why lock my account? I am not getting paid outside upwork, or at all!

[#1]

I am new at using Upwork.

With my first client, I attached a document with a brief project proposal, to the upwork message chat.  This seemed to be agains the rules although the document had no contact information whatsoever and simply was an eaiser way to communicate than writing in a small chat box.

Now they have made my account private and I would have to pay for Freelancers Plus to open it.  I have never made any  money on Upwork as I have just begun and I have never made any money online at all so why did they think that, and why did they lock  my account?

I really dont' understand.

Thanks if anyone has a solution.

peace,

Asha Melanie

[#2]

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Melanie S wrote:

Now they have made my account private and I would have to pay for Freelancers Plus to open it. 

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No, you don't have to pay. All you have to do is read the email properly and then ask for it to be set public again.

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Melanie S wrote:

With my first client, I attached a document with a brief project proposal, to the upwork message chat.  This seemed to be agains the rules

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No, it isn't against the rules.

Your prodile is set to private when you don't have any earnings for 30 days.(50 days for newbies) or if something on your profile violates terms.

[#3 · Accepted solution]

Hi Melanie, 

If an established freelancer doesn't earn money on Upwork for 30 days, their profile visibility will automatically change to private. This is checked daily, not once a month. If you aren't regularly earning on our platform, your profile may be set to private, even if you submit proposals and interview frequently. There are different ways of setting your profile to public again, one of which is contacting us directly so that we can set your profile visibility to public.

I would like to confirm that your account's visibility has already been set to public. If your profile is set to private again after 30-days, or sometime in the future, check out the options listed in the email notification or in the pop up on Find Work page to set it back to public. You may read more about this in this help article. 

I would like to confirm that your account is not suspended. The notifications you are seeing in your Messages page are meant as reminders. Rest assured that communicating outside of Upwork is not a violation of the Upwork Terms of Service. We highly recommend for users to to communicate with clients who respond to your proposals through the platform and use Messages for communicating with prospective clients for security reasons, at least until you're hired for the job and can see a contract under your My Jobs tab.

You can share information with your client through email. However, its best to submit all work and contract negotiations through the Upwork platform and Messages. This way your communication is easily documented in case an issue arises.