As a client, what can I do with a freelancer who ignores my instructions?

[078390d6]

I am a client. I hired some freelancers for a project that is very time sensitive. And I told them that.

One freelancer told me don't worry about his high rate, he is very fast.

I hired him, and told him what I want him to work on. Due to his high hourly rate, I wanted him to focus on a couple of important pieces, and then I would decide if I would send additional work to him.

He started on something that I had not yet assigned to him. Not on the things that I said are most important. Once he started on it, I tried to just finish, but then he didn't listen to my revision instructions and changed it massively. Then I tried to submit instructions again, which he ignored and did his own versions of changes.

This keeps happening. I keep trying to keep the project focused and ask him very specific sets of revisions, and I'm surprised at what he does. And he doesn't even submit finished work, but screenshots of his screen that I can't use easily or critique easily.

He has run up almost 15 hours at what I consider to be a high rate. I still have no finished products to show for it, everything that he has done is only in a half finished state for some odd reason. He is burning up my entire budget due to his inability to listen to instructions and to listen to revisions.

What do I do? I don't know how it works in Upwork. I tried to keep working with him because his portfolio and confidence made it seem like he knows what he is doing. And overall he does but he is constantly telling me that "this is done now." It isn't done because I don't like what he did and he isn't listening to instructions!!!!

Please help!!!

[a_lipsey]

Pause the contract now so he cannot bill anymore time.

Has he used manual time to track his hours? If so, you can dispute the hours and will likely win.

Pause the contract then you have 2 choices. Try to get on the same page with this freelance ror fire him and move on. It sounds to me like you need to find someone else to work with and stop trying to make this mistake into something workable. Don't keep working with him and throwing money away. He's worked 15 hours and you've seen the result. Put your project first, end his contract and find someone new.

[078390d6]

I did not allow manual time, so no manual time.

There is no recourse on the money? That is a lot of money, 20% of the total project fee, for NOTHING.

I thought Upwork guarantees that the freelancers are normal.

This is insane. He literally is choosing what to work on, ignoring me, and ignoring instructions.

[petra_r]

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Ari G wrote:

I did not allow manual time, so no manual time.

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Manual time is the safest option for clients, because they can dispute manual time and will win by default  if they dispute in time.

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Ari G wrote:

I thought Upwork guarantees that the freelancers are normal.

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There is no such guarantee and how would you define "normal" anyway?

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Ari G wrote:

There is no recourse on the money?

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Pause the contract and talk to the freelancer. But if the hours were tracked correctly with the tracker, with meaningful work memos and dcent activity levels, there are no grounds for a dispute. With an hourly contract you pay for the time spent working, not for any specific deliverable. That's why a very clearly defined scope is important.

[078390d6]

I understand the 'define normal' is subjective.

But the freelancer ignored my instructions and worked on the wrong things.

And didn't listen to revision requests.

But no, while the tracker was used no notes or memos were used. And some activity levels are abysmal.

[petra_r]

Pause the contract and speak to the freelancer. Find a mutually agreeable solution. A dispute is always the last option, when all else has failed. If the time was tracked this current week, the freelancer can still remove some of the time.

Also, there is a good chance that there was a breakdown in communication. Freelancers don't usually do the opposite of what they were clearly told

[078390d6]

I communicate very clearly. I suspect that the freelancer wrote that they are fluent in English when they are not. Because running my notes through a translator could be what is creating the breakdown in communication.

[078390d6]

I've paused and trying to work it out. However the freelancer doesn't seem to be solution oriented. We'll see.

[BojanS]

Hi Ari,

I'm sorry to hear about the troubles you have with this contract. We’ll have one of our agents reach out to you via a support ticket to look into this case and advise you on further steps. 

Thank you for your patience! 

[078390d6]

 Thank you please do. The first thing I tried to do was reach directly out to support but the chat bot (which was 1000% unhelpful) sent me here for some odd reason. Frustrating.

I paused the contract. So far he is offering to make it right, so we'll see how that goes. But still please reach out.

[prestonhunter]

I hired three freelancers to do similar work on my project.

One of them ignored my instructions.

The other two followed my instructions and did good work.

I ended the contract on the one who ignored instructions and I continued working with the two freelancers who did a great job.

This is not complicated.

[a_lipsey]

I agree with Preston, and I was suggesting something similar, to end the contract with this freelancer since it's not going well. Since it sounds like the freelancer wants to cooperate, perhaps you can pick ONE task for him to finish, then find another freelancer to finish the other work where you can have more confidence? I would also change this freelancer to a milestone based project versus hourly so they can't burn through hours and not complete deliverables.