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2c827f6d
Community Member

Freelancer claimed his System was hacked and now my entire completed shopify store is deleted

Hi I am very upset and miffed at upwork. 

 

1. I contracted a freelancer on the platform

2. Paid and funded work. 

3. Freelancer completed Milestone 1 and 2. 

4. demanded a bonus as a thank you for his work plus a 5 ***** review 

5. i didnt give hmim a bonus and gave him a 4 **** review, no bad words from me

6. Freelancer was very upset. 15 mins after i gave him the review, he deleted my completed shopify store we both worked on. Brough his attention to it. he blocked me from communicating with instead

7. Tracked him down via whats app, claimed a hacker deleted my store (a hacker that was trying to destroy his business and his other client had the same issue wit this hacker)

8. Provided all the details to upwork mediation

9. Freelancer is not even disputing i have received what I paid for. 

10. He is only claiming he didnt delete my store (I asked for proof of hacker issue and other customer, he has not provided any proof). 

11. I have paid a total of $565 to this freelancer and still dont have a product to show for it. 

12. Now Upwork is asking me to pay 291 for Arbitration to sort this out... why am i shelling more money out when the Freelancer is not disputing my store was not deleted ( either by him or by his hacker) I was ask by upwork if i will let him build me a new store and i said unless he proves that he didnt delete my store ( by showing proof a hacker did) I cannot trust this freelancer with my new credentials..

13. I am upset at this way I am being treated and I demand better. let Upwork ask him to prove that it is hacker that deleted my store. 

14. Shopify provided my with IP address of last log in when my store was deleted. wich is the same location at Freelancer. I have asked Upwork to confirm if this is not the same IP address they have on file for him ( I still have not gotten a respinse from shopify). 

15. This very painful for me right now.

41 REPLIES 41
wolfiefeeling
Community Member

Hi, Abbi,

 

sorry for hearing this bad situation.

 

if you pay for the 291 dollars Arbitration Fee and the freelancer doesn't,

both the arbitration fee and payment of the project will both get returned to you. if you are sure that freelancer won't dispute in this case. then probably it is a way to sort it out? get refunded then start over the project again?

Hi Weiling, 

 

Can you clear up your comment for me. It looks like the freelancer deosnt want to go to arbritration, However all money in escrow has been relaeased to him. How do i get my money back if he refuses to pay and i am willing to pay?

lysis10
Community Member


Abbi J wrote:

Hi Weiling, 

 

Can you clear up your comment for me. It looks like the freelancer deosnt want to go to arbritration, However all money in escrow has been relaeased to him. How do i get my money back if he refuses to pay and i am willing to pay?


I'm not sure how released escrow works. The mediator can clarify, but when there is no agreement, you will be asked to pay the $291. If the freelancer does not pay, then he loses. 

 

I'm not sure how it's decided who pays first. I'm always the one who says I want arbitration if I do not get a certain amount, so it would be obvious I guess to ask me to pay up first. I've always been asked to pay first, but again I'm the one who says that I want it.

prestonhunter
Community Member

Abbi:

This freelancer's behavior is unacceptable.

You made the right choice to report these actions here in the Forum.

 

I am fairly certain that a Forum Moderator will intervene here, contact you and help move this matter to the appropriate team.

 

This freelancer has violated Upwork ToS and should have his account permanently terminated.

 

Demanding a bonus and demanding 5-star feedback... These are serious ToS violations. For that alone, this freelancer should be removed from the platform.

There is proof of his ask of a bonus and 5 star review on upwork messaging platform we share. Also his disdain at me for not giving him the 5 star review

Feedback manipulation is a violation of Upwork ToS.

 

I am confident that Upwork will be able to see this in the messages and take appropriate action.

 

The status of your store is a separate matter.

 

Theoretically, the freelancer may be able to restore the Shopify store he set up. But there are these possibilities:

- The freelancer deleted the work in a way that even he can not retrieve.

- The freelancer could retrieve the work, but he does not want to.

 

If you want to move forward with your project as quickly as possible, then you absolutely have the right to hire other people to re-do the work. You do NOT need to wait for any sort of resolution relating to the original freelancer or his work.

 

By way of explanation about the payments: Because you used a fixed-price contract and handled payments through escrow, Upwork is extremely limited in what they can do. They are bound by escrow restrictions and laws that are not established by Upwork itself. When there is a dispute about payment, Upwork essentially can NOT make decisions about the dispersement of funds. They can only advise that both parties come to an agreement. If both parties can not come to an agreement, then the matter goes to arbitration. That is where the $291 fee comes in. Note that it is rare for arbitration to award money to the client.


