Newbie

[#1]

Hi, I am new to Upwork. I recently sent a proposal and the client gave work through messages. I completed all of them duly.. Does this usually happen or is the client supposed to give you a contract before you do any work for them? I am still waiting for client's response after 2 hours. Please help out.

[#2 · Accepted solution]

The client is supposed to give you a funded contract before you do any work for them. You might have been scammed. 

[#3]

I agree with Konstantinos. You might use messages to clarify any questions and to confirm the scope of work, but you need to have a contract in order to get paid. Once your contract has begun, you can then charge time (if it's hourly) to that contract, or submit your final documents to the contract so that you can trigger the "get paid" feature. I'm sorry that you wasted a little time on that! If nothing else, you can use that project in your PORTFOLIO to show an example of the type of work you can do!