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g_panovski
Community Member

Phone number verification on new account

Good Afternoon, 

 

I am a new user on Upwork that is planning to work as a freelancer while I am traveling abroad. I am trying to set up the new account so it goes to Upwork for approval but I am stuck on the phone verification page.

 

Since I am currently abroad and do not use my US phone number anymore; is there any  other way to do a verification? I can provide the local phone number I am using but it is not a US number.

 

Thank you in advance for your time and effort.

ACCEPTED SOLUTION
BojanS
Community Manager
Community Manager

Hi George,

 

One of our team members will reach out to you directly to assist you with your concern. 

 

If you are travelling and are away from your country of residence temporarily, you don’t need to update your location. If it does raise any flags on our end, the team will reach out to you directly.  If however, you are going to be away for an extended period, such as moving some place, then you should make updates to your account location. Please make sure you have an appropriate visa type or permit to work in a country you are situated in and pay taxes accordingly. You may need to consult with a legal advisor about it.

 

Thank you.

~ Bojan
Upwork

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46 REPLIES 46
BojanS
Community Manager
Community Manager

Hi George,

 

One of our team members will reach out to you directly to assist you with your concern. 

 

If you are travelling and are away from your country of residence temporarily, you don’t need to update your location. If it does raise any flags on our end, the team will reach out to you directly.  If however, you are going to be away for an extended period, such as moving some place, then you should make updates to your account location. Please make sure you have an appropriate visa type or permit to work in a country you are situated in and pay taxes accordingly. You may need to consult with a legal advisor about it.

 

Thank you.

~ Bojan
Upwork

Hi Bojan,

 

Perfect. Thank you for the quick response. I look forward to speaking to one of your coworkers.

Hello! I am having the same issue. I am currently abroad but want to start an Upwork account, but I can't get passed phone verification because I don't have a US phone number anymore. Can someone help me with this?

Hi Amanda, 

 

We usually recommend to freelancers that if you are travelling and are away from your country of residence temporarily, you don’t need to update your location. If it does raise any flags on our end, the team will reach out to you directly.  If however, you are going to be away for an extended period, such as moving some place, then you should make updates to your account location. Also, it's recommended that you check with a legal adviser if you need a certain type of visa or a work permit to be able to work on Upwork while travelling.

 

In this case, could you please confirm if you will be away for an extended period? If so, I would recommend that we update your country to where you are currently residing so that you can also update the information on your account. Once done, we'll assist you with your phone verification.


~ Avery
Upwork

Hi Avery, so I don't have an address right now, I am moving around a lot. But I will be out of the US for an extended period of time. Is there a way we can fix this issue? Thanks!

Hi Amanda,


Please confirm the country you`re currently located in and our team will update it. You can also add the rest of your address from the place you`re staying. If you have any additional questions let me know, thank you.

~ Goran
Upwork

Hi Goran,

 

I am in China right now. So the address is in Chinese. I can try to get an English translation of it, would this be good enough? 

Hi Amanda, 


If you have the address, please send it to me through a private message so that I can look into this further. 


~ Avery
Upwork
a4e986b4
Community Member

Hi Avery, 
I am also having trouble with my phone number verification in the set up phase.  I am from the united states and have a united states number but when I go to get the code sent to my phone to ber verified red text pops up that says "Something went wrong. Please try again later." 

Can you please help me to fix this issue? 

Thank you, 

Jackalyn 

Hi Jackalyn,

Someone from our team will reach out to you via support ticket in order to assist you further.

~Andrea
Upwork

I am not abroad... I am in Oregon. ha. but i think at one point it tried to verify an old phone number, and for some reason any new one i put in dont seem to work... i have even tried my dads number, and a text app number. currently, my phone is off, but im still stuck here.... 😞

Hi Shyanne,

 

I'm sorry for the inconvenience this has caused you. One of our team members already reached out to you directly via a support ticket to assist you further. Please note that a copy of the ticket will arrive in your email as well and you can continue the correspondence from there.

Thank you.

~ Aleksandar
Upwork

Hello,

 

I am also traveling abroad temporarily and am stuck on the phone verification step in setting up my account. I am based in the US but am traveling with a foreign number. Any help I can get would be greatly appreciated!

 

Cheers

Hi Jubilee,

 

Please confirm your current location and our team will update your country, then you will be able to update the rest of your address.
Once you`re back in US, you can update your location and verify your phone number. Thank you.

~ Goran
Upwork

Thank you for the reply! I'm currently in Mexico and am using a local phone number.

Hi Jubilee,

 

Your country is now updated, feel free to update your address when you`re ready. Thank you.

~ Goran
Upwork

Hello I am having the a similar issue. I live overseas (APO address) and I am unable to confirm my phone number to finish my profile set up.

