Feedback building—manipulating Upwork feedback through fake jobs or biased reviews—violates Upwork’s Terms of Service and can lead to account suspension. This includes paying for feedback, reciprocal agreements, or threats. Honest, conflict-free feedback is encouraged, and any coercive behavior should be reported. First-time violations may result in education or temporary suspension.
Keep feedback genuine
Great feedback starts with real work. Trying to boost someone’s profile with fake feedback—called feedback building—goes against our Terms of Service and can lead to account suspension.
Here’s what not to do:
- Don’t create fake jobs just to leave positive reviews (even with someone you know)
- Don’t hire yourself from another account
- Avoid asking someone with a conflict of interest—like your own team member—to leave feedback
All jobs and feedback must reflect real, paid work.
Also, it’s not okay to:
- Offer to pay or refund someone in exchange for positive feedback
- Ask for or offer free work to “earn” a good review
- Threaten to leave bad feedback unless they give you a good one
If a freelancer or client ever tries any of these things with you, you’re not expected to go along with it. Feel free to report it—Upwork takes it seriously.
It’s fine to ask for honest feedback at the end of a project, just make sure it’s respectful and pressure-free. A kind reminder goes a lot further than a demand.
Frequently Asked Questions
We’ll let you know in several ways. We’ll send you an email notification and put a notification at the top of every page you see in Upwork with a link to more information in your support requests inbox. You can also access your My Requests inbox under the Help icon (?) > Your support requests. As a result of the block, some actions on the website will no longer be available to you. The buttons for these actions will be grayed out, made invisible, or redirect you to an error page.
To find out more and provide details about your specific situation, reply to the email notification we sent you about the suspension. Your reply will go straight to the team that is reviewing your case.
If this is your first violation, we may provide education about how you violated Upwork’s Terms of Service or ask you for more information about your activity. We may leave your account active or suspend your account until we can resolve this with you, depending on how serious the issue is. If you’ve had serious or repeated violations, we may block your Upwork account permanently. You can learn more about what happens when you violate Terms of Service here.