Only in very rare circumstances will Upwork make a decision about who gets money within the dispute (pre-arbitration) period:

 

https://www.upwork.com/legal#fp

 

Screen Shot 2019-12-18 at 10.32.56 AM.png

...

Screen Shot 2019-12-18 at 10.33.02 AM.png

Why you give m 4 star and don’t write any feedback?

is that how you thanks me for my work?

 

next thing, my instagram account access which had access to email was changed, i quickly reach out to him to ask why, he blocked any further communictions with me.

 

10 mins later, my store went blank , all deleted... oh i cried ..mhen , i cried

Yes, it is clear what happened.


But you are not obligated to wait for something to happen with this freelancer.

 

You can put your project first. That may mean moving forward with your project, without waiting for whatever it is that happens with that freelancer.

 

Am I correct in my understanding that the freelancer you hired did work from scratch, in setting up a Shopify site for you? He was not working on an existing site?

 

Which means that he did not delete work that had been established over a long period of time by other people. He only deleted what he himself set up?

 

That would mean that you don't need to recover anything long-established. You simply need to start over, providing the same instructions to a new freelancer that you provided to the original freelancer.

 

re: "I have paid a total of $565 to this freelancer and still dont have a product to show for it. Now Upwork is asking me to pay 291 for Arbitration to sort this out... why am i shelling more money out when the Freelancer is not disputing my store was not deleted"

 

Note that paying the $291 arbitration fee is an OPTION. You are not required to do that.

If you DO pay that fee, then there exists the possibility that you would receive a maximum of $565 awarded back to you, which would result in a net return of $274.

 

There is also a strong possibility that you will receive nothing back. Which would mean you have paid $565 plus $291, or a total of $856. Nobody here in the Forum can tell you what the result of arbitration will be.

 

These numbers assume that a total of $565 is actually in dispute. If you have already released money to the freelancer, then there may be LESS in dispute. You indicated that you already released money to the freelancer. Formal arbitration would only decide the dispursement of funds that are in dispute. Depending on how much money is actually in dispute, there may be nothing for you to gain financially by going to arbitration.

 

As pointed out in a previous post, if you DO agree to pay the fee, it is also possible that the freelancer declines to pay the fee, in which case any available funds are automatically awarded to you. But thaty may only include funds in escrow and currently in dispute. That doesn't mean you would receive money that has already been released to the freelancer.

 

Although it rarely happens, it is theoretically possible for Upwork to decide in your favor without going to arbitration. It is theoretically possible that Upwork will decide that you should get the $565 payment to the freelancer back.

Thanks for your feedback. Upwaork has already relaesed the fist milestone payment to the freelancer and but I was told the balance may have been released too because Escrow has been released.

 

So if they cannot retrieve this moey back and i paiod through paypal. I am sure i can invoke my buyer protection. 

 

This freelancer must know the whole system is balanced in his favour hence this dispicable act

Thans for you post. Yo said it is rare for aebitration to award money to the client. Then what is the point for arbritration then? 

 

So freelancers can dupe unsuspecting clients?

re: "You said it is rare for arbitration to award money to the client. Then what is the point for arbritration then?"

 

The main purpose of arbitration is to give freelancers a chance to get the money in escrow when a client won't release that money.

 

Generally speaking, there isn't really a good reason for a client to use arbitration. Because the client controls the money in the escrow account. Clients review the work submitted by freelancers and simply refuse to release the money if they aren't satisfied.

 

Strategically speaking, what you should have done was this:

You should have changed the username and/or passwords related to the Shopify account after the freelancer did the work, and before you left feedback.

 

Then the freelancer would not have been able to do anything to the site, and then there would be no issue.

 

This doesn't justify what the freelancer did. But if I personally had worked with a freelancer who was demanding more money than originally agreed and/or was making demands about feedback... then I wouldn't trust that person. So I would make sure they couldn't access the work I paid for... before taking an action that might make them angry.

But this freelancer delivered the work, I relaesed the money. Please remeember i cannot give a review until i release the funds and close the contract. He still had access to my store as he said he will give ongoing support should i need it. 

 

Then boom, he saw a 4 star review, got mad and deleted my store..all this happened with 30 mins of me paying in full.

I didnt give him a bad feedback. I didnt anticpate him being mad at me for a 4 start review instead of a 5.. I didnt even use comments, only stars.... They was no way for me to know especially when he promised me support

You're right.

4 stars is NOT bad feedback.


