No notice of suspension of client by Upwork

[wlyonsatl]

Today I see that one of my projects has been suspended by Upwork.

I don't question whether the suspension is justified - that's Upworks call.

But I'd like for Upwork to notify me immediately when this happens so I can discuss it with my client.

[NikolaS]

Hi Will,

Thank you for reaching out to us and raising this issue. I would like to let you know that our engineers are aware of this issue and they are working as fast as possible on resolving it. The status of the contract should still show as on hold on your Contracts list.

[irapoport]

Hello Upwork, 

I have a long-term contract with one of my clients. I've got a regular "Your payments are available" email today and did not find the hours I have tracked under this contract. Then, I went to the contract page in Upwork and I see it was suspended:

"Upwork is investigating an issue. Please do not resume work with this client until the contract is active again."

With the above said, there were NO email notifications about this happening, no on-site notifications in my profile and no indication of the same in my Upwork tracker. 

I notified the client about this right after I saw that and I am hoping they would manage something, but I'd say it is THE most critical type of information I want to be getting from Upwork.

Questions: how come it even possible? How should I know the contract is suspended? Is there anything Upwork can do for me to get the money I have earned? 

[PradeepH]

Hi Igor,

Thank you for your message. I check the contract you are referring to and noticed that the client was suspended just a few hours before this post. I see that we were unable to charge your client's card for the logged hours on your contract. Your client will have to resolve any issue with their card. Your payment will be released as soon as we are able to charge their card successfully.

Thank you,

Pradeep

[irapoport]

Thanks! 

Few points though.

1. I still(!) did not get a notification of any sort. So I could well be putting more hours into this contract without being paid in the future. I do not think this is a correct system behavior, is it? 

2. Next, what about Upwork hourly protection? I mean if the client can not pay for the work done - shouldn't Upwork  be covering these risks? And yes, I know I have some manual time entries there, but there's also a lot of time tracked via Upwork Tracker. So, to sum up this point: if I have tracked X hours via Upwork Tracker last week --> I am supposed to be paid for these hours today --> Upwork could not charge the customer for these hours --> what happens here? 

[irapoport]

Yeah, one important addition to the 2nd point above - you are saying the client's card was only declined today, so last week I could not know about this issue in any case (even if the notifications were working properly) 

[AndreaG]

Hi Igor,

Could you please confirm if you've checked your junk/spam folder just in case the email ended up there? Regarding your second question, yes, if the payment from the client ultimately fails you can refer to our Hourly Protection requirements for information on what time qualifies to be covered. This is why we strongly suggest you always use the Time Tracker and log your time as per the requirements, so you're protected if a case like this were to happen.

[irapoport]

Thanks, Andrea,

there's nothing in my Spam folder, I have triple-checked that. Previously, when such things happened, I was also receiving notifications in my Upwork profile (do not remember if there was a notification in the Tracker). 

> if the payment from the client ultimately fails

Can you please elaborate on this? What does "ultimately" mean? From what I understand the payment did already fail, no? How long would it take to get the payment to my account if the client does not respond/update their payment method? 

[lysis10]

---

Igor R wrote:

Thanks, Andrea,

there's nothing in my Spam folder, I have triple-checked that. Previously, when such things happened, I was also receiving notifications in my Upwork profile (do not remember if there was a notification in the Tracker). 

> if the payment from the client ultimately fails

Can you please elaborate on this? What does "ultimately" mean? From what I understand the payment did already fail, no? How long would it take to get the payment to my account if the client does not respond/update their payment method? 

---

They try to charge the card multiple times during the week. If it fails, the client is suspended and you rely on payment protection. If you followed the payment protection rules, you *used* to get an email on Tuesday saying you're covered. I once got an email on Saturday though so idk if that's the normal situation. Anyway, if you used payment protection rules don't worry about it. You'll see it move over during the normal time frame before they let us withdraw earlier.

[AndreaG]

Hi Igor, thanks for confirming this, and thank you Jennifer as well for jumping in. We further checked on this and it appears to be related to a similar report (I've merged your posts here so we could keep updates in the same place.) I'd like to confirm that the issue with emails not being sent when a contract is placed on hold is currently being worked on by our engineering team.

[lysis10]

---

Pradeep H wrote:

Hi Igor,

Thank you for your message. I check the contract you are referring to and noticed that the client was suspended just a few hours before this post. I see that we were unable to charge your client's card for the logged hours on your contract. Your client will have to resolve any issue with their card. Your payment will be released as soon as we are able to charge their card successfully.

Thank you,

Pradeep

---

That's not what he's asking. There used to be an email that went out when the contract got suspended so you know their charge failed (even though Upwork doesn't say that). Then, you get notified on Tuesday that payment protection applied. It seems reversal emails are going out, but not the payment protection emails stating you're covered.

[lysis10]

Yeah emails for both suspended contracts and payment protection covering your payments aren't going out. I went through this last week. The way you know is the money doesn't move to pending. That's how you know their charge failed. Of course also the contract doesn't show up in tracker either so you can't bill time to it.

If you used manual time, ur gonna have a bad time cuz it's getting reversed.

[kochubei_valeria · Accepted solution]

Hi All,

I'd like to provide an update that this issue has been fixed. Moving forward, there will be an email notification if a contract is put on hold. 

Thank you for your reports and patience.