Upwork issues that I think need to be addressed ASAP

[alexfotios]

Hi all,

Not sure where to post these suggestions/gripes I've had for some time, so I'll just do it here and I hope somebody can help forward/repost this to the right place.

1. Why does it take 5 days before previously escrowed funds are released? Elance did it in 2 days and so does Payoneer for direct payments from clients off Upwork. If you ask me, funds that have been escrowed for a couple of days already should be released immediately after the client approves a milestone.
2. Provide option to declare a project no-go without it counting as failed if it has started and no milestone has been released yet.
3. Zero money project (either because no milestone was released or because milestone(s) were refunded) should not count as failed even if both Freelancer and Client mark it as such. 
4. Why not provide global developer ranking per category, type of work, skill, etc.? Ranking is good for competition.
5. Ability to have more than one country residencies as long as such residencies can be verified. For instance I have residency in the EU, Brazil and South Africa and I want this to show for potential clients.

Thanks!

[vladag]

Hi Alex,

1. Why does it take 5 days before previously escrowed funds are released? Elance did it in 2 days and so does Payoneer for direct payments from clients off Upwork. If you ask me, funds that have been escrowed for a couple of days already should be released immediately after the client approves a milestone.

Thanks for sharing your feedback. We are aware of this request and our Financial team is actively exploring and testing ways to reduce the time it takes for freelancers to access their earnings, while maintaining the same level of security. Currently, we don't have any immediate plans to reduce it for all transactions.

2. Provide option to declare a project no-go without it counting as failed if it has started and no milestone has been released yet.

3. Zero money project (either because no milestone was released or because milestone(s) were refunded) should not count as failed even if both Freelancer and Client mark it as such. 

Closing one of two contracts without payment shouldn't affect freelancers' score in the current calculation but please do note that both parties can leave private feedback on non-starter contracts. Communicating with client in detail and discussing the job scope, requirements, terms, timeline and client's expectations does help minimize the chances of having this outcome.

4. Why not provide global developer ranking per category, type of work, skill, etc.? Ranking is good for competition.

Please note that we do already sort users' proposals by best match and do have a Job Success Score as a general indicator of the freelancers' success on Upwork.

5. Ability to have more than one country residencies as long as such residencies can be verified. For instance I have residency in the EU, Brazil and South Africa and I want this to show for potential clients.

Thanks for the suggestion, I'll share it with our team.

[alexfotios]

Hi Valdimir,

thank you for the very infomative answer.

It is certainly good to know that zero money contracts won't count negatively towards your job success score - the process does not make it as clear as it should and perhaps this could be improved.

The answer regarding the financial transactions' hard to fathom delays does sound like a brush off; I've had cases where money had been escrowed for a month and then Upwork would add another 5 days on top of that - simply does not make sense.

Regarding ranking, I am more referring to a number that shows your absolute global positioning as an indepependent freelancer. Much like Elance did - so next to your job score you would have a badge showing your global ranking. The guy at #1 would be the equivalent of say Federer for Tennis. You could futher enhance that by providing global ranking per skill.

Many thanks!

[tlsanders]

Alex, there's a search bar at the top of the community that will lead you to hundreds to thousands of posts on each of the issues you raised. You'll get some shorthand versions in this thread, but each of these issues has been discussed in great depth, with input from Upwork staff, so if you're interested in the pros and cons and official position, you may want to look at the existing discussions.

[alexfotios]

Thanks Tiffany - I guess as long as the issues remain people will still raise them even if they've been discussed at length before.