This freelancer is completely unhinged.

You had no way of knowing he would do something like this. It is extremely rare to hear about something like this.

 

Nobody here is defending anything he did.

 

We're just trying to provide information.

 

I'm sorry you're in this situation.

BojanS
Community Manager
Community Manager

Hi Abbi,

 

I'm sorry to hear about your experience with this freelancer. I checked and it looks like our Mediation Team is already assisting you with this case. I'll follow up with them so that they can update your existing ticket and further assist you.

 

Thank you!

~ Bojan
Upwork
kbadeau
Community Member

If it was a hacker and this person is any kind of professional webite builder, then he should have a backup on his own computer and should be able to restore the site, no?

2c827f6d
Community Member

Trust me there was no hacker but that is his claim....and refuses to prove it ..even though he claims other customer were impacted but refuses to show proof

Nobody here thinks there was really a hacker.

That's a ridiculous claim.

 

Kelly is simply pointing out that even if there was a hacker, the freelancer is still the person responsible.

 

The freelancer is either:

a) lying about there being a hacker

[or]

b) incompetent because he set up a system that was so easily hacked and which could not be recovered

I paid with Paypal. Do you think Paypal can help me through buyer prtection?

 

 

re: "I paid with Paypal. Do you think Paypal can help me through buyer protection?"

 

PayPal probably won't do anything.


Upwork billed your PayPal account.

If you get PayPal to rescind money from Upwork, then you will be in violation of Upwork ToS, and Upwork will terminate your account. And they will stop helping you with this situation.

For your website/shopify matter, I can understand the frustration however there is a possiblity that you are able to get it back. 

 

Step 1: Make sure your email account, domain, shopify store, cpanel is secure (all login credentials are not compromised anymore )

 

Step 2: Reach out to your hosting provider and ask them to restore to a previous instance. Usually speaking it is a free service and good quality providers keep a periodic backup. The only downside will be that any productive work done after the previously stored instance will be lost.

 

My advice will be to act fast on this, you might be able to restore it completely or something atleast while you can persue actions against this freelancer seperately. Best of luck 

Hi Rafeh, 

 

Thank you so much. Shopify was my host and they said they cpould do anything about it. 

I was of the impression that it was hosted elsewhere. Shopify for some unknown reasons claim that they do not create server-side backups which theoratically does not make any sense or atleast they do not provide access to clients for that data, maybe they just want to have hassle-free operations at their end. 

 

However you can still try your luck, a store/blog can be rebuilt/recovered using search engine cached version or the local cached files from your machine as I believe you must be visiting it regularly before everything was taken down. This will be slightly more complicated so I would suggest you should find an appropriate freelancer for this job or as suggested earlier to start it from scratch with a new freelancer. 

 

I am sorry that you had to go through all of this. 

2c827f6d
Community Member

Hello Bojan, 

 

I have decided to go into arbritration , but now for almost a week, moderator has been silent, no response to any of my communication. 

 

How do i pay for arbritration?,

AveryO
Community Manager
Community Manager

Hi Abbi, 

 

I'll go ahead and follow up with the team handling your case so that the team can assist you further.


~ Avery
Upwork
2c827f6d
Community Member

Hi Avery, 

 

still nothing. I have just sent another private note to the Mediator, and it is still silence on their part. I am getting very frustrated with this. 

 

All i want to do is get the arbritration going, and i want to pay for it. 

 

Kindly help

Hi Abbi,

 

I`m sorry about the delay. Our team will update your dispute as soon as possible and assist you further. Thank you.

~ Goran
Upwork

Thanks , 

 

Looks like my freelancer does not want to go to arbritration, and i want to go. so what are the rules and what happens if he refuses. 

 

Thanks

re: "Looks like my freelancer does not want to go to arbritration, and i want to go. so what are the rules and what happens if he refuses."

 

Arbitration is used to determine which side receives money in escrow.

 

But in your situation, there is no money in escrow. All escrow finds have already been released to the freelancer. I am not an expert on this subject. As a client, I do not utilize dispute or arbitration processes. But based on my experience as a freelancer and frequent reader of the Forum threads, I believe that the only thing Upwork can offer you now is "mediation." This means that an Upwork-employee mediator can encourage the freelancer to send you money, but has no binding authority. The freelancer chooses for herself whether to do do. If my understanding is correct, then your decision to go forward with arbitration does not mean anything because arbitration is not an option. If I am wrong about this, I hope that someone will provide additional information.

