Sorry, I'm new to escrow, where exactly is the money held?

[0d0d1976]

Hi, I'm sorry if this is a silly question, but I'm a bit confused as to where exactly my money is held while I'm waiting for a job to be completed? I made the payment, it shows as having been charged to my account, and now on Upwork it says it's in escrow... so is the money actually being held by Upwork?

[deknuri]

Yes, it's held,
If you done with your contract,
then it's held 5-days security period, after that, you can withdraw it...

you can look it, here
https://support.upwork.com/hc/en-us/articles/211063718-Get-Paid-for-Fixed-Price-Contracts

[petra_r]

---

Alfan N wrote:

Yes, it's held,
If you done with your contract,
then it's held 5-days security period, after that, you can withdraw it...

---

David is a client, so the above could not apply any less if it tried...

David, your funds are kept in an Escrow account according to Escrow laws and regulations.

[deknuri]

sorry, my mistake...

[0d0d1976]

Thanks Petra.. Sorry I'm from Australia and we don't really use escrow here. So just to confirm, when I made the payment my money was sent to an escrow account, where it sits until the job is complete and the money is released?

Main reason I ask is there was some confusion when I initially tried to make the payment, something went wrong and PayPal refunded it, I need to double check my account but at one point it looked like the money had been refunded to my account but was still showing as sitting in escrow at the same time. So I wasn't sure if it had been sent back to sit in my account until it's released. Perhaps I was mis-reading something, I just thought I'd ask as I haven't used this system before!

[petra_r]

---

David H wrote:

Thanks Petra.. Sorry I'm from Australia and we don't really use escrow here. So just to confirm, when I made the payment my money was sent to an escrow account, where it sits until the job is complete and the money is released?

---

Yes, it sits in Escrow until you either release it, the freelancer sends it back to you, or it is disputed (hopefully the last two outcomes will not apply, the normal workflow is as follows:

1. You fund Escrow,

2. The freelancer does the work and submits it

3. You check the work

4. You release the payment from Escrow

5. The freelancer gets paid.

The idea is that you have some security that your freelancer will not take the money without delivering the work and your freelancer has some security that you will not take the work without paying.

[0d0d1976]

Thanks again Petra, that makes a lot more sense... so basically it couldn't be sitting in escrow and in my bank account at the same time! Thanks for all your help 🙂 

[petra_r · Accepted solution]

---

David H wrote:

so basically it couldn't be sitting in escrow and in my bank account at the same time!

---

Probably not, unless it cloned itself.

If it did, let me know how so I can clone my money too 😉

[0d0d1976]

Will do, but we can't tell anyone! 😉