


I think it is unreasonable to never blame Upwork. They frequently drop the ball when it comes to communication. In this case, it's possible OP overlooked an email message. But I find it equally plausible that UW let brand-new Plus members fall through a crack in the notification process.

All I know, Phyllis, is that I am a fairly new member of Upwork and I got two emails from Upwork about the changes - the first was from the President of Upwork. I really doubt that he singled me out to send just one email to me.

Make sure you also note that Aleksander's description of the new rate is highly manipulative -- "all the other valuable benefits" used to not cost anything else on top of the value of the connects you were getting, and you're getting less benefits now for that $4.50 extra.




Dylan G wrote:

Make sure you also note that Aleksander's description of the new rate is highly manipulative -- "all the other valuable benefits" used to not cost anything else on top of the value of the connects you were getting, and you're getting less benefits now for that $4.50 extra.


How dare you? You can see how somebody bid 5$ for a 1000$ project, that is not surely worth those 4.50$. Furthermore you can modify your own URL! Don't you love reading a beautiful URL instead of just clicking on it like everybody in the world does? This is a real deal.
Freelancer PLUS doesn't even start describing how many pluses you get, they should change it in Freelancer EXPONENTIALLY HIGHER to best describe all the benefits

There you go again, Dylan, so, I guess you have nothing better to do.


Elisabeth H wrote:

Hi Aleksander,

 

I was not informed of this change, and I did not agree to the higher price. Thus, this is an unauthorized credit card charge. If you believed that I was informed of the price change, please provide proof that shows how and when I was informed. If not, please give me a refund. Thank you for your swift attention to this matter.

 

Liz


Best "how to politely tell somebody to..." (I can't use swear words) I've ever read. Give this woman the refund she wants.

Sadly, the "upon reasonable notice posted in advance on the Site" doesn't really mean anything. What "site" do you mean? Upwork? CommunitydotUpwork? Btw, I don't remember reading it anywhere on Upwork.com

Elizabeth - All you have to do is switch to the Freelancer Basic Plan.

elisabethhudson
Community Member

Is there any way to contact Upwork customer support directly? Does Upwork really require that all questions, even those concerning billing, be posted and discussed publicly on a forum?

Elisabeth, I flagged your post for a moderator to look at, so hopefully that will get the ball rolling on direct contact with CS.

 

I think in the interest of resolving a small issue that's obviously very frustrating for you, Upwork should just cancel your plus membership and refund your $14.99. That said, I don't think it can fairly be said that they were trying to conceal this. I'm not even on the plus plan and I've received emails about this change, it's been announced in the announcement section of the site, there have been thousands of posts about it here...and all of that has been going on since April. 

 

Clearly, they should have updated the auto-response to new subscriptions to reflect the change, but it seems like you subscribed right at the tail end of the old system, when those changes hadn't been made yet.


@tlsanders wrote:

That said, I don't think it can fairly be said that they were trying to conceal this. I'm not even on the plus plan and I've received emails about this change, it's been announced in the announcement section of the site, there have been thousands of posts about it here...and all of that has been going on since April. 

 

Thank you, I appreciate you flagging my post.

 

Just to be clear, I returned to Upwork (after several years of inactivity) one month ago. In the past 2-3 weeks, I haven't even logged onto Upwork at all since I've been working on other things and traveling. I have not been reading posts on this forum, and I'm not sure where the "announcement section of the site" is. When I log on to upwork.com, all I see is my job feed. I have not fully explored all the areas of this site since I am a new member.

 

All I know is that I signed up for a $10/month plan, I received an email confirming that I would continue to be charged $10/month, and that's that. I did not receive any other emails from Upwork about my plan (I searched my email account, including my trash folder).

 

It should not be my responsibility to regularly trawl through a forum to find out if my membership price is going to change or stay the same. It is Upwork's responbility to explicitly and directly inform paid members of any changes to their plan. Most online businesses use email to do this.


Elisabeth H wrote:

@tlsanders wrote:

That said, I don't think it can fairly be said that they were trying to conceal this. I'm not even on the plus plan and I've received emails about this change, it's been announced in the announcement section of the site, there have been thousands of posts about it here...and all of that has been going on since April. 

 

Thank you, I appreciate you flagging my post.

