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The best part about Upwork is that they have invited me to be a premium freelancer and closed my account all in the same day. Hilariously I was told I'm not "go

The best part about Upwork is that they have invited me to be a premium freelancer and closed my account all in the same day. Hilariously I was told I'm not "good enough for the platform". I have had 5 positive job reviews, all pretty much 5 stars. That day I applied for 10-15 jobs as I wanted to bridge the downtime gap between two major gigs. I had 1500$ usd on that account, that I have not withdrawn yet. I was not working for peanut rate, but rather north of 50$/h. Support was unhelpful and I couldn't get a chance to talk to human. Stole my money literally. They deactivated my account, and only after 10th email to their support have they've actually deleted the account. Boycott Upwork.

dmoy 9y ago
For $1500, can you take them to small claims court?
- coupdejarnac 9y ago
  Yes, but there is no way you can collect if the defendant is in another state.
- bkovacev 9y ago
  I probably could have - but at the end of the day, it was money well invested. I moved my business elsewhere (not toptal or any other platform, but a devshop) and told the same thing to 4-5 other devs that are my close friends who were charging about the same rate. At the end of the day, they might have gotten $1500, but they lost 5x that in matter of seconds. I still feel a bit bitter about it though, but I need to let go.
stefantheard 9y ago
Is there more to this? How can they just close an account with $1500 that you earned and call it a day? If what you're saying is true there's no question that it has happened to thousands of other people too.
- bkovacev 9y ago
  The only other thing I could imagine was the problem was that I was interviewed via skype and that the client had asked for my skype account (at the time there was no voice/video through upwork). However, payment was still done through Upwork which is what they care about. Not a single dispute, nothing. I went back and forth about the money, threatening to take them to court, write blog posts etc. But, they were still sending me generic replies. At the time, I really could not have been bothered enough to hire a lawyer and go through with this. The project from which they stole my money from involved a RaspberryPi and some other sensors and modules which was at its infancy, so I have learned quite a bit, so I've let go, but a lesson learned was that I should never work through a mediator (if that's the right word), but rather directly and have a lawyer review my contract. Clients have also loved the fact they're not paying 20% extra. It definitely has happened just read the comments, one guy with 1440$, others with smaller amounts - https://collegetimes.co/upwork-sucks/ https://collegetimes.co/upwork-sucks/ plus other things people are annoyed by with Upwork.

dmoy 9y ago

For $1500, can you take them to small claims court?

coupdejarnac 9y ago
Yes, but there is no way you can collect if the defendant is in another state.
bkovacev 9y ago
I probably could have - but at the end of the day, it was money well invested. I moved my business elsewhere (not toptal or any other platform, but a devshop) and told the same thing to 4-5 other devs that are my close friends who were charging about the same rate. At the end of the day, they might have gotten $1500, but they lost 5x that in matter of seconds. I still feel a bit bitter about it though, but I need to let go.

stefantheard 9y ago

Is there more to this? How can they just close an account with $1500 that you earned and call it a day? If what you're saying is true there's no question that it has happened to thousands of other people too.

bkovacev 9y ago
The only other thing I could imagine was the problem was that I was interviewed via skype and that the client had asked for my skype account (at the time there was no voice/video through upwork). However, payment was still done through Upwork which is what they care about. Not a single dispute, nothing. I went back and forth about the money, threatening to take them to court, write blog posts etc. But, they were still sending me generic replies. At the time, I really could not have been bothered enough to hire a lawyer and go through with this. The project from which they stole my money from involved a RaspberryPi and some other sensors and modules which was at its infancy, so I have learned quite a bit, so I've let go, but a lesson learned was that I should never work through a mediator (if that's the right word), but rather directly and have a lawyer review my contract. Clients have also loved the fact they're not paying 20% extra. It definitely has happened just read the comments, one guy with 1440$, others with smaller amounts - https://collegetimes.co/upwork-sucks/ https://collegetimes.co/upwork-sucks/ plus other things people are annoyed by with Upwork.