Dispute with freelancer

[6387fff0]

Hi guys

Im hoping you can help as I need some advice from an actual human rather than a bot.

So I hired a guy to do a shopify build for me, long story short, he said it would be better to do a custom build of the site based on my design of a current shopify theme. Thing is, when we reached the end of our agreed budget and working hours, he still had not completed what we agreed and what he said he could do. Although I made some changes as we went, it was clear that he wasnt delivering,even when I went as far as to design the ENTIRE site in photoshop and he just had to follow the visual guide so as to cut down a lot of back and forth / hours charged. So I gave him the benifit of the doubt and then we agreed that more time would be needed to complete what was needed, but not much. Needless to say, we got to a point where it was clear he either couldnt do what he said he could, and he was just taking me for a ride thinking I had no idea about what an actual fucntional site is and how long things would take to do.

I then ended things with him, but still left him a good review as I dont believe in bombing someones income because of a bad experience. But the more I thought of it, I now want to take this further and want a refund for at least the second budget I paid. In addition, I now need someone to fix or redo everything he did, so I enlisted the help of another dev I found on your platform and he did some digging into what the first guy did on the backend and needless to say, it a mess, and its clear he in fact did not do me a custom build, but rather just used a free theme from somewhere else and copy pasted a tonne of useless code that slows my site down and is essencially useless and buggy.

I would really appreciate your advice on how to proceed and what my options are here. Im not asking for every cent back, but he clearly took me for a ride on this. On the job associated with the job in question, there is no "request a refund" option and Im not sure how to proceed offically.

Please let me know how to proceed, your help would be much appreciated.

Thanks and regards
P

[prestonhunter]

Why would you need to have a "dispute" with a freelancer?

The dispute process is intended for freelancers to use if a client doesn't pay them for their work.

You are the client.

If you don't love a freelancer's work, then all you need to do is fire the freelancer and assign his work to other members of your team.

[prestonhunter]

I don't work for Upwork. As a client, I have hired over 150 freelancers on Upwork. Everything I wrote in this post is my personal opinion.

re: "But the more I thought of it, I now want to take this further and want a refund for at least the second budget I paid."

If you want to ask the freelancer for a refund, then technically it is not a violation of Upwork rules for you to ask. But the freelancer is not obligated to give you a refund.

You hired the freelancer with an hourly contract. He logged time. You were billed for the hours that he logged. That is how the system works.

re: "In addition, I now need someone to fix or redo everything he did, so I enlisted the help of another dev I found on your platform"

It was wise for you to hire somebody else to work on this. You don't want to leave your system in bad shape. This is important to you, and you should make sure that the work on your site meets your standards.

re: "he did some digging into what the first guy did on the backend and needless to say, it a mess, and its clear he in fact did not do me a custom build, but rather just used a free theme from somewhere else and copy pasted a tonne of useless code that slows my site down and is essencially useless and buggy. I would really appreciate your advice on how to proceed and what my options are here. Im not asking for every cent back, but he clearly took me for a ride on this. On the job associated with the job in question, there is no 'request a refund' option and Im not sure how to proceed offically."

Refund thinking hurts clients.

It is your right to communicate with the original freelancer and ask him for money back. But as a general principle, it is simply a waste of a client's time to do something like that. As a client, it is not my job to be a pastor or mentor to freelancers. If there is an underperforming freelancer on my team, then I end the contract and assign the work to others who can provide me with what I need. I don't spend time trying to help underperforming or incompetent freelancers become better programmers or better freelancers or better people.

Moving forward: As a client, you can save time and save money if you decide proactively that you will never ask freelancers for money. Decide to never file a dispute, and never ask for a refund. Instead, monitor a freelancer's work, especially when working with a new/unfamiliar freelancer. If you don't love the freelancer's work... if he is not providing you with the quality you need, then end the contract. It is MUCH safer and easier to stop paying a freelancer, rather than pay a freelancer and then later ask the freelancer to send money back to you. Most of the time, if you pay money to a freelancer, he won't send the money back to you later.

How much money in total did you pay to the original freelancer?

[alaat]

Hi Preston, 

How to do this ? I am totally new to upwork as a client as well and would like to cancel the order or get a refund. 

Do you think it's possible ? 

Best regards

[prestonhunter]

re: "How to do this ? I am totally new to upwork as a client as well and would like to cancel the order or get a refund. Do you think it's possible ?"

You are interested in cancelling or getting a refund.

These are two different things.

You may cancel (or "close") a contract AT ANY TIME.

You don't need permission from anyone. Nobody can stop you.

All you do is navigate to the contract listing on you contracts page, then click on the "Three Dots" icon, and choose the option to "close" or "end" or "cancel" the contract.

Getting a refund is different.

I advice all clients to set a goal to never ask for a refund. Because a freelancer may say "no." It is better to not pay the freelancer in the first place. Then you don't need to ask for a refund. Nevertheless, it is good to be familiar with the process for requesting a refund, even if you decide proactively (as I do) to never ask for a refund. Read these pages:

https://support.upwork.com/hc/en-us/articles/211062088-Request-a-Refund

https://support.upwork.com/hc/en-us/articles/211062058-Get-an-Escrow-Refund

https://support.upwork.com/hc/en-us/articles/211062158-Dispute-an-Agency-or-Freelancer-s-Hours

[AndreaG]

Hi Paul,

I'm sorry to hear about your experience. I went ahead and asked the team to look into this for you, they'll be reaching out via support ticket soon.

[tagrendy]

Have you reached out to the freelancer and asked for a refund? Maybe he will be willing to do it if it's a partial refund. On hourly projects it's difficult to get a refund as it's billed weekly and there is a 5-day window after each Monday to ask for refund for the previous week's work. In rare instances Upwork may interfere and issue a refund for money released within 30 days, but beyond that not much can be done. I've seen some clients to be able to request Upwork to change their public feedback left, not sure if this can be useful.

[gilbert-phyllis]

On hourly contracts, you can only dispute the number of hours billed and not the quality of work. But you can request a refund. If the FL refuses the refund request then you really have no recourse. (On hourly contracts you can dispute a current invoice but not past invoices.)  So, it's worth  communicating with him and trying to negotiate some partial settlement you can both live with. (The nuclear option is requesting a chargeback through your bank or credit card company. You'll likely get your money back but UW will kick you to the curb permanently.)