Upwork

I'm an employer. I have been an Elance customer for more than a year and spent in excess of $20k, I was forced onto the Upwork platform this week. After noticing Upwork deducting funds from my paypal account without my consent or knowledge I tried to get answers, their listed phone number is an answering machine saying 'this number is no longer in use'.

I tried their online chat and got told, they deduct funds every Monday... and that was that! I removed permission for them to access my paypal account, and cancelled all hourly contracts. I had two fixed price contracts that were already paid in advance, Upwork had all the funds in escrow.

Upwork wrote to both freelancers that they had funds in escrow and told them to stop work or they would not be paid. I again asked Upwork to fix this, considering they already had the funds in escrow, their response was, re authorize access to your paypal account and the stop will be lifted.? I had already paid the entire contract in advance and they had the funds.

They refused to refund the money in escrow, I have had to revert to Paypal to get a refund. NEVER AGAIN will I hire through Upwork.

The platform is buggy and slow. Still, is is the largest freelancing site in terms of user base. With the acquisition of Elance, they are the only place to go. Enlace had way better interface, though Upwork still has some nice things, such as multiple categories for users.

As in most freelancing sites, the top 10% are getting 80% of gigs. The lower 10% gets another 10% of gigs, and the 80% down below gets 10% of gigs. It is very competitive, and many gigs are never awarded. Amateurs will not survive there, but pros can use it for certain amount of income.

It varies, as some months you earn a lot, others you earn nothing. I would not recommend to depend on it for your single income source until you have a killer profile and reputation. If you are really a pro and are willing to put up the time to create a killer profile, market it, study your competition, study market prices within Upwork, work and gather reviews for your profile, it can be a good income source. It can take anywhere from 6-18 months, depending if you are on it full time or part-time.

I hate writing reviews but since I am always asking my clients to do so for my work I feel like it is only fair to do the same for the platform that has allowed my success to happen. Upwork is the best freelancer platform there is, and the reason why is not because if a friendly website but because it is a platform that connects people from all over the world giving them the opportunity to create amazing things when finding the right people. I have been using Upwork for the last 12 months and the first days are the hardest until you start losing jobs, in the past 6 months I have produced over 50k in revenue and working half the time I used to (pretty damn good for a freelancer that travels around the world with no set schedule and sometimes even works with a tall beer looking at palm trees.)

If you are hesitant about Upwork, just give it a try, its free and you go nothing to lose. Believe me, the squeeze is worth the squeeze.

If you ever need help or advise feel free to reach out to me since I know at the beginning it can be a bit hard but with time it gets a whole lot easier.

https://groupthink.myportfolio.com/

It was an awesome experience to work here. Upwork gives me a great chance to go ahead with my service and works

UPDATE: Upwork finally paid me the money it owed me as of April 29... on June 15. After taking its $150 fee for "facilitating" the project. I don't know if I'll ever take a job through Upwork again. Too much headache, no accountability.

ORIGINAL POST: Upwork is currently withholding $1,500 that I earned a month ago and refusing to transfer these funds to my bank account. I completed 25 hours of legal research work for a client through Upwork at the end of April 2016, relying on the fact that Upwork showed the job was funded for the agreed upon $1,500 project fee, signaling to me that the client had placed the money in escrow with Upwork and I would be paid promptly upon successful completion of the project. I completed the project end of April and the client authorized the $1,500 payment in early May, then Upwork notified me that due to unspecified "issues" with the client's account, they will not transfer funds to my bank, "in case we need to reverse funds from your client's payment that do not qualify for the Upwork Payment Guarantee." Don't take jobs through Upwork. They clearly do not have your back as a legitimate knowledge worker.

Upwork is the worst of them all...
Biggest mistake elance did was merge with odesk... suspended my account and i quote:

We are contacting you to let you know we have suspended your access to Upwork indefinitely.

Our decision is based on a careful review and the fact that you have submitted a high number of proposals for jobs on our site without many contracts or earnings. Unfortunately, this means the jobs posted by clients are not a good match for your skills.

I know this news is likely disappointing to you. But our goal at Upwork is to enable freelancers to successfully connect and collaborate with clients who need their skills and expertise. Unfortunately, this means we must part ways with freelancers whose skills are not in demand in our marketplace.

If you want to appeal this decision, you can email us at *******@upwork.com. Please note each case will be manually reviewed by our Trust & Safety team to decide if your account can be reinstated.

Please know we dont make decisions like these lightly and wish you the best of luck in your future endeavors.

Regards,

Upwork Trust & Safety

What BS... since elance and odesk merged, i havnt gotten 1 client... i have a score of 5/5 from about 15 projects... not only i didnt get a client, i never got 1 response from a bid ive done... these new "staff" screen your bids...
DO NOT USE UPWORK. WASTE OF ENERGY, EFFORT... its good for cheap labor and cheap clients

I've been working on upwork for a while, and i love working as an independent freelancer.
Their payment protection is awesome.

Upwork is secure, trustworthy and reliable both for clients and freelancers. If you want to avoid bad experience! Sign up now!

I was a newbie and had gotten tired of looking for freelance work that wasn't a scam, but then I was reading about upwork sites kept recommending them as legit. The past two weeks I have wasted time interviewing with so called HR people on Google hangouts. One company claimed to be City Group bd which means in Bangladesh. The other claimed to be located in Turkey. I gave it the benefit of the doubt because I thought maybe a global company could be on the site, but no they wanted my online banking id an password and when I said no. They said it was necessary for the job. I told them they could pay via PayPal, or through the site they tried to press the issue. They still tried to convince me to complete the fake orientation tasks. I actually had to do alot of research to finish the tasks before I realized that this is B. S. I have since deleted the upwork app an not looking back. I contact their feedback support and let them know also I told them I would just take my chances freelancing on Craigslist at this point. I will now just go back to my original plan of starting a business. I just hate I took this detour trying to find work from home jobs.