Learn what Upwork’s Trust and Safety team does, when they take action, what actions they can take, and how you’ll know if your account is affected.
In this article
- Why does Upwork have a Trust and Safety team, and what does it do?
- When does the Trust and Safety team take action?
- What type of action can the Trust and Safety team take?
- How will I know if the Trust and Safety team has taken action on my account?
Why does Upwork have a Trust and Safety team, and what does it do?
To succeed on Upwork, you need to trust that the people you're dealing with are honest, and that you're safe from things like fraud and scams.
Our Trust and Safety team is here to uphold that trust —and keep you safe. We do that by establishing rules about what's allowed, and then identifying and dealing with anything (or anyone) that could damage trust in Upwork, whether the target is you, other users or the Upwork platform itself.
When does the Trust and Safety team take action?
There are two reasons why we'd get involved:
- To stop something bad from happening, like someone committing fraud or breaking our policies
- To tackle something bad that's already happened
What type of action can the Trust and Safety team take?
First, we'll establish the facts of the case. Then we'll respond depending on how serious the issue is and whether it's a repeat offense.
These are the three routes we might take:
- Provide education. Let's say you've broken our Terms of Service (TOS). Sometimes, you'll need to change something (such as your job post or profile). But otherwise, your account will stay active and you won't need to do anything else other than agree to comply with our Terms of Service moving forward
- Temporarily limit what you can do on Upwork. The more seriously you break the rules, the longer the ban will be. But your account will be active again once you fix the problem and commit to following our TOS in the future
- Implement a permanent block. You won't be able to use Upwork again. This happens if the offense is serious enough or if you've repeatedly violated our TOS. Note: Any new Upwork accounts you create will also be closed
How will I know if the Trust and Safety team has taken action on my account?
We'll send you an email explaining the situation and what you need to do to resolve it. That email is a ticket, which means that your reply goes straight to the team handling your case.