Upwork 

Fake jobs fake invitations, lack of service, and highly problematic business practices overall. For example,
they send unwarranted notifications of a policy violation for providing contact information in proposals when this is blatantly not the case. In this way, they are literally robbing freelancers of work. Several times clients sent me an invitation after perusing my profile, which I accepted only to find that my proposals were removed for the above unwarranted policy violation. This has continued to occur for months even though Upwork support promised it wouldn't and admitted it wis an engineering problem. again In NO CASE was contact information provided as I understand the TOS. In short, the site is highly unreliable, engages in highly questionable business practices and is full of spam/fake job posts.

Proceed at your own risk.

You will lose your money on upwork. It’s a horrible platform that a regulator needs to shut down. Use any other service but this one.

I tried to be a worker here. THE STUPID PLATFORM BLOCKED MY ACCOUNT AND STOLE MY EARNED MONEY.

When I started back in 2016, it was ok but now it has become a scam itself without other scammers. Back in 2016, they offered 10 connects and charged 1 to 3 connects per job application. So, it made sense. But now, they do not give any free connects and if they do (10 per month), you need at least 15 to 30 connects for one job application. I think that they are posting fake jobs and charging freelancers for applying for the counterfeit jobs and buying connects for nothing. Guru is still reasonable in terms of connects but not many employers use it for no understandable reason. Otherwise, Guru is better.

DO NOT USE UPWORK - unless you have your Solicitor reading EVERY word of your requirements. Which most of use do not because we expect Honesty, Integrity and Professionalism.

YOU WILL NOT FIND THESE ATTRIBUTES ON UPWORK!

The freelancers are JOKE and use legal maneuverability to LITERALLY STEAL your money with UPWORKS's blessing as this is how they make money!

DISGUSTING!

Please Note: Most of the Excellent reviews are from Freelancers! A place where they are well catered for stealing money from unsuspecting, innocent customers.

UPWORK, from actual experiences of ours, is INFESTED with corrupt freelancers with no TALENT.

BE CAREFUL!

Is this not a scam, Upwork? We buy Connects to bid on jobs, but if we don't get hired, we lose those Connects without any refund. Why should freelancers bear the full risk while you keep the money? It's disappointing and unfair. If clients don't respond or hire, freelancers should get their Connects back.

This system feels like it's designed to profit from freelancers, not support them. It’s a shame that a platform meant to empower freelancers operates this way. Maybe it’s time to create a better platform myself, one that actually cares about fairness.

Verification on Upwork DOES NOT WORK.
You spend ages taking a photo of your passport ... it doesn't work so they let you take a normal photo... then they send you straight back to the first page and ask you to take a photo of your passport...useless, can't even use their website... hopeless

Didn't even get to work on this platform because Upwork flagged my activity as 'suspicious'. I can't verify my ID, can't do any job.

Upwork says I should check my email for further information, but I didn't even receive one. Also, submitting an appeal on their Help Center didn't help, 7 days and still no response from their part.

Good thing they do not give any timeframe, so it seems like it will took forever ...

Tried to migrate one profile to another (with a staff member leaving). Too hard for upwork, more like "hardwork" with no results. I feel like free labour and I don't think they're paying much for the paid labour, based on the replies; going to Fiverr or anywhere else. Stay clear.

Oh my god, such a really bad platform, they cost me the thing they called "connects", 1.5$ for only 10 connects???? but each project will cost you 8 - 20 connects, so basically each project you bid will be 1.5$, the thing really funny is they never return that to you and you just keep buying "connects" for no reason, it also have pretty much fake project posting by clients.

A bad company, avoid at all costs.

They blocked my account for mentioning the word “pay” when I hadn’t had any intention to take payments off the platform

I just now found out that I need to prove who I am -- "ID verification" -- just to look for a freelancer. I have no means in my computer to be able send them what they require, so I would have to find it a business in town to do it for me.

JUST to find a freelancer!

Uhhh, submitting my credit card info for payment should be enough, don't ya think?

Nope. I'll just use Fiverr, Linkedin, or any other half a dozen places that do not do this.

I know it is not that big of a deal, I can drive five miles into town -- it's just a dumb way to do business.

I also understand that it is necessary for those who are hiring themselves out. If I was a freelancer, I would not have a problem with this.

They finally made it impossible to use the website in peace, with so many super-annoying issues and flows. I cannot even delete my freelancer profile, no matter how many times I tried. Required me to take a selfie to verify my account (I'm a member from times that UpWork was not even UpWork), asks to smile, then stop smiling, then hold steady for a minute - what a joke! I hate to be using this platform.

Upwork feel like waste of time and money. Many job announcements seem fake and clients never respond or hire someone. it costs 1-1.5$ to apply job and you are competing 50+ others most of the time. they are milking our connections

Absolute garbage of a system. Upwork's the place to find bottle-of-the-barral clients and waste a ton of time. Every small job you get they take your money. Everything's automated so if you make one typo out of line BOOM - account suspended.

Credit card fraud by Upwork - I signed up and then wasn't able to use the platform. They charged me money anyway and won't refund.

STAY AWAY FROM THIS SCAM

I honestly love the way they helped me create my resume manually, but I saw a job that I liked, and was qualified for,I clicked on it happily,only to find out that I have to buy connection before I could get the job
Even if they wanted to come up with such policy, they should at least give like 2 to 3 trial to beginners

The lowest rating is one star but they don't deserve that I would give them a negative number if it was possible. Our company has been a member of Upwork for several years but I will only reference our experience over the last three years. We have had everything from scammers in developing countries to American contractors with mental health issues and everything in between but what is worse is the complete lack of support from Upwork and absolutely no customer service at all. You are stuck with trying to deal with idiotic AI driven chat bots that can't answer anything or do anything to assist you and if you are ever able to speak to a human being it's some low wage person working in a call center that is reading off a script and has no interest or ability to resolve any problem. All of these freelance companies are completely out of control they're like Cowboys in the Wild West completely unregulated and beyond the reasonable legal reach of any of their customers.
As a business person I would warn any person or company not to use this company services and if you're doing web or IT work to certainly never give login or password information to any of the people on the site Upwork has no idea who they actually are has no control over their behavior and if something goes wrong they are not going to do squat to help you.
There are many other more reputable ways to find freelance workers this company is a total train wreck and you'll be lucky if you're not ripped off or have your companies security breached. I have well documented every one of my disasters with Upwork and I'm seriously considering litigation for sure if there's a class action act in the future and I'm within the statute of regulations I will participate.

Worst costumer support i have ever tried.

They where having payment issues and the page said to call costumer support to get passed it. Then i searched everywhere to find a number, or a chat. After finally finding a number through upwork.pissedconsumer a recorded keep saying to wait. And then in the end that voice says i should file it through the website & then it hangs up.