Hi Preston, 

 

Thanks for your replay. The whole thing is so confusing as I have gone through the upwork mediation. Upwork mediator has recommended arbritration as we couldnt come to a resolution. 

Freelancder says he doesnt want to participate in arbritration, but i the client will like a governing body to decide because he need to refund my money as he has deleted the work he delivered to me even though he claims it is a hacker on his side that did it. 

 

I have now paid the arbritration fee of $291. He has been given 5 business days to pay his. 

 

My question is what if he doent pay, what happens? if this is no benefit to me why did upwork recommend arbritration? 

 

If we he doent pay, do i get my arbritration fee back? or thats another money lost. This is the most frusting thing ever as i have asked the mediator all these question and it has been silence on their except to tell me that my card has been charged for the fee...

 

i am so upset and frustrated 

Abbi:

If you have paid the arbitration fee, even though all escrow money has been released, then clearly there is more to "arbitration" than I personally understand.

 

To answer your question about what happens if the freelancer does not pay the arbitration fee: The traditional answer is very simple, and can be found in dozens of threads in the Forum as well as in Upwork's help documentation:

 

If a client pays for arbitration and the freelancer does not, then the arbitration fee is returned to the client, and all money in escrow is awarded automatically to the client.

 

*********

 

re: "The whole thing is so confusing..."

I agree.

Preston, 

 

There is no money in escro, all has been release to freelancer once i closede the milestone as he deleted my store immediately after i released payment from escrow.... 

 

 

 


Preston wrote:

If you have paid the arbitration fee, even though all escrow money has been released, then clearly there is more to "arbitration" than I personally understand.


There is indeed.

 

Arbitration decides over everything ever paid on a contract, not just what is in Escrow.

 

Provided a dispute was initiated in time, it does not matter how much has been released over how many milestone and how long ago, it all, every last Cent, becomes disputable in arbitration.

 



 

petra_r
Community Member


Abbi J wrote:

Upwork mediator has recommended arbritration as we couldnt come to a resolution. 

Freelancder says he doesnt want to participate in arbritration, but i the client will like a governing body to decide because he need to refund my money as he has deleted the work he delivered to me even though he claims it is a hacker on his side that did it. 

 

I have now paid the arbritration fee of $291. He has been given 5 business days to pay his. 

 

My question is what if he doent pay, what happens?


If the freelancer does not pay the arbitration fee, you "win" by default, you get your arbitration fee back and the money you paid the freelancer will be "awarded" to you. If the freelancer does not refund, their account will be suspended.

 

However, if the money has already been withdrawn by the freelancer and he's not got other funds in his Upwork account, there is nothing further Upwork can do. All they can do in such a case is keep his Upwork account suspended.

2c827f6d
Community Member

Update: I paid for the arbritration, freelancer was given thill Jan 1st deadline to pay. He has not paid and there has just been silence from Upwork and now this is 14 days later. 

 

I thought if it goes past thde dealine, i automatically win and upwork makes that decision and attempt to get me my refund??

 

It has been silence and this is pissing me off as now, I have 291 and still silence... This is really bad of upwork

Hi Abbi,


I`m sorry about the delay with this. I`ve just followed up with our dispute team to review your ticket and update it with more details as soon as possible. If you have any additional questions feel free to post them on your ticket, thank you.

~ Goran
Upwork
petra_r
Community Member


Abbi J wrote:

 

I thought if it goes past thde dealine, i automatically win and upwork makes that decision and attempt to get me my refund??


The freelancer may have gone to ground. Upwork can not get money back that has already been withdrawn...

 

If the freelancer wants to keep his Upwork account he'll have to refund, but if he doesn't care, you won't get your refund. All Upwork can do is suspend him.

 


Abbi J wrote:

 

It has been silence and this is pissing me off as now, I have paid 291 and still silence...


You will get those $ 291 back.

2c827f6d
Community Member

Thanks Petra, 

 

He indicated he has some credits with Upwork. I just need to know the final decision. This is the most horible experience. 

 

Never again

I have learned a big lesson today ... and that is i am not safe on this platform... someone can literally take my money , delete my store, i raised an alarm immediate (30 minds of releaseing the milestone, open up a dispute) all withing the 5 days security window and upwork did nothing to hold on to the money and not release it to the freelancer until they got to the bottom what was going on... Now i have been swindled and scammed of $565...

 

As a starting small business, this is a massive blow to me, as I am literally very low on resources, and to see this happen on a reputable platform as upwork is really discouraging... I am truly heartbroken. thats $565 down the drain and all my sweat hours in my store down the drain....

 

 

 

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