Permanent account suspension for Top Rated Plus freelancer without any explanations

[#1]

Hello Upwork,

We have a big community of Eastern European freelancers. Our friend Victor's account has been recently suspended without any explanations or reasons given. Victor is not the first one who faced this problem and we've heard about such cases before with both new and old members. We know about all possible reasons which can lead to account suspensions but it looks like none of these reasons are applicable to this particular case. We are heavy concerned that honest Upwork freelancer can be blocked without the reason and lose the ability to use the platform he used for many years.

Here is his profile URL: **Edited for Community Guidelines**

He has Top Rated Plus badge, 5k+ hours and $100k+ earnings and verified identity (both ID and video call from 2019).

Obviously he has lost access to his Upwork profile thus he can't connect with anyone from the platform except via the social networks.

We would like to expose our concerns about this situation and our future on the platform. Nobody wants to be permanently suspended.

- How can we help to improve the verification process and decrease number of invalid suspensions?

- How can we know the reason of this particular account suspension in order to meet the policy for other members in the future?

- Do you have some contact which can be reached out regarding such suspensions and explain the reasons?

Thank you!

[#2]

Hello, there. I'm upwork user since 2015. Top Rated, 100k+ earned. Last 2 years I'm almost moved out of the platform(other platforms and direct contracts) because I don't want to totally depend on it and in one moment(ban) lose everything. And all these problems are only because of this untrusty policy from Upwork.

I'm not going to spend my time and work on the platform until Upwork will allow us to know the exact reason of a ban and the ability to discuss the problem with the support.

[#3]

Thanks, Anna. That sounds really promising!

However, could you give us more details, please?
All of us heard the general phrases too often.
Every support request ended up with "we'll share the ban reason to the freelancer". While the freelancer (Victor in this case) still claims he has NO explanations. Even after all of this discussion. He has been banned "permanently". Then (after a lot of movements) unbanned. That's it. No reasons. No details.

Could you share your plans on how to increase account locks transparency?
Could you also give some warnings before this can happen?
Currently, we can't be sure in our future with the Upwork.
Hope that makes sense.

[#4]

I’m glad to provide more details where I can. A few highlights:

• Verification flows: This is on track to launch for the identity verification flow this month. We expect to launch a system for recurring verification flows later this year
• Improved suspensions messaging: This is on track to launch for half of our teams in Trust & Safety later this month, after which we will begin work for the remaining teams
• Improved detection: We are actively and regularly launching new system improvements behind the scenes that help us more precisely identify bad actors and prevent false identifications
• Suspensions revamp strategy: We are on track to have a strategy and roadmap in place by the end of this month after starting research last month. This is a major project, and we expect execution to take 6+ months, with improvements visible to our users launching throughout

The strategy we are developing is designed to improve accuracy and user experience, informed by feedback from customers via Community, our customer support tickets, and focus groups. 

I don’t think we can or should strive for 100% transparency as that would make it easier for dangerous actors to reverse engineer our safety checks. That said, we can and are striving to ensure that good users are given a clear and reasonable opportunity to prove themselves if they are mistaken as dangerous actors.

More feedback always makes us better, and the Trust & Safety team will be reaching out to you Alexey, Mikhail, Oleg, Gregory, and Daniil to see if you might be willing to participate in a call to talk through your concerns in more detail. Ultimately we want to ensure we're building solutions that put our users first.

[#5]

This is probably the most transparent forum post in response to a freelancers community concern and is massively appreciated. I would gladly participate and expand on the concerns I personally see with the current system, please do reach out to set up a call.

[#6]

Anna,

>I don’t think we can or should strive for 100% transparency as that would make it easier for dangerous actors to reverse engineer our safety checks.

I completely understand, and it does make sense in terms of security. I really appreciate your efforts to make your internal procedures more perfect, that's great. Also, I understand that Upwork isn't a democracy, you are a business after all, and we shouldn't await an open judicial system from you.

But trust cannot be one-sided and you will be trusted as much as you trust. You can decide those false positives and accidental punishments of some (maybe a few, but I don't think even you know the real number) honest freelancers is a fair price for cleaning Upwork from scammers. But, ironically, your efforts to make Upwork safer make me feel less safe.

