It looks like Upwork doesn’t need freelancers anymore.
I have such feeling after reading of the reason of ban of my account.
I had an account on Upwork almost since it was founded. After several hundreds hours of work I successfully finished several projects with excellent feedback from my clients and earned several tens of thousands dollars. Then, during of several years, I was busy with other things and Upwork switched status of my account to Private because of inactivity.
It means that only people who got my proposals can see my account. In order to switch an account back to Public you need to pay to Upwork or find a client on Upwork and earn money.
Two weeks ago I decided to come back to Upwork and try to find a new client. I made search request “C++” & “expert” & “more than 3 months project” & “hourly payment” and got several tens of jobs. I carefully investigated them all, including descriptions like “Make for me a better Facebook or something like Mass Effect game in 3 months and $200” then I sent about 20 proposals to all jobs with more-less serious descriptions. I can’t send more than 30 proposals because I have only 60 so called “connections” and each proposal costs 2 “connections”. I remember before the ban I had about 24 free “connections”. I sent the proposals with hourly rate $59/hour. As you understand it is not easy to find a job fast with such rate on a website where most of employers looking for “experts” with $3/hour rate. I really seen job descriptions where the employer declared “expert” salary rate but in the description asked to send him proposals with rate $3/hour.
After that Upwork sent me this letter:
“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.”
After my appellation they answered in style “f**k off”:
“I am writing to let you know that we have carefully reviewed your appeal and determined that your Upwork account will remain suspended.”
So they decided that 20 proposals sent during two weeks is a “high number”, two weeks is too long term for finding a serious project longer than 3 months, finishing all negotiations and signing a contract, and they decided that I have no demanded experience on their service. And all this is so big crime that they must immediately ban my account indefinitely.
IMHO it looks crazy!
I have 20 years of experience of work on big projects as a software engineer and system analyst for world famous companies like Accenture, Nokia, Harman International and so on.
I have experience of development for desktop Windows, Linux and embedded Linux, Meego, Android, VxWorks operating systems on C, C++, C#, Java and other languages.
I passed Upworks tests in top 20% for C,C++ and C#.
I successfully finished several projects on Upwork with excellent recommendations and earned $10k++.
Upwork gave me their awards like “rising talent”, something for preferred access to their best employers, I don’t remember details. And after all, these people in Upwork decided that my skills are not demanded on their service so much that they must ban my account immediately. I can see the only reason why my skills may not be demanded — because most of employers on Upwork looking for $3/hour programmers and demand them to develop of social networks like the Facebook for 3 months and couple of dollars or games better than the latest Doom. And because Upwork ban their users for stupid reasons.
I see that actually Upwork now is almost the same as dice.com, indeed.com or carrerbuilder.com and other websites for job search.
Most of job descriptions which I see there are from untrusted accounts, with not verified payment methods or who spent $2000 total for jobs with average rate $3/hour. Many job description are clearly propose direct work bypassing Upwork and look just like typical descriptions of vacancies on Dice.com.
Upwork actually doesn’t protect freelances from cheating because in all disputes they strongly take the side of the employers, disputes are too expensive for most of freelancers, they take too long time, they are very unclear and informal. So many of freelancers prefer pay to the cheater or even leave the Upwork and put up with ban of their account instead of try to enter the dispute. The only difference between Upwork and websites for job search they don’t take part of your money which you earned with employers who you found there and they don’t forbid you to work with your employers directly.
So I decided that it is better to establish my own company and invest my resources to promote my own business instead of spending years of work for promotion of Upwork account which may be banned any moment with senseless reason.
