Clients

[cndae]

Hello how are you? a client has stopped answering the messages, I did some work for him, I never delivered the originals but I did show him proofs. Can something be done? Can I charge something for that job?

Bye

[voskerchian · Accepted solution]

Hi Candela,

ONLY if you have a contract you can charge the client for any work done. IF there is a contract then you should use Submit work/Request Payment button for fixed-price contracts OR use UW time tracker for hourly-paid contracts. 

BTW I don't see any jobs in progress on your profile for which you haven't received payment.

[kat303]

IF you had taken the time to read and find out the procedures of working here on Upwork you would have known exactly what to do and you would not have been in this predicament.

If this was a fixed rate job, - BEFORE you started working escrow, either for the entire job or for each milestone that comes up, should have been FULLY funded. You could have set this up for 2 milestones, One for probably 80% of the cost of the job and the deliverables would have been the drafts you made. And the other milestone would be for the remaining 20% of the job which would have been the originals and you probably could have included just 2 edits. Also, if you submitted your work by clicking on the Submit Word/Request Payment after completing the requirements of each milestone you would have been paid automatically in 14 days if the client stopped communicating and did not dispute that request. And, if the other milestone wasn't fully funded, you should Not have continued working.

If this was an hourly job - you should have downloaded, installed and used Tracker making sure you documented the screen shots it took. Then you get paid either by the client the following week, or by Upwork if the client disappears or something goes wrong. And of course, unless the screenshots show that you were working on something else, other then the job you were supposed to be working on, or showing no activity, or if you entered in manual hours and didn't use tracker.

[cndae]

I get it, the work fixed by rate job (I send you the proposals page). I should have worked for milestones, but I did not do this. Is there anything I can do?

 **Edited for Community Guidelines**

[jr-translation]

The question are:

Did the client make you an offer?

Have you accepted the offer?

If yes:

A: Is there a funded milestone?

Did you finish the work described in the milestone?

If yes, you can request the milestone to be release.

If no, you have no right to request the milestone

B: Did you track the hours?

A proposal is not a contract.

[cndae]

I made a proposal, they answered and I worked according to what they asked me to do. But they never offered me a contract. So what I did was free?

[voskerchian]

Hey Candela,

Unfortunately yes, you worked for free. To avoid such situations remember NEVER ever start working without a contract. I would also advise going through UW help articles to understand how all of this works.

Better luck next time!

P.S.  Is your client new to UW? If so, maybe they didn't know about making a contract and so on. You could try contacting them and asking to make a contract now. 

But remember not to work without a contract here on UW for your future projects.