If an Upwork user states they have fraudulent charges on their billing method from their Upwork account: go to “User Actions” in OBO to look for any password / SQ / email changes made in the last 2 weeks (or, since user believes they last logged in). If this is the case, immediately see a TL to request the AE of the FL’s account who is receiving the funds (or has received the funds) to be suspended AND THEN follow steps here for the CL account:
**Account Takeover (ATO) / Hijacked AccountsBELOW steps are for reports of unknown charges received by the payment holder who is not the Upwork Account Owner (internal info - the “fraudster” is the AO). Many cases turn out to be misunderstandings, but all treated as urgent as there are legitimate cases of stolen payment methods. If a Client mentions any of the following bullet points, please see **Mediation & Disputes > Client Contract Issues Best Practices drop-down:
- FL charged on hourly project and CL believes these are fraudulent as they may not understand the the hourly billing cycle
- CL released upfront payment on Fixed-Price job and FL is not delivering project
- The FL is unresponsive
*Please note: even if the payment method owner knows the person who used their payment method, if they are stating this is fraudulent/unauthorized, do still follow this map process.
Process Map