You can continue to improve your safety procedures and reduce the number of false positives to almost zero. But a lack of transparency will play against you. We will see neither scammers who are banned as they deserved nor your perfect safety rules. But we definitely will continue to see those who are unfairly banned, and we will continue thinking "What I will do if I will get in such a situation?"

You are a business, but we also are businesses, and we should calculate risks. As for me, Upwork is still the place where I can work and build my reputation. But it isn't a place that I can 100% rely on. I try to search for more comfortable alternatives from time to time, and I will leave Upwork without doubts once I find someplace maybe with some number of scammers on board, but more reliable for me personally.

So this problem doesn't have any solution except for transparency. The price of transparency is increasing the number of scammers in the marketplace. But do you think this number will be that critical compared to the number of honest freelancers and clients who will start really trust you?

[#7]

>This is on track to launch for the identity verification flow this month. We expect to launch a system for recurring verification flows later this year

By the way about identity verification. Will your verification procedure take into account some national or cultural characteristics? For example, some freelancers might not have passports but have just national ids. It might be just impossible to provide other identification documents. And what if there's something unclear to you in a valid national id?

If you think it's not enough you might demand bills for identity verification, but personally, I don't get bills at all. In my country, I pay all bills via mobile apps. I get a notification to my mobile, "Hey you should pay for public utilities" and when I open the app I see just an electronic form with fields and pay via credit card.

I can provide you with some documents from our electronic government site, such as title to real estate. But first, the docs from the electronic government have electronic signatures in QR codes, and how you guys can verify them? And second, what can do those who don't have a real estate?

The same with banks, taxes, everything in my country. I forgot when I last time have seen a paper document. Thank God I have at least an international passport. But if you will find something suspicious in it, I feel I will get into a real disaster.

[#8]

Hi Oleg,

To address your question about users might not be able to provide a passport, we do accept other forms of a valid government-issued ID, like the national ID you mentioned.

[#9]

>To address your question about users might not be able to provide a passport, we do accept other forms of a valid government-issued ID, like the national ID you mentioned.

Yes, Vladimir, I see it. I just read a message from a freelancer who got banned despite the fact that he provided a national id and bank documents. And because Upwork's decision isn't transparent, and because the freelancer wasn't able to get an explanation of what was wrong, he doesn't know and nobody knows whether it was a real problem with his documents or it was just misunderstanding some local or national details which the decision-maker doesn't know clearly.

Again this is a question of transparency. With transparent rules and communications, the freelancer could get an explanation of what's wrong. And we would know it and correct our docs if needed. I mean legal, valid docs. Maybe it would help scammers to make fake docs.   But it also would help us to feel more confident and trust Upwork. What's more important? You decide.

[#10]

Hi Everyone,

We wanted to take some time to follow up on this post with a summary of an incredibly productive discussion we (myself, along with Dorian and Anna from our Trust and Safety team) held with Alexey, Gregory, Serj, and Mikhail a few weeks ago that we truly appreciate your time for. During our time together we wanted to listen to your stories and concerns, as well as share our own updates and plans to tackle this issue of suspensions without compromising the safety of our freelancers. The following is a brief summary of what we discussed during our hour together:

First, we took some time to listen to each of you about how Upwork suspensions has affected you:

• The Upwork Trust & Safety team had the opportunity to listen to personal stories of dealing with suspensions, and the impact it had on your ability to conduct work on Upwork. This included the loss of potential clients, projects, and earnings- not to mention your trust in Upwork. 
• The most frustrating part of these suspensions is that many of you a) don’t know why the suspension occurred, and b) a quick/efficient way to resolve it, especially if it felt unwarranted and/or abrupt.
• Freelancers need more transparency- especially when it comes to suspensions and how they work.
• As a result, some of you have needed to diversify your earning opportunities outside of Upwork (in the event you face another suspension).

We then spent the remainder of the discussion brainstorming solutions together that could potentially help increase trust and transparency between Upwork and freelancers. In our continued efforts to keep Upwork a safe place for freelancers and clients to connect without compromising the trust of our users, we are carefully weighing the risks and benefits of some of these ideas, along with continuing to design and build out the solutions that Anna mentioned in her previous post. That all said, we don’t want this to be the end of the discussion.  Please continue to post here or reach out to us with additional concerns or ideas that will help us support you and keep you safe.  Thanks so much again for such an insightful discussion!

