Upwork Fail, Money Lost On Promised Project With Top-Rated Freelancer

I decided to try Upwork for a project recently, found someone with a perfect rating and tons of happy reviews. She started off great, chatting every day, keeping me updated on "progress." But in the end, it never actually materialized. Every update was just vague promises of "great things to come" or "exciting developments." By the time the deadline loomed large, I hadn't seen a single piece of the project finished, no messages, no updates, nothing. Of course I got alittle scared later, reached out to Upwork's support team.they some digging and found out this freelancer apparently has a history of this – disappearing acts on other clients. They couldn't exactly call it a scam but what is this then?? How could they let someone stay in the system like this???