Bonus refunded back to client

[ikramullah007]

Hi,

I was hired by verified client and also he had past payment history. He deposited 160$ of bonus in escrow for a work. I did the work and ended the contract but after an hour later Upwork contacted me that the person is being investigated for fraud activity. After few hours more later they contacted me again that we have banned the client from the upwork plateform and you are not to contact him again. Then a day later my money was also returned back to the client because they found some voilations.

Now Upwork was supposed to be my guaranteer of the money and aslo the client was fruad. I did nothing wrong and yet i was punished. They closed the case as sloved. 

Please can anyone tell me what should i do. 160$ is alot for me.

[pgiambalvo]

So sorry this happened to you. The same scam is getting more and more people every day. The money was never really there and you are not protected by Upwork in this case. You are only protected if you use the time tracker. Verified payment method means nothing when it comes to getting paid, even though it's easy for people to think that means the client is legitimate and will pay you. I'm sure someone who works for Upwork will contact you and explain why you will not get any money from either them, or the client.

[sofia2008]

Did you have to buy something for the client?

[ikramullah007]

Yup

[sofia2008]

Paying a client or something on behalf of a client is a violation of Upwork Terms of Service. Any transaction outside of Upwork is not covered and not allowed. You are losing the money you spent for a stranger and the bonus they promised you never existed. This was a classic scam.

[pgiambalvo]

What do you think about the client having a past payment history part? This is the first time I've heard that one being associated with this scam.

[sofia2008]

This is not the first time I have seen this. If a scammer manages to make a few hires within the same day and the scam is discovered the next day, you'll get a few people here for the same fake client. By sticking to the basic: do not communicate outside Upwork and do not pay outside of Upwork, this would not happen.

[pgiambalvo]

Aha.

[feed_my_eyes]

It's not the first time at all. Most of the bitcoin scammers hire several people at a time (mostly on weekends when Upwork is even slower to investigate flagged jobs), so they'll have previous payments and even good reviews from freelancers who are not yet aware that they've been scammed. People need to stop thinking that Upwork will cover them no matter what stupid things they do, and realise that if something sounds too good to be true, that's because it is. It's also incorrect to say that using the time tracker guarantees payment; if you try to charge a ridiculously inflated rate - which some of the bitcoin freelancers have been trying to do lately - then you won't get paid either.

[pgiambalvo · Accepted solution]

You probably wish you had been warned about this scam and those parts of Upwork Terms of Service before you were allowed to have an account, right?

[ca_rajshah]

Bro i wish that is not happend to you...

But if i say other part of this issue is it is not the liability of Upwork to provide safty to its freelancer as well as clients ? when upwork is charging 20%  or 15% fees from both side its resposibility of upwork to ensure that only authorised person must be enter in the system. In my case a person sitting in india is making account in USA and asking for money to trnasfer to Indian People. I can not imagin how his profile go live in a day and suddanly paused all contract ? 

Even if it is done for the 1st time we can think that it can be missed by Upwork system but its repeated offence and still Upwork is silent in this type of issue and lots of Hard earn money go out of freelancer pocket. 

When i get the Mail form upwork that i had received the bonus then i have no reason to have doubt about the person because i have received the mail that amount is there in my upwork account and as a suoport i am having mail. If upwork itself is not sure about the payment then it should not intitiate mail to confirm the same. I guess in my opinion its fault on the part of Upwork that they are 1st of all allowed this type of Ids to creat and perform in paltform and 2nd they share mail that freelancer received money and sudanlly it goes away as if there is no value of Upwork Mail communication.