The Security Period - Protecting You From Fraud

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We’re serious about protecting all of our users from fraudulent transactions, and we are constantly working to ensure our site remains the safest and most secure place to hire or find work. Today we’re introducing a new weapon in our fight against fraud - the security period.

What Is The Security Period

Effective January 18, 2016, a small number of transactions will be locked for a security period of between 7 and 15 days. During the security period, freelancers will be able to see the funds in their accounts, but these will not be available for withdrawal until the security period is up. The locked transactions can be found on the Pending Transactions tab on the Transaction History page.

Which Payments Will Be Subject To The Security Period?

The security period will be applied to selected transactions as determined by the following factors:

  • Freelancer's and employer's trust score
  • Freelancer's and employer's account age
  • Freelancer's dispute rate
  • Freelancer's reputation
  • Employer's credit card verification
  • Freelancer's and employer's suspicious activity

Most transactions will not require a security period, and so will be available for withdrawal immediately. If you find that a large number of your transactions are affected, try improving your trust score, and working with users with higher trust scores.

Duration Of The Security Period

The length of the security period depends on your trust score. The trust score is a new way to measure how legitimate a freelancer or employer is, and you can learn more about it here.

The security period can last up to 15 days for freelancers with a low trust score, but the duration can be shortened by verifying your identity on the Trust and Verification page. A higher trust score leads to a shorter security period, which means you can withdraw your payment faster.

Posted 11 January, 2016

flDyan
flDyan Staff

Junior Product Marketing Manager at Freelancer. Outside of work, I'm into wedding coordination, entrepreneurship, beach trips, badminton, reading novels, and binge-watching TV series on Netflix.

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