Sometimes freelancers get suspended or banned from Upwork for doing something that is against their 1
terms and conditions. 2
So, I'm gonna give you some tips, to make sure that you don't find yourself in a very kind of tricky situation 3
with them. 4
Trying to get paid outside of Upwork is against their terms and conditions. 5
And if they suspect that you've been trying to do that, they will most likely ban your account. 6
This reason is plain and simple. 7
Upwork makes money on transactions and payment transactions, that happens between you and the client. 8
And if you try to take those payments outside of the platform, then they don't make money and you piss 9
them off. 10
You can find more information about this in their terms and conditions. And the clause is called circumvention, 11
not circumcision. And you can find out more about it. 12
This applies not just to current project, that you get from the client, but also all the subsequent 13
projects that come from the same client. 14
There they have that 24-month Non-Circumvention period. 15
So the moment you start working with the clients, there is 24-month period, where you have to keep the 16
relationship on Upwork from that client and get paid on Upwork. 17
So there are sort of triggers in your communication that can raise that red flag. 18
So, because the messaging happens using Upwork's messaging platform, right? 19
So, if in this messaging you discuss things like Payoneer, this would be the red flag trigger 20
words that instantly, kind of, trigger this suspension, automatically. If you mentioned things like 21
Payoneer, Paypal, 22
Bank transfers, Iban's. Anything that is, kind of, can be sort of associated, that you're trying to get paid 23
outside. 24
And it doesn't matter, even if the client is sort of initiating the discussion and they want you to get 25
paid outside. 26
If you agreed to it, or if you are the one, if you kind of mentioned something like "yes" or whatever, then 27
you will get suspended, even if they asked you for it. To make sure, that if a client asks you that you know 28
what, 29
"Let's take this outside". 30
Say "no", you want to keep things on Upwork. 31
Now, most of the suspensions happen automatically. 32
It's just, if you mention something, then AI gets triggered and all that stuff. 33
But sometimes, maybe you mentioned PayPal, not because you wanted to get paid outside, but maybe you're 34
giving an example 35
of the PayPal's website. 36
Maybe you are trying to design a website that is for the banking, or maybe you are designing some 37
E-wallet or something that is related to financing. 38
Then it's okay. Because if you will get automatically suspended, then you can appeal and then a human 39
being will take, take a look at your communication and if they are convinced that you are not trying 40
to get paid outside, but you were kind of discussing this 41
that was part of the project, then it's going to be OK. 42
And they will lift the ban. 43
Now, naturally, if you are discussing this on Skype call or a video call, that is not part of Upwork, 44
right? 45
You know, it's impossible for Upwork to find out. But I do have some good reasons for you to stay actually 46
on Upwork. 47
At the end of the day Upwork is a good thing. 48
It enables so many freelancers to find work. 49
We all want Upwork to make money and not go out of business. 50
And if most of us move relationship out of Upwork, one day they'll just go out of business. 51
Upwork's decreasing commission rate makes it worthwhile. 52
After $500 commission slashes in half, from 20 to 10%. 10% isn't that big. 53
Udemy, for example, takes at least 50% of what I make here. 54
So, Upwork isn't that bad. 55
After 10k earning, it slashes again to 5% fee. That's nothing really. 56
If you got paid through PayPal or credit cards, you still lose 2-3% in transaction fees. And 57
if you'd have to deal with currency conversion on top of that, then you definitely end up losing up to 58
5% anyways. 59
Finally not having to deal with billing is awesome. 60
Your clients get charged automatically. 61
You never have to deal with invoicing and chasing payments, that saves a lot of time and hassle. Because 62
as a freelancer, sometimes there are cases where you do have to chase the clients to pay you on 63
time. 64
But with Upwork it's nice because there, its credit card gets automatically charged and if their credit 65
card isn't working fine, then the client gets suspended on Upwork, so you know about it as 66
well. 67
That saves a lot of time and hassle. 68
Now, second reason why freelancers get suspended on Upwork is if they're sending a lot of proposals, 69
but not getting awarded a lot of jobs. 70
Basically this happens when you're spamming and sending way too many proposals without actually going 71
through them, and kind of deliberately thinking what are you applying, and exactly applying to where you 72
want. 73
No one really knows exactly what's the percentage of success rate that you have to get hired. 74
But there is this rumour, that you have to get hired every 20 proposals that you send, I think. But it's 75
a rumour so, it might not be real, might be less, might be more. But if you applied the 76
tips that you've learned in this section, then that should never happen. 77
Don't put any skills on your profile that you don't have, Upwork sometimes does a random skill check 78
of freelancers and they do these sort of oral test. And they do an interview with a freelancer to make 79
sure whatever they've put under their skills is true. 80
Once actually my account was frozen because of this skill check. They sort of initiated this skill check 81
on my account, then I had an interview with a customer service person and they were kind of quizzing 82
me on HTML and CSS. And it was strange because I never put HTML or CSS as my skills, 83
but I guess because I was under a web design category, they assumed that I'm supposed to know 84
HTML, CSS, even though I never claimed that I knew that. 85
Luckily I was able to appeal and explain to them that I don't need HTML and CSS to do my job, and 86
I that never claimed that I knew it. And they understood and they unfroze my account. 87
But if I had them in my skills, then I would have been totally screwed. 88
The thing is, because Upwork is such a big platform and there's so many people and so much money is 89
moving there, sort of attracts bad actors as well, who are trying to game the system and opening fraudulent 90
accounts and doing, engaging in some different scam activities. 91
So Upwork is very diligent about it. And it's clamping down many different accounts, to make sure that 92
people who are there, they claim who they are and they claim that they know skills and they can 93
perform what they kind of promise to their clients. 94
So, make sure that whatever you put on Upwork everything is true and authentic, and you're not trying 95
to sort of game the system. Because they don't have a big tolerance, or even if something 96
is like, you know, shaky, it's just remove anything that is now 100% truth.