Jessica

[#11]

Hello @Jessica, @Anna and Everyone

I know I'm new to upwork but behind me there is a strong experienced husband (Adeel) who has worked on upwork for 10 years (since upwork was elance and odesk), until an year ago when he was banned permanently, he had earned 300+k of dollers with thousands of hours work on this platform and remained Top Rated for years. He was banned when he got few contracts, and based on completion milestones received payments. But right in the middle, due to his mother health issues which finally resulted her death, he was unable to properly handle under-going projects due to which upon 1 client's reporting he was banned for life time. Although he remained Top Rated for years. Although as per upwork ToS, there is no guarantee to client or freelancer for fixed price based jobs, then how upwork can suspand someone upon reporting of a client whose job was not completed. I agree the client suffered, but sometimes emergencies, health issues etc. happen due to which a contract cannot be completed timely. But still, its fine my husband couldn't deliver the promissed work, but as a result punish is life-time ban? Although he worked efficiently for 10 years and meanwhile got permanent clients who have spent thousands of dollars, so he doesn't deserve to get another chance?

I think there are hundreds or may be thousands of similar cases I went through on upwork. I agree there should be some punishment for voilating a policy, or doing bad acts. But there should be warning or may be a temporarily suspension. I think instead of life time ban, there should be accounts limitations or suspensions for few days, weeks or months. So that at least whoever is the serious freelancer he/she should be more serious about his/her future jobs with more cooperative and responsible behavior. Banning someone for life time is like, you're punishing someone on just a small sin, or even bigger sin but its not like a murder where punishment should also be life-time jail or hang till death. I feel if upwork gives small punishments like banning for specific time, or let them work and do not withdraw money for specific duration like for weeks, months so that at least meanwhile freelancer should repent on his sin/bad act due to which he/she was suspended and I'm sure in future he/she would definitely avoid such cases. At the same time clients also remain in secure hand while getting their work done properly from the same freelancer.

Right now as per my research, I feel there are thousands of freelancers who have now realised what mistake and sin has happened by them(due to which they got banned for life time), they repent on those voilations and they are trying different ways to get in again on this most popular platform. So a flexible policy should come in place for those who have been suspended for a specific time (like for more than 6 months or one year), those freelancers can request to reinstate their account and ensure in future they don't repeate the similar behavior and upon agreeing this, they should be given another chance. Further more, as suggested above, there should not be life-time ban but a temporary ban based on sin or voilation which can be less or more sevare to someone.

Hope above suggestion and idea can be very helpful for upwork if they really care about freelancers as well.

Thanks.

Arwah.

[#12]

Hi Arwan, 

Thanks for sharing your thoughts and suggestions. 
We won't be able to discuss the status of your husband's account here in the Community nor share specific details. Please refer your husband to the support tickets and notifications the team sent to him. When an account is suspended, the team works with the user to provide a chance to appeal and supply more information to work towards an appropriate resolution. Rest assured, a thorough review is completed before a final decision to permanently close an account is made.

[#13]

Yes, I totally agree with you. At least we have the right to know the reason behind the suspension. I am worried too as I am new here.

[#14]

To add to the discussion, you don't have to tell us HOW did you discover somebody was acting up, only that you DID discover. What is wrong to tell the freelancers the reason - getting Upwork contracts outside of Upwork, false representing etc. If you don;'t tell the reason, it feels extremely unjustified, as what if the person is innocent?

And as others pointed, many of us are depending on Upwork.

If we trust in you, show us that you trust in us as well.

[#15]

Opening this thread / can of worms as it was the post that helped me understand why Upwork permanently banned my account only one day after joining. I hadn't messaged anyone or posted anything, I was just doing some prelim research on freelancer's rates for a project I intended to hire for. As my project is very sensitive, I've been using VPNs and secure email addresses as I do prep work, which is necessary to keep me safe. I didn't realize that was a problem and, after reading Upworks TOS over and over again, I'm still not convinced it is a problem. 

