UpworkReviews 2,128

I have had great success with similar platforms over many years so thought I would try Upwork. The developer ignored my entire requirements and just produced a single page that was more limited than our mock-up page. He managed to get me to pay half up front though and was demanding the rest! I tried to contact upwork about it and they passed it off to some other company for arbitration. They didn't respond for weeks and then asked a few obvious questions and then never showed up again. I cannot even leave a review on the project to warn others!
They don't care since they are holding my funds!
This is a total scam!
When I contact them they say they have too many claims to keep up with them so they cannot do anything!

I have submitted three emails to the Upwork staff regarding an email they sent me that had errors in it on their end. Every. Single. Email. EVERY ONE of them I got an instant email back with the same generic "we can't accept you because there isn't demand for it." Meanwhile, more than 1,600+ jobs are sitting wide open, ready for people who are willing and able to work to get clients projects completed.
What gets me is that they already had the information from me as to what my skill sets were (for which I am evidently being denied) - before I even was required to put in my personal details, such as my workplace, physical address, and phone number. So now, not only does this company have my information - they won't even consider allowing me to apply for jobs with them.
Stay the heck away from this company. Please. I wanted to have faith in this company, but their automatic system is murdering them.

Right off the bat I knew there was a problem with the testing. First exam I got 4.5/5 and there was NO WAY I missed any question-- 40 for 40 spot on.
I ask them to SEE the questions I "answered wrong" Oh we don't administer the test. So I go and find out--on my own, that ExpeRating does the tests. It took forever to get to a live person, and their response was--the test questions follow what we teach IN OUR COURSE--forget if they are right or not--and YOU can PAY to take our course.
I am so outta here! MENSA, PHI BETA KAPPA obtw.

The idea of Upwork is actually quite a good one. Find a freelancer matching the skillset you need, and pay competitive prices for it.

However, as seen with the majority of the rest of these reviews, they don't actually offer any protection to the customer, with cowboy freelancers rife. I've now used three different freelancers that have blatantly lied about their skills in order to get paid.
Upwork claim that they have buyer protection in place, but their system to refund is flawed and doesn't make sense for the workflow of any business.
All the protection is on the freelancer, use with caution and if in any doubt, claim before 30 days after first payment.
My advice: avoid, use a competitor.

I find this intriguing to say the least! I closed my account within one hour simply because of a typo. Yes, thats righta typo.
You see, when you begin the sign up process with Upwork, if you make a mistake on your real name, you cant go back that one step and fix it, as you are caught in a loop of the process. I didnt think much of it, figuring that I could always go back and edit my typo in my nameI typed Micahel, reversing the a and the h.
Guess what? Couldnt be done! I searched and searched and tried to find a customer service CONTACT form or emailno such luck. So after spending a ridiculous amount of time that on any other LEGIT site (like freelancer) would have taken 30 seconds, I decided that if they cant provide me with a contact method, I dont need them, because what if I have issues with a client?
After reading ALL the MASSIVE number of complaints here, I know I made the RIGHT decision.

After working as a freelancer on Upwork and receiving outstanding reviews, I was unlucky enough to accept a contract with one shady company, AWI MEDIA, they are supposedly based in the UK (they are actually based in Dubai). After trying to pay me absolute crap money I decided to finish up the contract with them and politely told them I would be finishing up with them. They didn't take kindly to this and so decided to leave abhorrent feedback on my record after abusing my through messages, which they promptly deleted. I reported the abuse to Upwork and was advised that because they had deleted their abusive message that the Upwork admin couldn't read it and therefore couldn't take action. I found this to be quite unbelievable that they have no control over seeing what has been posted on their site! I find it more believable that they can read it but they choose not to take action against the perpetrator. Obviously I won't be using their site any more. They either don't care or are powerless to ensure that clients are doing the right thing by freelancers.

I've been working on upwork for a long time (since it was an Odesk).
I was excited when they moved to a new domain upwork.com. I hoped that it will improve some small issues that Odesk had. But unfortunately, when I started using the new site, it became the worst experience working with a freelance platforms.
Guys trying everyday to improve the site usage but I'm not sure when they will get success.
Anyway, there are a lot of good specialist on the site.

Now they have increased their fees to 20% up to $500 which is insane, but offers have only decreased. They also added 3% fee to clients... Clients are increasingly stingy, and since I have no intention of working for UpWork I will limit my time spent on any flat fee project to whatever I am getting paid, not any portion going to UpWork. I'm a licensed attorney and have found good clients on Odesk previously, which was a great site, however now its dried up into a desert, and they have the nerve to rip us off more and more. I attempt to remove all clients from the site asap so I can charge what I'm worth.

I have used this site for several freelance projects. I also help clients in my non-profit to start their own businesses and have recommended Upwork to them. Because of this Upwork suspended my account claiming I had multiple accounts. They will not tell me why they think this but listed several of my clients as "linked."
I explained the situation and asked why they thought this. They are all separate individuals with their own accounts and verified financial accounts. However Upwork still tried to demand copies of driver licenses and bank statements to "prove" these were individuals.
This is an absolute violation of privacy and completely unreasonable not to mention unnecessary. I will have to find a new site for myself and my many clients to use.

If I could leave less than 1 star, I would in a heartbeat.

I freelanced through Upwork when it was still oDesk. At first, as an absolutely green freelancer, it was great. That was until I stopped getting paid on contracts.

I was never paid almost 2k for articles completed on a contract run by oDesk themselves. The "editor" on the project claimed a portion was plagiarized, in spite of it being in quotations and the source properly cited (as per the instructions on the contract). I wasn't paid for any of the articles I'd submitted for the past month.

I learned my lesson at that point, but instead of closing my account then, I just left it, not thinking. Tonight, I tried logging in to delete the account, as I'm currently pursuing other work in the field again (willing to give it another try after 4 years), only to find that I can't close the account.

Even when initially working with them, I was disheartened by being passed over on contracts by other freelancers offering 1/10 of the fee that I was, only to be asked by the same client later to edit and fix the poor quality content the first freelancer provided.

I'd never work for a site like this again. User be warned.