Upwork just stole $10k from me

One of the reasons that criminal acts are criminal is that they destroy value. For example, when metal prices go up, criminals steal wires from railway lines. This gains them a couple of hundred bucks of metal, and costs tens of thousands in disruption and reinstallation.

This kind of action by companies should be criminal, because they just destroyed economic activity worth at least $10000, because they didn't want to spend a little more on due diligence. Which could even have been put up as a bond by their client. My guess is that it would have cost <1 hour's work to validate this guy, and obviously he would rather bond that than lost the $10000. But no.

I would expect that to be illegal already in most jurisdictions. I believe in Germany you could argue it constitutes fraud. Either the client received the work and it’s fine, then the contractor is owed payment for the work. Or the client did not receive the work, then they are owed the payment that they made. Upwork permanently keeping the money from both sides is almost certainly not an option. They might be permitted to keep the funds temporarily while they seek a resolution, but that should have a clear threshold.

Yeah, I would hope so. But I mean in the more general case. If google closes your account with no recourse, they don't make any money from doing so, but if you bought into their marketing and relied on them, then you lose a lot of value. Companies encourage tens of thousands of consumers and businesses to rely on them, should be required to be able to be held to account by those they have led to rely on them.