Upwork

They charge too much and they have crappy services. Their website is always down and they are over charging freelancers for their crappy services. One example is today. I have been a freelancer for about 3 years now and upwork took out my payment method and I had to re enter it. So now I can't pay my bills because I have to wait 3 days for my payment method to be confirmed AGAIN and also their support is of no help. Upwork is ripping off freelancers. All they care about is taking money from freelancers hard work.

Upwork is just like any other big business, making money for themselves. Freelancers are obviously there because they need work, yet you have to pay to try to get work. That makes a lot of sense! And I say try because you have to bid on a job you're interested in. The more you pay, the better place in line they put you in to try to get you noticed. On top of that, you have to pay even more money once you get a job. They take a percentage of anything you make. I say anything because you're lucky if you even get a job. Most people that post jobs are either scammers or want to pay you absolutely nothing. If you need help with anything, you can never talk to a live person. And if you're lucky enough to get a response from Upwork via email, their response has nothing to do with your question. So it's absolutely pointless! It's just not worth it. These guys tried to create something new, but it's just a money grab. Stick to temp services.

I tried to open a freelancer account. After I uploaded my picture to my profile, I received an email saying it violated their policy. Why? Because they didn't think it "belonged" to me. When I questioned further, and said in fact it was a photo of me, then uploaded another, different photo, I was sent a generic email and told to verify my identity by scanning and sending them several government-issued and other bank documents. Um, no. Stay away from this organization.

Upwork is a platform where you can earn extra money or find permanent job position. Basically, you don't gave to worry about Upwork reliability, keep searching and you will earn good money if you are good at your field of services that you can provide.

Se let my empty my bowels of the disgust i have for UPWORK.

I paid for the account, found clients worked for them. Got paid once and after that received an email from them that i need to have a call with one of their reps.

They told me to state my name and address, which i did.

They asked me what AJAX stands for which i didn't know the definition off (I never stated i do AJAX on my profile). After that question the representative hung up. 3 minutes later i receive an email stating "Your account is suspended". I write to them to explain what i did wrong and get some bogus reply that my personal data is incorrect.

If someone from UPWORK is reading this atleast be consistent and cite the same reason of suspension. Not first time your personal data is incorrect and in the second write you are in breach of policies.

To sum it up... stay away from UPWORK!

I've been with Upwork since Jan 2005 and have landed some very lucrative projects on the platform. If you're a competent freelancer, produce good work on time, and have an eye for customer service you'll likely do very well there.

There are two areas I think the platform could improve, however:

1) Weed out lowball clients who want to pay digital slave wages for work - it detracts from the experience in my opinion.
2) Reconsider their charges which are excessive. 20% on the first $500 you earn with a client is well above industry average, and only once you earn in excess of $10,000 with a client do they drop to a more realistic 5%.

There are also additional charges for "connects" which you need to apply for contracts.

Overall, I have earned a substantial portion of my income on the platform and rate it as a solid option for serious freelancers.

Les Blythe
Technology & Security Writer, Content Strategist, Marketer (ex IBM)
LesBlythe.com

I am glad to writing about one of my great inspiring platform who allow me to ultize my skills from sitting at home without travel to abroad or leaving your love one in native country. Up work allow us to do some thing out of the box. Especially during these days it helps me allot when i loose hope and there is no way of earning so here finally i started worked on up-work or within 5 days i have started getting paid.

I must appreciate to this platform to providing opputubity all around the globe which could help a lot unemployed

Best Regard
Amir Ali

It's an unprofessional site with little good work to go around. If you're a writer/graphic designer, there are far too many unserious, cheap clients who want the world but are only willing to pay $20.

The system is set up to help clients, not freelancers. If you want to bid on a project (which most of the time costs you money by way of their "Connects" system) in more than one category (such as design AND marketing) then you have to pay monthly for a membership plan. It's just a blatant money grab from hopefully young professionals. But once you join, you realize the jobs are of such poor quality, there's no point even bidding.

Elance also seems to do nothing to deter spec work since SO many of the writing jobs I've seen plainly ask for spec work right in the job posting. Best to avoid.

I have used Upwork for years and was very happy until about 1 year ago. An example, after having a job posted 1 week, I upgraded the posting for $29.00. This would get me "great talent", personal up work counselor to help in the search. Not only did I see the exact same candidates that I had on the free, the counselor was a joke... "Do you want me to resubmit your posting"? "Ummm, no I think I can do that myself". After 2 days and no hires I asked for a refund, asking them to compare my paid vs free (the same), they declined. Talent has gone way down as well because they charge freelancers so much!

Just got my perfect 5 star account banned because I had jobs opened from people who never paid to see if they would comeback to pay me. So basically if Elance sees you're being scammed by non paying clients they will close your account, get this the reason will be

"Unfortunately, your client satisfaction remains low and that, we believe, has a significant negative impact on our community and users and indicates a violation of the Terms of Service."

Even though my account (as I type this) is a perfect 5.0 stars with over 50 jobs completed.

They protect scamming freelancers I would never use again after my experience. A 'Top rated' freelancer charged me for $1100 for SEO work which he didn't carry out and after raising a dispute Upwork sided with him because he'd been logging hours in his work diary. They didn't even bother to check for proof that he hadn't carried out the work (which I had lots) or checking our work conservation history which they could have easily seen he was seriously shady including deleting many parts of our conversation to cover his tracks. Apparently, some freelancers have found a way to fake good feedback and jobs and nothing has been done about it. If they don't act now they will quickly lose the reputation they have built up so far.

I received an email from Upwork today claiming I have a possible online interview for a job at CBRE. I set up the interview per the emailed instructions and about 10 min into it there were red flags everywhere--the person posing as hiring manager is asking me to buy $200 worth of iTunes cards to be used to "upgrade a laptop" they are sending me next week so that I can work right away. I called a local CBRE office and confirmed it was a scam. So shame on you Upwork! I deleted my account right way.

This toxic company was all right when it started, but evolved into a flagrant example of the sociopathy currently destroying American capitalism. It has sought and obtained a laughable US patent on online competitive bidding. It has tried to compel honest workers into unethical practices and robbed them of the ability to seek justice though arbitration clauses. If workers tried to leave, the company could apparently invent and circulate falsehoods against them, perhaps without legal recourse. I'd say stay far away, but apparently it's finally closing down. I hope they try to turn it around in their next endeavors.