**Best Practices on Account Suspensions

• Click “Add suspensions” button
• Select Suspension to Add: Searchable list of all available suspensions for the agent to apply. It supports
• Inflight Suspensions: Observe the suspensions that you have selected to apply to the Entity that are pending form completion; you may opt to cancel the addition of a suspension
• CSS Note: Similar to the previous suspension iteration, this field allows you to apply a CSS Note to the Entity in relation to the suspension
• Related Zendesk Ticket: Optional field (functions the same as in the old suspensions UI); adding a ticket number here will associate a ZD ticket to the CSS Note
• Tag Category: Optional; applies to CSS Note
• Tag: Optional; applies to CSS Note
• Skip Zendesk Ticket Creation: Without this option selected, the agent will be sent through the Zendesk Ticket Creation Workflow to inform the user of the action against their account

Zendesk Ticket Creation - To Skip or Not to Skip

Initiate Zendesk Ticket” in OBO

In the new system, the “Initiate Zendesk Ticket” tool is now embedded in the workflow. Simply proceed with adding suspensions, and do not opt to “Skip ZD Ticket Creation”

Create Tickets Directly in Zendesk

If your team has been told by your Lead to always create tickets directly in Zendesk, you have the option to skip the guided ZD workflow process and take user communication outside the tool.

Note: These steps are here to show how to add a suspension, however, only follow these steps if advised to do so. Confirm with your Team Lead as needed.

Use Case Example #2: Apply Credit Card Fraud Suspension (old) with AE and Skip Zendesk Guided Workflow

Use Case Example #3: Apply Credit Card Fraud Suspension (old) on Company including associated AEs

• Select Suspension to Resume: Which suspension(s) to resume
• Resume Reason: Provide the reason that the resumption is being applied
• CSS Note: Similar to the previous suspension iteration, this field allows you to apply a CSS Note to the Entity in relation to the suspension
• Related Zendesk Ticket: Optional; applies to CSS Note
• Tag Category: Optional; applies to CSS Note
• Tag: Optional; applies to CSS Note

With support, agents can mainly resume suspensions that are financial based, such as these:

• User had an expired CC
• Past due balance, or
• Aging balance suspension
• Automated CC fraud suspension
• Needed to update an AE due to company transfer

Use Case Example: Resume Feedback Building Suspension (new) 

Q: I just applied a suspension, but it still shows that it is “Pending Add”, when will it update?

A: To confirm that your suspension has completed execution, refresh the browser window. This will pull the latest status of all suspensions

Q: Where do the “Final Determination” and “Zendesk group” options come from?

A: These are populated based on your permissions within Zendesk

Q: What if my suspension has been revamped, and I don’t know what it is called anymore?

A: Until you are familiar with the new suspension code or name, feel free to search by the old suspension. It will display as deprecated, and return all new associated suspensions for you to select from

Before closing an account with suspension/s, see if you’re allowed to close the account.

• UFL and non-admission - can be closed immediately
• Payment Risk and CE suspensions - need suspending team's approval before closing
• Review “before closing an account” KB
• When restoring an account, please make sure to re-suspend entities that were previously suspended yet removed when account was restored.

• Look for the ticket sent by the suspending team so you can reiterate its content.
• If no ticket is found about the suspension, look for OBO notes related to the suspension.
• If unsure of what to tell the user, research KBs for approved verbiage. DO NOT share information that is not legally-approved.
• Always coordinate with suspending team and/or Team Lead if OBO CSS Note has no NEXT STEPS or if note is unclear.
• Post your question in the suspending team's Slack channel or escalate ticket to them with your Team Lead’s approval.
• Possible suspension response when a CL/FL reaches out about their suspended FL/CL:

We won’t be able to discuss the status of another user’s account for privacy and security reasons. However, rest assured that decisions to suspend a user’s account are not taken lightly and without fully investigating for TOS violations. Please refer to this help article for general information about common reasons for account suspension. 