When I got a message saying that my account was deleted permanently, I responded and politely asked how I could have possibly violated the TOS if I hadn't actually done anything yet. My first thought was that my account had been compromised and -- given the nature of my project -- this left me feeling very exposed and concerned about my security. The agent who banned me was not forthcoming at all with Upwork's assesment of my account, only that "after further review [they] determined this decision to be final". Zero explanation. A few google rabbit holes later, and I find myself here with a reasonable explanation that I was left to figure out myself. 

I'm not a threat to anyone's security. I had a legitimate job that I needed a legitimate specialist for, which payed legitimate money. I know a couple of thousand dollars is nothing to Upwork, or even the major players here who seem to warrant a response because of their earned reputation (and rightfully so, though it would be nice for that courtesy to also extend to new users). I know it's not a lot of money... but in COVID times, it could have really made a difference to one of the freelancers here who are trying to make ends meet. This matters because as this company continues to grow its profile, it becomes a viable solution to a lot of people who need a place to go when they can't go into an office. It has the potential to become an agent of change. If they continue banning people out of hand with zero transparency or respect for its users, then it's just another faceless monolith. 

All this to say that I'm disappointed. The vibe on this thread really looked like they were going in the right direction. I regret to inform you that either they are not, or that new direction is only for a select few. Either way, it's a bad look, Upwork.

[#16]

Hi Thomas,

Could you please click on my name next to this post and send me a private message with the username or registered email address for the account you're referring to? We'd like to check on its status. 

Thank you.

UPDATE: Thanks for sending me the information, Thomas. One of our agents will be reaching out to you directly to assist with your account. You'll receive a notification to the email registered with your original account.

[#17]

---

Thomas J wrote:

Opening this thread / can of worms as it was the post that helped me understand why Upwork permanently banned my account only one day after joining. I hadn't messaged anyone or posted anything, I was just doing some prelim research on freelancer's rates for a project I intended to hire for. As my project is very sensitive, I've been using VPNs and secure email addresses as I do prep work, which is necessary to keep me safe. I didn't realize that was a problem and, after reading Upworks TOS over and over again, I'm still not convinced it is a problem. 

When I got a message saying that my account was deleted permanently, I responded and politely asked how I could have possibly violated the TOS if I hadn't actually done anything yet. My first thought was that my account had been compromised and -- given the nature of my project -- this left me feeling very exposed and concerned about my security. The agent who banned me was not forthcoming at all with Upwork's assesment of my account, only that "after further review [they] determined this decision to be final". Zero explanation. A few google rabbit holes later, and I find myself here with a reasonable explanation that I was left to figure out myself. 

I'm not a threat to anyone's security. I had a legitimate job that I needed a legitimate specialist for, which payed legitimate money. I know a couple of thousand dollars is nothing to Upwork, or even the major players here who seem to warrant a response because of their earned reputation (and rightfully so, though it would be nice for that courtesy to also extend to new users). I know it's not a lot of money... but in COVID times, it could have really made a difference to one of the freelancers here who are trying to make ends meet. This matters because as this company continues to grow its profile, it becomes a viable solution to a lot of people who need a place to go when they can't go into an office. It has the potential to become an agent of change. If they continue banning people out of hand with zero transparency or respect for its users, then it's just another faceless monolith. 

All this to say that I'm disappointed. The vibe on this thread really looked like they were going in the right direction. I regret to inform you that either they are not, or that new direction is only for a select few. Either way, it's a bad look, Upwork.

---

Many of us use VPNs and this would not be the sole reason your account was banned. You had to have set off a number of red flags besides just using a VPN. 

Regardless, it seems like a moderator chimed in to assist you pretty quickly. 

I appreciate Upwork's attempts to create a safe community, and I agree with most here that a faster and more transparent way has to exist to resolve suspensions. Obviously one can set off the right flags and get a suspension, but especially for top-rated freelancers in good standing, there has to be a faster way to resolve and the customer service agents need to be better trained to recognize different forms of ID, etc. 

[#18]

Hello Upwork Community, it's me again.

I have started this thread almost 1.5 years ago. Our previous conversation was really great. We have believed that Upwork hear us because we even had the video call with Upwork employees from different departments and we were able to explain our fears and concerns. We were ensured that solution can be found and we hoped that it will be found.

Upwork has released a lot of new features allowing us to create own brand and make is more successful. We have new badges to prove our skills, we can build own pro community and refer other freelancers, we often receive invitations to webinars about how to build our brand, improve our service and become successful.

