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11096018
Community Member

Why does Upwork not offer any customer support?

This is awful. For all I know, if I give anyone 20% of my earnings that means they're my agent, which means I am their client. I completed my first contract on Saturday, honestly I did an outstanding job, and now I can't get paid, nor will anyone tell me why. All I got is a **Edited for community guidelines** bot who could not tell the difference between a logged in user and one that is not. If you are not going to offer real human customer support at least get some decent AI.

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BojanS
Community Manager
Community Manager

Hi Guido,

 

I was able to locate the time you have manually added last Saturday. Timesheet for last week is available for the client’s review this week. You can check your In Review tab in order to confirm the status of the payment you're looking for. 

 

You can check the Weekly Billing Cycle article for more information about the schedule to release hourly payments. It takes about 10 days for payments to be processed. The first week is when you log time on an hourly contract, which ends every Sunday. The client then has 5-days to review, and/or, dispute any the hours logged on the Work Diary. If there are no issues with the hours logged, the payment for the contract will then go to a 5-day security period before it becomes available on your account.

 

Please note that Manual time is not covered by Hourly Payment Protection. You should be using the Upwork Desktop App to record the time spent working on Hourly contracts going forward.

 

Thank you! 

~ Bojan
Upwork

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9 REPLIES 9
prestonhunter
Community Member

re: "all I know, if I give anyone 20% of my earnings that means they're my agent, which means I am their client"

 

You are not the client.

You are a freelancer.

 

Freelancers are not Upwork's customers.

Clients are Upwork's customers.

 

I, too, am a freelancer.

 

I don't want to be Upwork's customer.

It is customers who pay the money.

Freelancers receive the money.

 

I want to receive the money.

 

Freelancers are Upwork's partners in earning money.

 

Don't use the "help bot."

I regard it as nothing but a toy.

 

If you have a question about Upwork, the fastest way to ask a question and get an answer is to post your question right here in the Community Forum.

 

re: "I did an outstanding job, and now I can't get paid"

 

This means that you made a mistake in how you used Upwork.

This is good news.

Because it means that all you need to do is learn how to use the tool properly, and you can avoid making that same mistake again in the future.

 

re: "nor will anyone tell me why"

 

If you provide us with some more details, you will tell you why.

Hi, and thank you for your answer. The only issue with this is that in a business partnership there is still a reciprocity aspect to it. Name it as you wish, if I am in charge of doing the actual work and my business partner is in charge of getting me the clients and collecting the money, we have a sort of contract. If my partner only does half the job and then doesn't answer to my phone calls what is that called?

re: "The only issue with this is that in a business partnership there is still a reciprocity aspect to it."

 

Upwork has sent a large amount of money to my bank account. You can click on my name if you want to see the numbers. Is that not reciprocity?

 

re: "and then doesn't answer to my phone calls what is that called?"

 

Upwork offers many avenues for support.

 

Phone. Email. Support tickets. Facebook. Twitter. Community Forum. Chat bot. Live Chat.

 

But the availability of these options varies depending on the day of the week, the time of day, the volume of support traffic, and who is seeking support. Not all options are available at all times at equal levels.

 

Regardless of who you are, Upwork's customer support efforts are definitely NOT phone-centric.

 

I would never advise anybody to try to call Upwork on the phone.

Successful attempts to call Upwork on the phone do exist. But I think it is far more common for people to completely fail in such attempts.

 

I recommend using the Community Forum instead.

Hi Preston, and thank you again. I understand Upwork has been kind to you and I am glad that has been your experience. I wish you all the best and may I hope you continue to be successful. Greetings!

BojanS
Community Manager
Community Manager

Hi Guido,

 

I was able to locate the time you have manually added last Saturday. Timesheet for last week is available for the client’s review this week. You can check your In Review tab in order to confirm the status of the payment you're looking for. 

 

You can check the Weekly Billing Cycle article for more information about the schedule to release hourly payments. It takes about 10 days for payments to be processed. The first week is when you log time on an hourly contract, which ends every Sunday. The client then has 5-days to review, and/or, dispute any the hours logged on the Work Diary. If there are no issues with the hours logged, the payment for the contract will then go to a 5-day security period before it becomes available on your account.

 

Please note that Manual time is not covered by Hourly Payment Protection. You should be using the Upwork Desktop App to record the time spent working on Hourly contracts going forward.

 

Thank you! 

~ Bojan
Upwork

Why am I not getting paid? Why do you not offer any customer support?

Hello, I already did the job and Upwork is not letting me get paid? Would trying to charge him outside of the platform violate my working agreement? How does this work when I am trying to contact someone at Upwork, but they will not give any customer support? Any advice?


Guido L wrote:

Hello, I already did the job and Upwork is not letting me get paid? Would trying to charge him outside of the platform violate my working agreement? How does this work when I am trying to contact someone at Upwork, but they will not give any customer support? Any advice?


The thing is, if you use upwork correctly, you always get paid. There are a number of warnings that manual time is not payment protected. They are intended to be used as an exception, not for regular ongoing work. Any experienced freelancer would tell you to stay away from them, especially with a new client. 

Upwork does not benefit from you not getting paid. You don't pay a fee if you're not getting paid. And no, don't try to get paid outside of upwork, that will lead to a permanent suspension of your profile. 

It is so important for newcomers to read and understand the ToS, and most of them don't, which leads to bad outcomes such as this. Completely avoidable. 

Hi, I would like to speak with a customer representative. How could it be that Upwork takes 20% of my earnings yet they do not help me get paid when I have a problem? Also, how come there is absolutely no customer support? All the help I could get was some bot that didn't even do the job. Literally this chatbot would not understand I was already logged in. Hoping I can get some help from the community.

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