Is your Upwork account suspended? Chances are, there’s a good reason for this.
Over the years, many freelancers have signed up to Upwork
just to have their accounts get suspended. While this is frustrating, there is
often a reason for the suspension of an account. The reason for the suspension
will determine if an account can be reinstated or not.
Read on and learn the reasons why an account might get
suspended on Upwork.
Reasons Why Your Upwork Account Was Suspended
Whenever a freelancer gets banned from Upwork, they often
think their situation is unique and hasn’t happened before. In reality, most
accounts are banned from the platform for a select handful of reasons.
Reasons why your Upwork account was suspended include:
- Multiple
accounts
- Paid
outside of Upwork
- Proposal
spam
- Low
hire rate
- Poor
client feedback
- Client
harassment
- Inactivity
Let’s go over these reasons in more detail.
1. Multiple Accounts
It is made very clear in the Upwork Terms of Service that
freelancers are only allowed to possess a single account. If you are caught
owning and operating multiple accounts, they will all be suspended.
No matter what you do, you will be caught. Whether you use a
different IP address or identity, Upwork will find out if you’re operating
multiple accounts. Keep in mind, this is a serious offense.
2. Paid Outside of Upwork
The Terms of Service make it very clear that payments should
not be made off of Upwork. While doing this will save you from having to pay
fees, if you’re caught getting paid off-platform, you will be banned.
This doesn’t mean that you cannot get paid for your services
if you met your clients off of Upwork. What this means is that clients you find
and interact with on Upwork should be considered exclusive to the platform.
3. Proposal Spam
A lot of freelancers try to make the process of submitting
proposals quicker by using templates. Templates are good for structuring
proposals, but the text included in every proposal needs to be unique.
Sending the same proposal to clients repeatedly will result
in your account getting suspended. Proposal spam is not effective and also
makes the experience of finding freelancers worse for clients.
4. Low Hire Rate
In recent years, Upwork has been trying hard to remove
low-quality freelancers from the platform. One of the ways Upwork determines if
a freelancer isn’t up to their standards is by looking at their hire rate.
For example, if a freelancer sends out 100 proposals and
doesn’t get hired, this tells Upwork that the freelancer must not be viewed as
hireable by clients. It may then be determined that the freelancer should be
removed from the platform.
5. Poor Client Feedback
Sometimes, a freelancer will accumulate so much negative
feedback from clients that Upwork has no choice but to step in. Of course, this
happens rarely, but this is one of the reasons why many accounts are suspended
from the platform.
If your account has been suspended and you can recall having
a significant number of poor client reviews, this might be the issue.
Unfortunately, if this is the issue, it’s already too late- you can’t get
better feedback now.
6. Client Harassment
Getting good reviews from clients is important. Since this
is the case, it’s easy to see why a freelancer might ask a client to leave a
positive review. However, even if a request is made, it doesn’t mean that the
client will do so.
Sometimes, freelancers go as far as to harass clients that
leave negative reviews. Client harassment is something Upwork takes very
seriously. So, while getting positive reviews is important, you must never go
out of your way to convince a client to leave a good review.
7. Inactivity
Like every other platform online, Upwork regularly purges inactive
accounts from the platform. This is typically done in the form of an account
suspension. So, if you haven’t used your account for a long time, this might
explain why it was suspended.
Ideally, you should sign in to your account regularly. You
do not need to do so every single day. Doing so every week or two is good
enough to keep your account active. Also, consider submitting a proposal or
browsing the platform as well to show some activity to Upwork.
What Happens When Your Upwork Account Is Permanently
Suspended?
You might be wondering- what happens when your Upwork
account is permanently suspended? Is it purged from the platform, never to be
seen again? Or, does the account get stored in a database for a certain length
of time?
When an Upwork account is permanently suspended, the account
is completely deleted from the platform. Meaning, the account owner cannot
contact customer support in an attempt to get the account reinstated.
Something important to recognize is that not all suspended
accounts are suspended permanently. Accounts suspended for minor offenses can
potentially be recovered if account owners reach out to customer support.
Chances are if your account has been permanently suspended,
you committed a serious offense. Unfortunately, you will be unable to access
your account again due to the severity of the offense you committed.
Can You Create a New Upwork Account if Your Original Was
Suspended?
At this point, you’re probably wondering- can you create a
new Upwork account if your original was suspended? Or, will you be unable to
sell your services on the platform in the future?
You cannot create a new Upwork account if your original was
suspended. Upwork suspends users- not accounts. Meaning, you, as a user, are
suspended from the platform- not just your account.
Your best bet in this scenario is to reach out to Upwork
customer support and explain your situation. Customer support will do their
best to accommodate you, but do not expect your suspended original account to
be reinstated.
If suspended users were allowed to create new accounts,
low-quality freelancers would simply create a new account whenever they got
suspended. As you can imagine, this would cause the platform to become worse
for both freelancers and clients.
Conclusion
You now know some reasons why your Upwork account might have been suspended. Depending on the severity of the offense(s) you committed, you may be able to get your account back. However, this is not guaranteed, and your time on the platform may be over.