Upwork-Approved Milestone

e212860f · ‎05-25-2019

I've been working through a project with a freelancer, however today upwork approved a milestone prior to completion. I saw the dates and note, but assumed that active messaging would delay this. If this is something I have to worry about, I'll be looking for an alternative to upwork.

This is ridiculous. At no point should upwork be approving milestones, and releasing funds.

hfspeegle · ‎05-25-2019

Milestones are automatically approved 14 days after the freelancer requests approval unless the client clicks the "request revision" button.

abinadab-agbo · ‎05-25-2019

Yes please, there is nothing wrong with this policy of Upwork.

It serves as a protection against unresponsive clients. As a best practice, a freelancer should only request for release of milestone upon submission of work for that milestone.

As soon as it became clear to you that the freelancer would not be coming through with the work within the 14-day hold period, you ought to have clicked the "request modifications" button for the milestone. This automatically resets the clock, and the freelancer will have to request milestone release again for the 14-day countdown timer to start again.

Please note that a lot of freelancers use Upwork because of this kind of payment protection in the event of unresponsive clients.

petra_r · ‎05-25-2019

Matthew C wrote:
...however today upwork approved a milestone prior to completion. I saw the dates and note, but assumed that active messaging would delay this.

So did you not see the "request changes" button?

Matthew C wrote:

This is ridiculous. At no point should upwork be approving milestones, and releasing funds.

Really? So when clients just vanish after freelancers submitted their work, the freelancer should never get paid?

Matthew C wrote:
If this is something I have to worry about, I'll be looking for an alternative to upwork.

You had a full two weeks to use the "request changes" button. Now you know it is there, you can use it in future, if you need to. But yes, if that is too complicated for you or you end up worrying about a mouse click, maybe you should look at alternatives.

Anonymous-User · ‎05-26-2019

If the freelancer requested payment for a milestone, that means they felt they had completed the terms of that milestone and submitted their work. I certainly hope they did not continue working for free after not receiving that single payment release.

That policy protects both sides and it's not going to be changed.