 

Just to be clear, I returned to Upwork (after several years of inactivity) one month ago. In the past 2-3 weeks, I haven't even logged onto Upwork at all since I've been working on other things and traveling. I have not been reading posts on this forum, and I'm not sure where the "announcement section of the site" is. When I log on to upwork.com, all I see is my job feed. I have not fully explored all the areas of this site since I am a new member.

 

All I know is that I signed up for a $10/month plan, I received an email confirming that I would continue to be charged $10/month, and that's that. I did not receive any other emails from Upwork about my plan (I searched my email account, including my trash folder).

 

It should not be my responsibility to regularly trawl through a forum to find out if my membership price is going to change or stay the same. It is Upwork's responbility to explicitly and directly inform paid members of any changes to their plan. Most online businesses use email to do this.


While your here, we might as well tell you that the commission for landed gigs is now 20% on the first $500 earned from that client (which can be spread across multiple contracts), you cannot work with the client off the Upwork platform for at least 2 years unless you pay a substantial fee for a release, and the amount of connects you must use to submit a proposal varies from 2 to 6 depending on how Upwork values the job (no, you won't receive a connects refund if the job goes unfilled or you withdraw your proposal.) 

 

 

As an aside (and wholly my opinion): If you liked the way Upwork operated in 2014, you are going to be very unhappy with how it operates now. 


Tonya P wrote:


While your here, we might as well tell you that the commission for landed gigs is now 20% on the first $500 earned from that client (which can be spread across multiple contracts), you cannot work with the client off the Upwork platform for at least 2 years unless you pay a substantial fee for a release, and the amount of connects you must use to submit a proposal varies from 2 to 6 depending on how Upwork values the job (no, you won't receive a connects refund if the job goes unfilled or you withdraw your proposal.) 

 

 

As an aside (and wholly my opinion): If you liked the way Upwork operated in 2014, you are going to be very unhappy with how it operates now. 


I was not terribly fond of Upwork in 2014, but I was going through a slow period so I thought I'd give them another chance. I was already on the fence about them before today, and this post is a way for me to see how they treat their freelancers. So far, it's not looking too good for them...

Hi Elisabeth,

 

One of our team members will reach out to you directly via support ticket and assist you further regarding your concern with the Freelancer Plus membership. Thanks.

~ Joanne
Upwork

Yes, Elizabeth, there is a way to contact Support **Edited for Community Guidelines**


Joan S wrote:

Yes, Elizabeth, there is a way to contact Support **Edited for Community Guidelines**


Please dial back the judgy a few notches. In Elizabeth's shoes, I'd be annoyed, too, and very likely to kick up some dust over $4.99 and the principle.


Joan S wrote:

Yes, Elizabeth, there is a way to contact Support **Edited for Community Guidelines**


I checked the site extensively and I could not find any way to contact support. https://support.upwork.com provides two options: talk to a chatbot or "Get Help" by going to https://community.upwork.com/, which is this forum. I tried both options: the chatbot could not find an answer to my question, so I asked on the forum. If there's another way, you were welcome to explain how.

 

Anyway, a kind and helpful member of the customer support team contacted me and refunded me the additional $4.99 I was charged. Thank you, customer support team. This issue is resolved.

 

If you had bothered to check your account, you would have learned about the changes in membership and in connects. And you could have easily reverted to a basic membership. But, no, you had to come here with **Edited for Community Guidelines** You probably think you can continue to have a Plus membership for $10 per month.


**Edited for Community Guidelines**

I had already reverted to a basic membership when I posted here. My question was not about how to revert to a basic membership (a change that goes into effect for the NEXT billing cycle). It was about how to get a refund for a charge that had already been processed. Everyone else seems to have understood this; I'm not sure why you're still having trouble with it.

 

It is not unreasonable (or "princessy") to expect to be informed of a 50% increase to a subscription price. It is absolutely the norm in the business world to explicitly inform customers of such changes.

 

Nothing you have posted in this thread has been helpful or relevant. Don't you have anything better to do?

Hi everyone,

 

A few posts on this thread have been edited and removed. Please be mindful of our Community Guidelines and refrain from making personal attacks in the forums. Thank you!

~ Joanne
Upwork
Latest Articles
Featured Topics
Learning Paths