Hi Jessica, 

I have shared your concern with the Customer Support Team so that they can reach out to you and assist you with you further.


~ Avery
Upwork

Hi,

 

Having the same issue here. Tried to find a work-around but it looks like there is no way.

I registered at first adding the U.S. as my country, but I am currently in Italy and planning to stay here for probably more than a year, so I need to update my country to Italy, but without an active U.S. phone number I cannot finish the registration process and therefore cannot change my country.

 

A piece of advice guys: it should be possible for a user to change country as many times as he/she wants, without restrictions, until the verification process is completed.

I.E. "Don't have an active phone number for the county you chose previously? We are sorry, but this is a required step to complete your registration. If you want, you can change your country by clicking here."

 

I really don't see the point of resticting that and then at the end of the process asking the user to verify an active phone number for the county he registred.

It is just pointless and creates a blocker to complete the registration process for several freelancers that travel around the world.

 

Hope this helps. Looking forward to hear your opinion on that matter and hopefully solve the problem ASAP.

 

Thank you in advance for your support guys.

Hi Sherif,

 

Thanks for sharing your suggestion with us. I already sent your feedback to our team for consideration. Additionally, your country has been updated to Italy as per your request. Let us know if you need further assistance.

 

Thank you.

~ Aleksandar
Upwork
d7fab4c6
Community Member

Hi There, I want to create a new account as a freelancer but I can't seem to get pass the phone verification step. Even though my phone number is correct and nothing is wrong with my address, I did not receive a verification sms. Please help, thank you.

Hi James,

 

One of our agents will reach out and assist you directly via a support ticket. Thank you. 

~ Joanne
Upwork

Same! I have been trying everything I can think of to get the phone number verification to work! I have even tried other family member's numbers. 

Hello Haley,

 

Thank you for your message. I am sorry to hear about the trouble with complete phone verification. I'll have one of our customer support agents reach out to you directly and assist you further.

 

Thank you

Pradeep

Upwork

Hello 

I need to Update my number phone, but I can't access the settings anymore  I changed my phone number months ago, and Upwork asking for device checking.

Please Help! 

 

Hi Hana,

 

I shared your concern with the rest of our team and one of our agents will reach out to you directly via a support ticket to assist you further.

 

Thank you.

~ Aleksandar
Upwork

Hi,

I need someone who can help me. I want to change my old mobile number since it was already deactivated for more than 4 months. However, I couldn't, coz every time I click my profile settings, a page where I should put the code sent to the deactivated number appears. 

Thanks in advance for the assistance.

 

Hello. I am also having this issue but cannot figure out how to contact support. 

Hi Amber,

 

Someone from our team will reach out to you via support ticket in order to assist you further. You can access your ticket here.

 

Thanks!

~Andrea
Upwork

Hi Bojan,

 

I have been relocated to Cambodia for some time, can you please update my phone number for me, as it won't allow me to enter a Cambodian number on my profile?

Hi Fiona,

 

Someone from our team will reach out to you via support ticket in order to assist you further.

 

Thanks!

~Andrea
Upwork

Hello,

 

I am also having issues verifying my phone number. A blank pop-up apears when I try to submit my number.

 

Thank you,

Isaiah Petty

Hi Isaiah,

 

I'm sorry to hear about that. Have you tried clearing your cache and cookies or using another browser? If that doesn't help, please share a screenshot from your end so that I can check and assist you further.


Thank you.

~ Aleksandar
Upwork
3fc4b2e1
Community Member

Hi Bojan.

 

I'm looking to create a Freelancer account, and everytime I try to type in my phone number so I can send a code to verify, it says, "Something went wrong. Please try again later." This is hindering me from creating my Freelancer account, so I would love to work with one of your coworkers to get this fixed so I can get to work! (Literally) Thank you for your help, appreciate it.

 

Thank you,

Thomas

Hi Thomas,

 

Thank you for your message. I am sorry to hear about the trouble while adding a phone number. I'll have one of our customer support agents to reach out to you directly and assist you further.

 

Thank you

Pradeep

Upwork
peter_topdev
Community Member

Hello, i cant receive a sms-code on my phone number, because it was blocked. I want to change number but upwork dont give me that oppurtunity, please help me to change my phone number, otherwise i can not complete registration, thanks

Hi Peter,

 

I'm sorry for the inconvenience this has caused you. One of our team members will reach out to you directly via a support ticket to assist you further.

Thank you.

~ Aleksandar
Upwork

Sorry, but i dont see any formed requests

samanthadigital1
Community Member

Hello 

 

I am also having a similar problem as I need to verify my account via phone number before I can get started on Upwork. I have spoken to the community bot, and it told me to reach out in on one of the forum pages. 

 

If a member of the support team could please reach out to me to help solve this issue I would be eternally grateful. 

 

Many thanks in advance. 

 

Samantha 

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