But one thing seems remain at the same stage it was from the beginning. And unfortunately this thing can ruin all the great things above because it can force us to lose everything. Yes, I'm talking about permanent account suspension without explanation again. We have noticed one more case similar to one we had in 2020:

  1. Top Rated Plus status & 6000+ hours & $300k+ earnings.
  2. Temporary hold and request for ID uploading and passing video verification.
  3. Completing all the required steps without any concerns and hoping to be un-holded soon.
  4. Success response about account verification but keeping account on hold.
  5. 2 weeks of silence even with follow-up requests.
  6. Notification about permanent account suspension without any explanation and ability to defense himself.
  7. Lost account, balance and everything was built during years.

We totally understand that there should be the balance between sharing information and preventing the circumvent the detection system. But I can't believe that such great "Trust and Safety" team we spoke with in Sep 2020 which promised us to find the solution was not able to do it. And it's even more bigger disappointment that we should lose freelancers in order to check it.

We have no new questions. I think I can just copy ones we had 17 months ago:
- How can we help to improve the verification process and make it more reliable and transparent?
- How can we know the reason of this particular account suspension in order to meet the policy for other members in the future (yes we read policies and know most of the possible edge cases but still have no ideas about the one became reason for the particular account suspension)?
- Do you have some contact which can be reached out regarding such suspensions and explain the reasons?

Thank you!

[#19]

Hi Sergey,

Please keep in mind that I can't share details about another user with you, or regarding our investigation, or actions taken. 
To learn more about how you can stay safe on Upwork, check out this help article. Thank you.

[#20]

Hi Goran. Thank you for answering my message.
I didn't ask to share details with me. I'm totally OK to share details with the blocked freelancer only (I can provide his email in DM). It will be totally enough for us if he would say: "Guys, Upwork has contacted me and I know the reason now. Also they allowed me describe my point of view. They have accepted my arguments. I have no more questions about it".

Thank you!

[#21]

This is really scary, I am on upwork since 2010.

- I have over 9000+ hours
- $700K+ earning
-  100% Job Success Rate
- Served hundreds of happy clients

I was asked to provide Govt-ID verification last day that I have already submitted, previously my profile was verified within minutes after submitting the document, however this time it's around 12-24 hours and I am still waiting for verification. I am hoping to get the profile re-verified soon like it was done couple of times previously but reading this thread and messages make you feel very unsecure. 

[#22]

Hi AQ,

It looks like one of our team members is already assisting you with your concern. If you need further assistance, please feel free to update the ticket, and our team will be happy to assist you further. 

[#23]

Hi Joanne,

I hope all is good at your end, One of my colleagues to whom you have replied above is unable to login into his upwork account. He has a huge profile of $800K earning, job success rate was 100% and working since last 12 years. He didn't receive any emails or notifications regarding temporary suspension and he has not received any email to appeal after permanent suspension. Two weeks back, he added new credit card to pay from his employer(client) account and he was asked to verify the identity. He submitted the documents and everything went fine. He believes, account got suspended because of a very minor technical glitch of not getting any notification or email. He is ready to submit any documents required. He is very distresed because his whole living is dependent on upwork and he is surving on upwork since 2010 honestly. He has no way to communicate that's why I am messaging you because he interacted with you few months back as well. He believes his account is suspended because his credit card payment was not processed and he didn't get any notifications or email and he feels its a technical glitch from upwork side.

He has no way to communicate because he never received account suspension email so either please put him on temporary hold so that he can communicate via upwork to create a support ticket, Its a very humble request to please look into this issue. Thanks!

I have sent you his profile ID and URL in private message. 

Regards,

Mudassir Nazir

[#24]

Hi Mudassir,

We truly appreciate you reaching out and sharing this experience on behalf of your colleague. However, for privacy reasons, we cannot share information about another user’s account. I can confirm that the issue on your colleague's account has been escalated and they'll be assisted accordingly by our team via a support ticket. Let me know if there's anything else I can assist you with. 

[#25]

Sadly After all that hard work (for me 5500 hours) and you submitting the documents they can still not pay you with out reason, and Ban you.  

[#26]

This is scary. Whatever the reason for the ban, the money the Freelancer earned should be allowed to be withdrawn before closing the account.