UpworkReviews 2,128

Elance closed my account for no reason First, they contacted me saying my account doesn't contain original content... without explaining what that means. I've had the same account for 3 years. All 4.9-5 star reviews.And after a week they notified me that my account is closed because the clients were not satisfied with my work... I asked to tell me who are those clients and why they didn't leave a bad review so I can respond, to which they replied they are not allowed to give me that kind of information and that is their final decision.

What I recently found is that the elance may have a team who post the project and yes fake projects. Now if we bid on this project there is no response and the connect is gone too. Like this they sell connects for more profit.
Recently I applied for a job and I was awarded and after that I could not post any messages to the client. Now this issues happened and i did not got any message from the client too. So to keep my profile clean I closed the job. Now since then they have blocked me. Now how the hell do I know. So Elance is Going to be a big SCAM. In coming days Scam from Elance is going to be famous. Elance Scam as I searched and found tons of result. This confirms that the elance is really doing something fishy to trap users and loot their money throught selling the connects and posting the fake projects.

This's not about scammers or about how bad they've treated me (not the case)

I'm not going to waste much time saying how many times their platform is down or the countless number of bugs we Upwork users have to endure.

I want to focus rather on the fact that they don't care about their community. They don't listen. I'm going to give an example for everybody to understand how they act: they've introduced a new rating system (Job Success) that's completely opaque. You have some suggestions about how the system operates but most of the rating algorithm is unknown. All you have as a freelancer is a number. Really.

That metric's the first thing that clients get to see and you find suddenly that your >30 projects finished with 5-starts are replaced by a Job Success of 65%. No kidding. Your many 5-starts are removed from the forefront and remain in your profile where clients will not make to.

Nobody will tell you why you have such a low Job Score no matter how many times you contact Customer Support and you end up out of business (no discerning client contracts anybody whose Job Success is that low)

To add insult to injury the rating system is retroactive and things that were perfectly acceptable before (e.g. Closing a contract or having idle contracts) affect now your Job Success dramatically. You cannot do anything since it is already in your history. That's how they do things.

So, be careful with these guys. Do use their platform but look out: they cannot care less about their freelancers. You may be a quite successful freelancer using their platform and one week later they've moved the goalposts and you are out of business.

I had a skirt that I wanted a pattern for. Elance has pattern makers so I thought this is perfect.
Submitted a photo and got a reply and hired this guy who I will name later.in reading his resume it states in printable format, so I ask for PDF format. Maybe I do not know the ins and outs of pattern making but I knew what I wanted.so once it was finished he sent and I could not get it to print in any PDF. Tried for days, finally frustrated told him this is not what I paid for I needed to print it out. But evidently printing on a4 copy paper cost more money, now I'm mad.not willing to pay more.so he sent me the measurements and for about a week I tried to make the pattern by his measurements, only to finally get it sewed together and it was not right. Completely different skirt. Wasted my time and money here.do not buy from pattern maker unless you know the ins and outs of pattern making. Never again!

Elance has a consistent reputation of treating freelancers like trash. A simple Google search shows that Elance will not hesitate to go against freelancers and has consistently sided with clients who are at fault. In addition, they randomly close accounts of freelancers that have consistently good track records with the vague response that client dissatisfaction has increased, and will provide NO evidence to back their decision. Furthermore, in their own TOS, they specifically point out that they have the right to close any account, whenever they want, no questions asked and no heads up given.

This is a HORRIBLE company that doesn't have freelancers that generate money for them in mind. STAY AWAY.

I used to think Elance was great. I had great ratings, and satisfied customers, and they made plenty of money off me. Then they just closed my account for no reason. I discovered I am not alone - they did this to many freelancers, who knows why. Some algorithm fires you without warning. BEWARE.

One day you get a mail informing you that they honeymoon is over. No explanation, except for a generic mail that doesn't apply, and that's it. Goodbye, don't call us... we won't call you. Sadly, they are still holding on to my earnings, never mind that the rent is due. I depend on that income, now its gone.

STAY AWAY!

Just got my perfect 5 star account banned because I had jobs opened from people who never paid to see if they would comeback to pay me. So basically if Elance sees you're being scammed by non paying clients they will close your account, get this the reason will be

"Unfortunately, your client satisfaction remains low and that, we believe, has a significant negative impact on our community and users and indicates a violation of the Terms of Service."

Even though my account (as I type this) is a perfect 5.0 stars with over 50 jobs completed.

Well, I have to say I have not been having good luck with freelancers. I posted a project on upwork.com and shortly after that I received an upbeat message from upwork.com saying "XXXXX is a great fit for your job." I had a quick look at the resume of XXXX and his experience looked great, hired him on the spot. Well since he had such a great reference from upwork I gave him the benefit of the doubt and let him bill a couple weeks of work without checking into it in much detail. Well $1100 later and none of the work is done. Reviewing his work log he was spending time looking for other freelancer jobs, browsing the net, not one screen of coding the features I was asking for. I cancelled the project immediately and wrote to upwork to check into it. They shrugged and said its been too long, I should have complained 'within the work week' which is four days.

Lesson learned: Don't give upwork.com the benefit of the doubt with their suggestions, even if the candidate looks good there are scammers operating on their site.

This toxic company was all right when it started, but evolved into a flagrant example of the sociopathy currently destroying American capitalism. It has sought and obtained a laughable US patent on online competitive bidding. It has tried to compel honest workers into unethical practices and robbed them of the ability to seek justice though arbitration clauses. If workers tried to leave, the company could apparently invent and circulate falsehoods against them, perhaps without legal recourse. I'd say stay far away, but apparently it's finally closing down. I hope they try to turn it around in their next endeavors.

I have been a successful freelancer on Elance with an impressive work history and rating and my profile was transferred to Upwork about two months back. I was delighted to get a brand new platform for my work expecting to raise my income and getting more quality jobs but never knew there were several surprises waiting for me. I applied for too many jobs but didn't receive a single project in a month. It's hilarious because it's always an easy cake for me to receive projects on Elance. There's really something WRONG with Upwork.

Beware of Elance - Use at your own risk. I have contracted developers from Elance which have pulled out midway through leaving me with an unfinished build and partial source codes. After filing a dispute with Elance the developer agreed to return a portion of the funds paid to him. That developer never returned the funds and removed his company and himself from Elance. When i asked Elance for assistance i was told that they could only provide me with his contact info and i could persue this matter outside of Elance. So lets review - a developer promoted on their webpage - quits the job and agrees to refund me - instead he closes shop, runs and the organization promoting him, collecting their job fees along with developers payment tells me to persue him outside of them. Elance is designed to bring foreign developers (mine from India) to American entrepreneurs. They wash their hands of the matter providing zero assistance. So now I must hire a lawyer from india (on my own) to retrieve my funds. I never the job completed, lost money and must chase this developer. SAVE YOURSELF THE AGGRAVATION, HEADACHE AND LOST FUND.
STAY FAR AWAY FAR FAR AWAY FROM ELANCE.

Elance has suspended my account for bidding on proposals. It has been almost more than 2 weeks and their risk management department is not replying to my emails and chats. I have chat with customer support services personals but all in vain. I called on elance helpline but they say me that Risk management department will reply you but they are not contacting me. They also have held my money from withdrawing from my account. Its getting worse and worse... I have noticed that lot of people has facing same issue. Now i understood elance is not safe for keeping balance... they are taking long time for solving a simple matter, don't understanding freelancer feelings