Freelancer Submitted Work, Ended Contract, and was Paid, Without My Approval or Input

[f997ac37]

A freelance graphic designer who I am working with on an assignment, submitted work for review, Ended the Contract, and was paid. This does not seem correct. I would not chose to work with a remote freelancer whom I do not know personally, if I understood that they could simply submit work, end the contract at will, and receive the escrowed payment, all  without my review or input regarding submitted work. Please advise.

[prestonhunter]

re: "This does not seem correct."

It is, indeed, not correct, with a caveat.

What you just desribed is not how the Upork system works.

IF a freelancer ends a fixed-price contract himself, then all of the money in escrow AUTOMATICALLY GOES BACK to the client.

A freelancer CAN NOT submit work and get paid without the client's approval.

BUT, one must understand that there are TWO TYPES of client approval.

Type 1: A client reviews the work a freelancer submitted and manually clicks a button to release escrow payment.

Type 2: A client DOES NOTHING and the payment is released AUTOMATICALLY BY UPWORK because doing nothing constitutes tacit, implied approval.

How does Type 2 come into play?
If a freelancer clicks the "Submit Work and Request Payment" button, and then the client doesn't do anything for 14 days, then the payment is released automatically.

[f997ac37]

Thank you - that's what I had thought, but it seems as though the escrow was released. I will take a closer look at what happened, and follow-up. I did not think that a freelancer could receive payment by simply ending the contract.

[AleksandarD]

Hi Clifford,

I checked and it seems that the freelancer ended the contract today, but they submitted work for payment on June 16th that you approved on the same day. Let us know if you need further assistance.

Thank you.

[tta192]

Regardless of how/why the money was released, you can still communicate with the freelancer and see if he's willing to make any corrections you may need.

[prestonhunter]

If I was a client in a situation like this...

...and if I wanted additional changes made...

Then if I liked the freelancer's work I would message him and ask him if I could hire him using an hourly contract to make some changes.

If I did not like the freelancer's work then I would not contact him again.

But for what it's worth... the original poster didn't say anything about wanting changes. So Andrei may be injecting a new element into the discussion... making a good point, but one that isn't necessarily something the original poster was wondering about.

[timefighter11]

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Aleksandar D wrote:

Hi Clifford,

it seems that the freelancer ended the contract today, but they submitted work for payment on June 16th that you approved on the same day.

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Clifford K wrote:

A freelance graphic designer who I am working with on an assignment, submitted work for review, Ended the Contract, and was paid. This does not seem correct. I would not chose to work with a remote freelancer whom I do not know personally, if I understood that they could simply submit work, end the contract at will, and receive the escrowed payment, all  without my review or input regarding submitted work. Please advise.

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It seems like freelancer submitted the work last month and waited for many days before ending the contract. You have even approved the  submitted work too. Freelancer gave you lot of time to review his work. What should he do when you have nothing to do for him? He was not expecting a party there. Obviously he would end the contract.  He has worked and you approved too, it is his right to get paid.