Taking Contracts off Upwork

[Caitlyn S]

I have read through upwork's policies and it seems if a client wants to take their contract with you off of Upwork, they have to submit a notice and pay a fee. How can you know (as a freelancer) that this has been done? The client that wants to hire me states that they have done what upwork needs them to do to create a contract outside upwork, but the job is still in my active proposals section. I don't want to violate Upwork's terms of service. I just want to make sure this company is following the rules so it won't be an issue in the future. 

Thank you,

Caitlyn

[Jennifer M]

hmmm is this guy chatting with you on google hangouts?

[Tonya P]

Tell them that you'll need to receive a notification from customer support that the opt-out fee has been paid. (Hint: It hasn't)

Don't go to Google Hangouts--almost all "clients" who use GH are scammers. This is particularly true if  you are a new freelancer. 

[Petra R · Accepted solution]

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Caitlyn S wrote:

I have read through upwork's policies and it seems if a client wants to take their contract with you off of Upwork, they have to submit a notice and pay a fee. How can you know (as a freelancer) that this has been done? The client that wants to hire me states that they have done what upwork needs them to do to create a contract outside upwork, but the job is still in my active proposals section. I don't want to violate Upwork's terms of service. I just want to make sure this company is following the rules so it won't be an issue in the future. 

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I would hazard a guess that this is 99.9999999999999999999% certain to be a scam.

[Caitlyn S]

Yeah, that sounds like what happened. How do I report it? 

[Jennifer M]

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Caitlyn S wrote:

Yeah, that sounds like what happened. How do I report it? 

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If you mean google hangouts, don't deposit the check, chica.

[Caitlyn S]

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If you mean google hangouts, don't deposit the check, chica.

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No, it was just email. How do I report on upwork?

[Jennifer M]

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Caitlyn S wrote:

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If you mean google hangouts, don't deposit the check, chica.

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No, it was just email. How do I report on upwork?

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ah, ok. There should be a report button in the top-right corner of the job page IIRC. 

[Tiffany S]

Caitlyn, it's very rare for a client to actually do that. The minimum buy-out fee is $3,500, and depending on the amount of work you're doing with the client, it could be much more. Unless it's a long-term, high-dollar relationship, it's virtually always more expensive for the client to buy you out than it is to go through Upwork. Even then, it's not worth it from a strictly financial perspective--it would only make sense if the client wanted to hire you as a regular employee or something like that.

[Petra R]

Does the client have a verified Payment method?

If not, they certainly (!!) have not paid Upwork as it would be impossible to do.