Trust and Safety on Open Lance

No marketplace can promise that every contract goes well, and any platform that tells you it is fraud-proof is describing a wish. What a platform can do is make the common failures survivable: put the money somewhere neither side controls, keep a record of what was agreed, and give both sides a way to escalate that does not depend on goodwill. This page is what exists here, and where each protection stops.

Verification: what has been checked

Accounts sit at a verification level, starting from an unverified account before its email is confirmed and rising through identity checks to business verification. Higher levels require documents that are reviewed by our team rather than accepted automatically, and some parts of the platform are gated behind them.

What each level requires, and which parts of the platform it opens, is listed under verification levels.

Escrow and funded milestones

Money for a stage of work is funded before that stage starts and held until the client approves it. The freelancer can see that the money is committed; the client has not handed it over. On hourly contracts the same thing happens weekly, against an agreed hour limit, with a work diary the client approves.

• Funded is not paid: the money is committed, and becomes the freelancer's on approval.
• If a client goes quiet after work is submitted, the milestone auto-approves after a set period, so finished work cannot be held indefinitely.
• Unused hourly funding goes back to the client.
• Fees are added on top of the funded amount rather than taken out of it.

Approvals and revisions

When work is submitted, the client can approve it or request revisions with specific notes. Approval is the moment that matters: releasing funds instantly pays the freelancer immediately and ends the dispute window for that milestone, so it belongs to work you have checked, or to someone you have worked with before.

If the work is not right, ask for revisions rather than releasing and raising it afterwards. The review window exists precisely for that, and a released milestone cannot be reopened.

Disputes

While a milestone is funded, either side can open a dispute. The funds freeze, auto-release stops, and both sides submit evidence: the brief, the messages, the files that were delivered. Open Lance mediates and the outcome is one of a small set: release to the freelancer, refund to the client, or a split.

The record is what decides it, which is the practical reason to keep briefs, revisions and file handovers on the platform rather than in personal email. Disputes and mediation covers the process in detail.

Reviews and standing

Reviews are tied to completed contracts, so they reflect work that actually happened and was paid for. Both sides review each other. Standing here is calculated from things like completed contracts, completion rate and repeat hires rather than from self-description, and verified stats imported from other platforms can count toward it.

Reporting and enforcement

You can report a profile, a job, a message or a file. Reports go to a moderation queue, and enforcement ranges from removing content to restricting features, suspending an account or banning it, depending on what is found. Serious actions require a second reviewer rather than a single decision. Restricted accounts can appeal.

• Report anything asking you to move payment or conversation off-platform.
• Report requests for personal financial details, remote access to your machine, or documents that have nothing to do with the work.
• Report a job post that is not a job: recruitment for another site, chain schemes, or anything asking you to pay to be hired.
• Report harassment. It is not something to negotiate with.

Reporting is not an accusation and it costs you nothing to be wrong. Staying safe on Open Lance has the current guidance.

What protects you in practice

Most of the protection is procedural, and it comes from the way you set the work up rather than from a feature.

• Keep it on-platform. The record is what decides a dispute, and off-platform payments are not in escrow at all.
• Keep milestones small. A disagreement about one stage is recoverable; a disagreement about a whole project is not.
• Write down what done means. Most disputes are scope arguments, not dishonesty.
• Do not release out of politeness. Revisions exist for a reason and release is final.
• Slow down when someone rushes you. Urgency is the most common tool in every scam that works.

The limits

Being clear about what these protections do not do is part of being trustworthy about what they do.

• They do not guarantee quality. Escrow holds money; it does not assess work.
• They do not cover anything paid outside the platform.
• Verification confirms identity, not ability or solvency.
• A released milestone cannot be disputed afterwards.
• Mediation decides what happens to funds held here, not disagreements that belong in a court.