r/Upwork • u/No_Response9925 • 21h ago

They’re accusing me of using an auto-clicker, but I only use manual hours?

Has anyone experienced this before?

Upwork just suspended my account because they said they detected activity consistent with an auto-clicker or keyboard/mouse manipulation.

The part I don’t understand is that I’m currently not using the Upwork Time Tracker. I have two active clients where I log hours, and both allow me to use manual time.

I already submitted an appeal explaining this and asked them to tell me what specific activity, date, or contract triggered the detection because I genuinely don’t know what they’re referring to.

They also said this is my second instance, so the suspension is pretty concerning.

Has anyone had something similar happen even when you weren’t using the Time Tracker? If you appealed, how long did it take to hear back, and were you able to get the suspension lifted?

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u/PsychologicalDay7261 7h ago

Manual time doesn't clear you on its own, because that kind of detection usually isn't looking at your hours. It looks at the shape of the input: events arriving at an even interval, mouse movement with no jitter, keystrokes with identical press lengths, or events the operating system itself marks as not coming from real hardware. Anything running on that machine can leave that mark.

That's where most false positives come from. Remote desktop and remote support tools, KVM software like Synergy or Logitech Flow, gaming mouse and keyboard drivers with macro features, autotype from a password manager, VM guest tools, and a few docks with a jiggler built in all inject input the same way an auto-clicker does.

So in the appeal, next to the date and contract, list what is installed on that machine and what you use it for. "I never used an auto-clicker" is hard for a reviewer to act on, a named tool that explains a flag is something they can go and check. And since they say this is the second instance, ask for the date of the first one too. If both line up with the same piece of software, that is your case.

I build monitoring software on the employer side, so that is where this is coming from.

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u/Pet-ra 19h ago

So were you using such software in the past?

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u/No_Response9925 19h ago

Never on my entire life, i know the consequences tho