Refund Notification

[#1]

Hi I have an emergency, part of the payments I made from an hourly contract has been auto refunded by upwork. I want to know if the remaining will be auto refunded so as not to keep my hopes high.i want my money back . Admin pls help 

[#2 · Accepted solution]

Hi Suneel,

When the client fails to pay for hours logged by the freelancer, any hours that aren’t covered by Upwork Hourly Protection may be reversed. Please check out this help article for more information. Our team will also be reaching out to you directly via email with more information about your concern and this specific case. 

Thank you! 

[#3]

Hey Bhojan

i am sending you some screenshot you can see that. till today morning my report was showing me $160 in my pending box. but this time it showing me $0 and the email and notification that i got at 10PM IST that is 

**Edited for community guidelines**

how this happened ? i want to know this and how can i get my money back ? please give me the answer of these questions

**Edited for community guidelines**

[#4]

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Suneel K wrote:

Hey Bhojan

i am sending you some screenshot you can see that. till today morning my report was showing me $160 in my pending box. but this time it showing me $0 and the email and notification that i got at 10PM IST that is 

**Edited for community guidelines**

how this happened ? i want to know this and how can i get my money back ? please give me the answer of these questions

---

The word refund is a misnomer. The reason the amount was  Pending, was because the charge was not complete. They were unable to complete the transaction for whatever reason: the credit card was fraudulent, or maybe just over limit, who knows. Either way, Upwork was never paid by the client, so you cannot get paid. So the funds that are pending in your account are "reversed"  or "Refunded"  but really they were never there to begin with because the charge did not go through. 

Was this an hourly contract and did you use the time tracker and leave meaningful memos? Because this typically only happens when you use unprotected manual time. 

ETA: your screenshots show this was manual time. So it's not protected. So you are out of luck unless the client pays up. 

[#5]

Hey Amanda L

will i get my money back or not ?

[#6]

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Suneel K wrote:

Hey Amanda L

will i get my money back or not ?

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You cannot get it "back"  because you never had it. The client never paid. The only way you will get paid is if the client follows up with the correspondence they are getting from Upwork and pay their bill. 

In the future use the time tracker and include meaningful memos so you can qualify for payment protection. 

[#7]

Hey Amanda L

my contract is also showing suspended or contract placed on hold what was that can you explain me ? how this happen

also can you send the notification to **Edited for community guidelines** to return my money that is refunded to him i want my money at any cost ? please let me know 

my contract id is : 27963183

and it is showing me suspended

[#8]

Hey Amanda L

because $160 is not a small amount for me please help me to get it back to me

and notify my client he is not replying me yet i am message him from last 6 hours but he is not replying me please notify him to reply my message or return my amount back

[#9]

I don't work for Upwork, so I have no power to do that. Upwork suspended the contract because they client has not paid. You should not do any more work on that contract until the client deals with their issues with Upwork. 

Upwork will and likely already has sent them a notification that their payment method failed and to address the problem so that you can get paid. But there is very little beyond that they can do. Again, in the future, you need to use the time tracker and leave meaningful memos so that your payment will be protected. 

[#10]

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Suneel K wrote:

Hey Amanda L

because $160 is not a small amount for me please help me to get it back to me

and notify my client he is not replying me yet i am message him from last 6 hours but he is not replying me please notify him to reply my message or return my amount back

---

You should consider yourself lucky it wasn't more money.

You only have payment protection on hourly contracts if you follow the rules. Take some time to learn how Upwork works. At the moment you are not ready for it and will probably work for free again rather sooner than later.

BTW only those with Upwork logo beside their names work for Upwork the rest are freelancers.

[#11]

hey Amanda L

how can i contact with upwork  team. i want to contact with them so they can strictly help me ?

because they have to solution for this may we they can manage it and able to return my money ?

how can i talk with upwork on call can you give me the contact number ?

[#12]

Hey Bojan

how can i contact with upwork  team. i want to contact with them so they can strictly help me ?

because they have to solution for this may we they can manage it and able to return my money ?

how can i talk with upwork on call can you give me the contact number ?

[#13]

Hi Suneel,

Thank you for your message.

I am sorry to hear about the reversal on your account. I see that you are already communicating with the relevant team via a support ticket here. One of our team members will reach out to you as soon as possible to assist you further. Please don't hesitate to follow up with them on your support ticket if you have additional questions regarding your concern.  

Thank you.

Pradeep

[#14]

Thank you Hardeep sir

[#15]

Hi I have also issue of the payments I made from an hourly contract has been auto refunded by upwork. I want to know how my money is refunded to my client if i did no activity on refund please let me know i lost my $160. i want my money back . Admin pls help screenshot is attached bellow. please take a look as soon as posible

**Edited for community guidelines**

[#16]

Suneel, 

Please "understand" what Amanda, Jennifer, and Tonya said in their replies. 

I will give it another try. 

The bottom line here is you are not going to get the money back! 

Now let's try to understand why this happened: 

Let's say you logged in 10 hours for the past week @ 16/Hour rate. In order for Upwork to pay you that, the client first needs to pay that amount to Upwork. If the client's credit card failed, meaning when Upwork requested the money from the Client's credit card the transaction was declined by the Credit Card company.  Resulting in Upwork not getting the money to pay you! 

Now you can avoid situations like this by following few simple steps: 

1. Always try to never log manual time for hourly contracts, and when you do be ready to lose that money, keeping fingers crossed and hoping the client will not dispute that or the charge will go through! 
2. When you are using the time logger to log time, update the memo with meaningful notes to indicate what task you are performing. 
3. Ensure there is a fair level of activity, meaning you should be actually working on a client project during that period. 
4. Even if the client explicitly tells you to log manual time or allows you to log the manual time you should try to avoid a situation where you have to add manual time. 

If you follow the above steps, you will be covered by Upwork payment protection meaning even if the client does not pay to Upwork, Upwork will pay you!!! 

Do not waste your time and energy following up with the support time, you are not getting the money back!!!

You seem o be new here, good that it happened early on...take a lesson and move on! 

[#17]

When a client doesn't pay, funds that might otherwise come to you do not. Upwork calls it a refund. You are unlikely to get that money ever. 

[#18]

Unless you qualify for Upwork Payment Protection.

In which case, Upwork pays you out of their own pocket.

Upwork takes the loss.

Freelancer gets the money.

That's why I always use Upwork Payment Protection.

A freelancer does NOT need to use Upwork Payment Protection. But it's a good idea to use it if at all possible. It's free. For most work done by Upwork freelancers, there is no good reason not to use it.