Withdrawal restrictions

[zphlame]

Please upwork i need special assistance 

I created a financial model i.e a stock simulation that involves sensitivity analysis and scenarios. 

I made an agreement with my to be paid 5000 USD for the financial model.

I sent a direct contract to my client and my client funded the contract and released the payment when i shared to him his desired output of the model. 

To my amazing surprise. 

I requested payment and my client approved it. 

This fund was not reflected in my upwork balance why?

I tried to withdraw funds just to be sure it was not some upwork glitches. 

I discovered i was restricted from making withdrawals. 

Why?

Please remove the withdrawal restrictions and give me my money 

[egaruth]

Hi Isaac,

I shared your report with our team and one of our agents already reached out to you directly via a support ticket to assist you further. You can access your ticket on this page.

[petra_r]

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Isaac A wrote:

I made an agreement with my to be paid 5000 USD for the financial model.

I sent a direct contract to my client and my client funded the contract and released the payment when i shared to him his desired output of the model. 

This fund was not reflected in my upwork balance why?

I tried to withdraw funds just to be sure it was not some upwork glitches. 

Why?

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It sounds like Upwork found the transaction suspicious...

When a freelancer who has made less than $300 on the platform ever, suddenly receives a $5000 payment, red flags go up and the legality of that money has to be investigated.

[martina_plaschka]

Guess using the time tracker for 400 hours with relevant screenshots and memos was too much work. 

[zphlame]

So how long would i wait for my money to be reflected in my balance.

Or does this means i would not get paid. 

[martina_plaschka]

If a fraudulent credit card was used, there was never any payment to upwork. 

You don't know enough about upwork to use it correctly. First, a direct contract never shows up on your profile and never contributes to your rating. If you had used an hourly contract (with screenshots and memos) you would be paid by upwork even if the client can't be charged. But of course, you would have to use your hourly rate for this contract, so you would have to have tracked 400 hours that credibly document the work that was performed. 

And no, changing your hourly rate from 12,50 to 50 now doesn't help... 

[martina_plaschka]

5000$ for a financial model? That is 400 hours at your hourly rate. You are aware how this looks, right? Either you found a client completely unaware that there is more than one freelancer on upwork, and he might have procured the service at a much more reasonable price, or a client found a freelancer that bought crypto with his own money for him. Or something else. 

Of course upwork will always flag transactions that are not in line with the usual transactions of a particular freelancer. Since you knew this client from outside of upwork, and you are likely in the same jurisdiction, it's probably best to take that up in your local courts. 

[zphlame]

Hello Martina.

We are not in the same jurisdiction or country. 

It was a fixed price contract not hourly contract. 

I have been working on his project. 

I  communicated with my client. 

He is not aware of the restrictions. 

Please i want you to understand that because i am only with 300 USD

 Total history of work does not mean i am restricted from making money somewhere else. 

If i knew you would withhold my money i would have not used this platform. 

Please what do i do to get my money. 

[martina_plaschka]

I am not withholding your money. Upwork doesn't have your money, the likely scenario is that the client never paid. How many hours did you work on this?

[petra_r]

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Martina P wrote:

Upwork doesn't have your money, the likely scenario is that the client never paid

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No contract could have been created had there not been a successful charge.

Whether that money was clean, legal, and the property of the person making the payment is another question

[zphlame]

I was not tracking time but i would say 5 business days 

[petra_r]

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Isaac A wrote:

I was not tracking time but i would say 5 business days 

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And you don't think that there is a huge disconnect between your usual work and this case, where you were charging the equivalent of about $1000 per day?

Nothing on your profile would hint at any genuine client paying you $5k for 5 days worth of your work, which hints at the whole thing being dodgy on at least one side of the transaction.

[martina_plaschka]

Ok, so let's say 5 business days is 40 hours, at your previous rate (the one you had when you posted this) of 12,50 per hour that comes out to 500 total, not 5000. 

What kind of client is ok with paying 10 times your usual rate? I can't think of any legit reason for this, can you? Since you are a certified bookkeeper, you should have known better than to engage in this kind of transaction, whatever it really was.