Hi, sorry for posting what's basically a support request/extended rant in here but I'm getting very desperate and Upwork support is being monumentally unhelpful.
Yesterday, while I was working on an Upwork contract, I got a notification saying my contract has been suspended. After further inspection, it turned out my entire account had been suspended for 'irregular activity' (still don't know what that is).
I had a request in a support ticket for me to verify my identity (again) and my address. Now the problem is that I cannot verify my address because I don't have any documents that have both my address and my name on them. I'm a British expat in Vietnam, with a Vietnamese partner, so all of the documents are either in her name or the landlord's name. Not to mention that bills in Vietnam are just a bit of paper with a number on them saying go to the local Vinmart (corner shop) to pay. I have absolutely nothing that fits their requirements.
So I replied more or less immediately after exhausting all possible documents futilely looking for my name explaining this. No reply. Further clarification. No reply. Pleading for them to talk to me to find a solution. No reply. Open another support ticket for them to say "closing this and nudging agent to reply to you". No reply. Message their facebook page. Robot response on there, telling me they'll notify the agent. No reply from him.
27 hours later - a reply! But I can't decide if it was robotic or snarky:
"Kindly submit the required documents for us to review your account. Failure to do so would delay the whole appeal process."
I reply saying I can't because as I previously stated, I don't have any documents you'll accept. No reply etc etc. I literally go outside and make a video with my street name and house number, opening my door, showing my passport and face, laptop with Upwork open etc. Obviously they reject this with a robot reply saying I need to provide a billing statement which I've told them at least five times I cannot do.
I've replied to them again requesting that they voice or video call me like they did with the original verification process, but I'm not expecting anything more than another robot reply with the same thing in another 24+ hours. Nobody is even reading my replies. I've already wasted hours trying to get through to them and I'm losing my mind a bit here.
The big problem here is the absolute lack of warning. How unimaginably unprofessional is it to just close an account with no warning in the middle of work and not be available for support for over a day? If they had asked for proof of address at the beginning it would have been different, but I passed verification ages ago and there was never been any mention of proof of address until the suspension.
I've lost a $400+ contract and a very interesting connection because of this. The client offered it to me on a video interview but couldn't give it to me because my account is suspended. I've also got an ongoing 10h/week contract that I've only got about 3 hours on for this week, that I'm probably not going to be able to finish, so I'm going to lose those other 7 hours too (>$200). Not to mention that the client is annoyed. There's also the worry that they'll just permanently close my account with no explanation and I'll lose the $750 in there.
Anyone else had a similar horror experience with Upwork? Did you get any compensation? Anyone have any ideas of how to resolve this?
tl;dr: Upwork suspended my account for no reason, asking me for proof of address which I don't have, can't get through to a human being that replies in less than a billion years. Lost a load of money, time and sanity as a result.
Preemptive edit: I do have a VN bank account, but the address on that is my day job employer's because they set it up and the prevailing wisdom is not to have things attached to your address in VN because any post is more likely to go missing (employer's building has a concierge). My electricity bill is in my landlord's name. My internet bill was a one off we paid nearly a year ago, and in my partner's name. The rental contract is also over a year old and in my partner's name. I suppose I could change my address to my employer's address but support were clear that "Your Upwork address is where you hold permanent residency" so I expect I'd just get rejected after another day of waiting anyway.
edit edit: I finally got a human response that was relatively useful! It's not resolved but I'm at least a little hopeful now
