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