Greetings, everybody!
After browsing the UpWork Community and finding that I'm not the only new upworker with account problems, I thought of raising this topic in order to find some clarification from either UpWork staff or Freelancers that have been through similar situations.
About a month ago my account was suspended, and I received an email saying the following:
**Edited for Community Guidelines**
In effect, all my active and pending proposals were redrawn, new proposals and any transactions blocked, and the reason provided was "for my own security".
I replied to the mail, trying to figure out what happened, thinking that the blocking happened automatically, possibly because I was accessing the account from a different IP.
Instead, I was led through a verification process that took three days. Through the opened ticket, I asked, four times, two questions: "What was the reason for the suspension?" and "How long will it take to get the account back up?".
While the account was re-enabled after three days, the questions were politely avoided by two different Upwork Trust & Safety team members, the ticket was closed, and finally, on the fifth day, after I re-raised the questions, I was given a final statement from a third Upwork employee:
"we are not able to provide further details".
Now, I am assuming that the problem lies somewhere between miscommunication and internal UpWork procedures, but an initial experience like this raises many questions for a Freelancer:
Was the account blocked just to verify my identity? If so, why not ask for the documents when the account was created?
Was it blocked because I was unknowingly in breach of the TOS? If so, how can an account verification resolve the breach and keep it from happening again?
Was there actually a security issue, like the initial UpWork mail stated? If so, causing the Freelancer to miss job opportunities, lose "Connects" (which, if I understand correctly, will shortly have to be purchased) doesn't seem like a well-thought response.
Will this situation happen again?