• If automated, meaning, no Payment Risk agent linked to the suspension, make sure the user met the NEXT STEP requirements and then resume.
• If manually suspended, meaning, an Payment Risk agent's name is linked to the suspension notes, send the ticket to the Payment Risk agent.
• Keep in mind that for manual Payment Risk suspensions, only Payment Risk may resume the account. But for automatic Payment Risk suspensions, CSS may resume the account once the user's issue is resolved (UPM has been updated and negative balance cleared).

• If client accounting entity is suspended, all active contracts are suspended and they are not able to post new jobs or send an offer.
• AE suspension and unverified billing method (never verified) will prevent the release of funds held in escrow.
• If client accounting entity is suspended, client will not be able to hire.
• If freelancer accounting entity is suspended, freelancer will not be able to make a withdrawal. Active contracts are not affected.
• If freelancer developer profile is suspended, freelancer will not be able to apply.

• If it's apparent the other user can see this info, e.g., suspended due to a payment issue, it's okay to share with details they'd be able to see.
• If the other party cannot see anything at all and there are no details/instructions stating to share, do not share.
• If unsure, see a Team Lead.

IMPORTANT UPDATE January 12, 2023: For any Russia/Belarus account appeals that came through, in the past we had these directed to a special email address - support-appeals@upwork.com. We've learned that a lot of emails that tend to come to that email address are not related to these appeals. Also, since we've launched that special email address, we've since also launched the "File An Appeal Now" button. Because of these 2 points, we've decided to deprecate the appeals email address we created for these cases.

What will happen moving forward and how to assist customers looking to appeal their Russia/Belarus suspensions:

• If anyone does send an email to the deprecated email address, we'll kindly point them in the direction of the appeals form here as well as our How do I reach Upwork Support? article
• We're currently working on all external resources removing the email address and pointing to our appeals form, instead…
• If we receive any Russia/Belarus appeals through the "File An Appeal Now" form, rather than following our Appeal Form process, you'll follow the Russia/Belarus appeals process we have outlined in our **Ukraine and Russia Crisis KB under the "Appeals" drop-down

1. “Reply to the email we sent you. This is the quickest way to start an appeal.” 
2. “Use the form below. Can’t find the email we sent you? No worries, you can use the link below to contact us."

The new "Use the form below" option references a brand new button available for customers that you'll see on that help article: "FILE AN APPEAL NOW"

When a customer clicks that button, they're routed to this form. 

When they fill in that form, a ticket generates to us that looks like this:

How does CS handle these new tickets?

• A touch response is needed in all cases!
• Remember to check existing tickets for that customer and...
• If there's an open suspending ticket already - you will merge that "Suspension Appeal Form Submission" ticket to the existing suspension ticket for the suspending team to review
• If the suspending ticket is 'solved'/'closed' - re-assign the "Suspension Appeal Form Submission" ticket to that team for handling
• If there is NO suspending ticket at all - check OBO CSS Notes to see which team suspended, then re-assign the "Suspension Appeal Form Submission" ticket to that team for handling

Public-facing FAQs on feedback building:

How will I know if my account is suspended for feedback building?

If your account is suspended for feedback building, 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 My Requests inbox. You can also access your My Requests inbox under Help>Disputes. 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. 

What happens if I participated in feedback building without realizing it was wrong and accidentally violated Upwork’s Terms of Service?
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.

Reactive FAQs for agents, internal use only:

Why are several action buttons grayed out?

If the action buttons that you usually use are grayed out, the Trust & Safety team may have suspended your account. In that case, you will have received an email about the action on your account. You can reply to the email to find out more about the action we’ve taken, how to restore access to your account (if possible), and how to submit an appeal.

Self-resumption is solving the problem of automating appeals, providing policy violation notifications in less severe restrictions and actions.

Customer Experience

This experience has an SMF (site-messaging framework) showing at the top of every page which directs customers to self-resumption.

Restricted vs. Warned:

“Restricted” means the suspension is already applied while “Warned” means suspension is not yet applied but will be if the customer does not follow the policy.

Types of SMF

 

Warned Customers SMF:

When an account is warned, they will see a different SMF, but get the same link.

 

Restricted Customers SMF:

Restricted Users see an SMF at the top of every page, and directs them to Self-Resumption.

 

Restricted for Payment SMF:

When an account is restricted for Payment, they will see a different SMF linking them to Update their payment method.