If you've seen an email from Trust & Safety (T&S), you're probably wondering who we are and why we exist. Here's what you need to know.
Why do we have a Trust & 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.
The T&S 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 would the T&S 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 might we do?
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—to 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.
- Give a restriction—to temporarily ban your activity on Upwork after you've broken our TOS. The more seriously you break the rules, the longer the ban will be. But your account will go back active when you fix the problem and commit to following our TOS in the future.
- Implement a block—to stop you from using Upwork altogether. This happens if the offense is serious enough or if you've repeatedly violated our TOS.
The more serious the action, the more likely it is that we'll have to put a longer restriction on the account or even block it entirely. And if your account has been blocked by us in the past, you will not be allowed to work on our platform again, and any new accounts you create will be closed.
Frequently Asked Questions
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.
You'll get a faster answer and sort the issue out sooner if you reply directly to the email from the Trust & Safety team. You're still welcome to contact our support team, but bear in mind that they aren't authorized to handle Trust & Safety issues.
The best thing to do is reply to the email we sent, sharing any details that give us your side of the story. That way our Trust & Safety team can address the issue with all the necessary information.
