Dispute Refund

006c084e · ‎10-08-2020

Kindly guide me:

1- If in some cases I was busy and I didn't review work for hourly contract before Friday, which is last day for reviewing the work diary, and payment has been released to my freelancer; in this case later can I dispute or may I request a refund for that payment? My grounds for this dispute would be that my freelancer exceeded the work hours of his commitment.

2- If I once canceled my dispute about an hourly project before Friday but my freelancer again exceeded his hours then can I again dispute after Friday? If, yes then kindly tell me how many days I have for disputing an hourly contract, if my freelancer has ended the contract before I disputed for the work diary?

3- If a freelancer ends an hourly contract on his own before Friday will the payment of the previous week’s work work be released to him or would I still have the option to dispute for the exeeded hours?

Please give me an answer to each question individually. Thank you for your time & input!

lysis10 · ‎10-08-2020

woe be unto the freelancer....

but to answer your question, you can cap weekly hours.

006c084e · ‎10-08-2020

I want actual solutions and answers of the questions, which conditions I have laid out in all 3 questions. Thanks in advance.

petra_r · ‎10-09-2020

Callee W wrote:
1- If in some cases I was busy and I didn't review work for hourly contract before Friday, which is last day for reviewing the work diary, and payment has been released to my freelancer; in this case later can I dispute or may I request a refund for that payment? My grounds for this dispute would be that my freelancer exceeded the work hours of his commitment.

2- If I once canceled my dispute about an hourly project before Friday but my freelancer again exceeded his hours then can I again dispute after Friday? If, yes then kindly tell me how many days I have for disputing an hourly contract, if my freelancer has ended the contract before I disputed for the work diary?

3- If a freelancer ends an hourly contract on his own before Friday will the payment of the previous week’s work work be released to him or would I still have the option to dispute for the exeeded hours?

1 - If you miss the dispute deadline, you missed it. Even if you didn't miss it, exceeding agreed hours is not a valid ground for a dispute.

2 - Same answer as 1

3 . Exceeded hours are not a valid dispute reason because the number of allowed hours are set by the client when setting up the contract. If you set up too many, or didn't reduce them to suit your requirements, that's on you.

prestonhunter · ‎10-09-2020

Callee:
I understand that you felt frustrated and disappointed by some of your experience in using Upwork.

But you should understand that the best way to SAVE MONEY while also saving time and enhancing your success as a client is to pretend that disputes and refunds do not exist.

Others here in the Forum have provided you with accurate information about how some of these features work.

But I advise you to pretend - for your own benefit - that if you pay somebody money on Upwork, you will never get it back and there is no way to get it back. And pretend that if a freelancer logs any time - you will pay for that time. Pretend that there is no way to avoid paying for any hours that have been logged.

If you make these decisions in your own mind, it will help you to manage your projects proactively and avoid spending money unnecessarily.

For example, if you don't want to pay a freelancer for more than 5 hours this week, then set the maximum number of hours that the freelancer can work to 5 hours.

If you don't want to pay a freelancer for work that you don't like, or don't want her to do, then regularly check the freelancer's work and end the contract on any freelancers whose work you don't like.

It is much easier to NOT pay somebody in the first place, than to try to request money back from them after you already paid them, or after they already logged time.

006c084e · ‎10-07-2020

If in some cases I was busy and I didn't review work for the hourly contract before Friday, which is last day for reviewing the work diary and payment has been released to freelancer in this case is it possible for me to request a refund or dispute the charges. The circumstances would be that the freelancer overran the hours of his time clock. Past Friday is there any outlet for me to seek to recoup my money?
If once I canceled my dispute about hourly project before Friday but my freelancer again exceeded their hours then can I again dispute after Friday? If, yes then kindly also tell me that how many days I have for disputing an hourly contract; if freelancer have ended the contract before I disputed for work diary?
If a freelancer end an hourly contract by his side before Friday the payment of past week work done would be realeased to him or would I still have option to dispute for the exceeded hours?

AndreaG · ‎10-07-2020

Hi Callee,

In general, you have within 180 days of the payment to request a refund through Upwork. Please check out this help article for more information about Requesting a Refund in the scenarios you are referring to.

Please let us know if you need any further assistance,

Thanks!

~Andrea

petra_r · ‎10-08-2020

Andrea G wrote:
In general, you have within 180 days of the payment to request a refund through Upwork.

Calee asked about a dispute, not about requesting a refund. The two processes are totally different.

Calee, If you want your freelancer to stay within an hourly limit, simply SET an hourly limit per week in the contract, then you'll never be charged for hours in excess of the limit again.

You can ask a freelancer to remove hours from THIS (current) week's work diary, and you can dispute last week's hours until Friday, midnight UTC.

However, exceeding agreed hours is not a valid dispute reason as clients are able to set weekly maximum hours. You can only win a dispute on the basis of time not being tracked properly, there not being meaningful work memos, low activity levels, manual time etc.

That said, your best bet is to communicate with your freelancer. I'm sure you want them to be paid for any work they did for you, and want to use their work (work that hasn't been paid for can't be used by the client) - so maybe there is some compromise to be found. Maybe you are asking for more work to be done than can be achieved in the hours you want the work to be done in.