Concerned -Client payment methods and sanctions just issued on Russian banks

[ericaandrews]

Will upwork be notifying freelancers if their client has a PAYMENT METHOD tied to one of these sanctioned banks?  I have a paying client in Russia and am concerned about risks associated with performing anymore work on that contract in light of this news.

I did check the "Updates on Recent Events..." thing

https://community.upwork.com/t5/Global-Updates/Updates-Relating-to-Recent-Events-in-Eastern-Europe/b...

However, that link only deals with a couple of areas in Ukraine and doesn't address finacial transactions originating from Russia  . The U.S. Treasury just imposed sanctions on Russia's biggest banks and all their subsidiaries - literally a SLEW of banks.

Since we freelancers have no insight into what payment method a client has attached to their Upwork account, isn't there a risk to the freelancer if a client is in Russia with one of these newly sanctioned banks attached to their Upwork Account as their payment method - their payment method could suddenly become 'invalid' or the freelancer can't paid at all for hours worked or milestones submitted, funds are  released then suddenly reversed, contract suddenly 'suspended' or 'closed' without notice?

[kochubei_valeria]

Hi CJ,

We will not be able to share information about client's payment methods with their freelancers for privacy reasons. Generally, if there is an issue with the client's payment method, the client's contracts will be put on hold.

If your client's payment method isn’t working, please consider communicating with them regarding adding an additional or different payment method.  To determine what alternative payment options are available or to update their payment method used to make payments, your client may click here. For selecting an alternate withdrawal method, they may click here.

[ericaandrews]

Thank you. That's exactly what I am concerned about:  A contract suddenly being "put on hold" while I have unpaid hours logged to the contract.  It sounds like a good way to end up losing money and quite a gamble  

By the way, I was not asking for Upwork to 'share' information about the Client's exact payment method.  However, 80% of the banks in Russia just got hit with sanctions - that's a LARGE number of clients impacted. What I am asking is if Upwork has any CONTINGENCY plan in place when  large quantities of contracts suddenly get 'put on hold' because multiple clients have payment methods tied to sanctioned banks and IF Upwork would notify freelancers *beforehand* that they are AT RISK for not getting paid because the client is using a sanctioned payment method.     Why let freelancers keep billing hours to a contract that can just be 'shut off' at any minute if you have the ability to WARN them that the contract is tied to a payment method that could go 'dead' at any minute?

Basically what it sounds like is that any freelancer currently working for a client in Russia (or countries whose BANKS got santioned- Ukraine, Belarus, Georgia, Kazakstan, Azerbaijan, etc)  is AT RISK of their contract suddenly being put on hold, and if that happens, the ONLY way the freelancer will be getting paid for pending hours/milestones completed is IF that client happens to have access to a bank or payment method that isn't sanctioned and adds that to their Upwork account?  (PayPal, Payoneer, Apple Pay, Google Pay and all of that stuff is affected too because they all hit a BANK somewhere.)   Sounds like a game of financial....well, Russian roullette.   No thanks!

That answers my question though.  I will be putting this particular contract ON PAUSE and discontinue billing anymore hours to it since UW doesn't have a contingency plan for a sudden mass shut-off of payment methods attached to contracts in that region.   I'll be happy to continue work with the client once all this stuff is straigtened out, but for now, if I don't even know if he'll be able to pay anymore (through NO fault of his own), then it seems foolish to perform anymore work on that contract for now