Freelancer doesn't answer anymore in the middle of a project

[e7ff4055]

Hi all,

I engaged a freelancer from Austria to get some website development done. He worked quite good and always answered my messages within 1-2 days. A couple of weeks ago, he then ment, that he could finish the project within the following days. Since then, 3 weeks ago, he doesn't answer any of my messages or phone calls. I can't get my head around it. Why would he do this, just a few days before he was about to finish the project and finally get his payment?

Right now I don't have any source code or anything else, that would at least reward my first milestone payment. I just got the login data to his test system.

So what can I do now? The project got quite urgent now. Does Upwork itself has any mechanisms that I could use or would you suppose any legal actions?

I am so thankful for any kind of help now.

Best regards

Tobias

[kochubei_valeria]

Sorry to hear the freelancer you hired has been unresponsive, Tobias. Let me have one of our support agent try and reach out to the freelancer and ask them to respond to your messages.

[prestonhunter]

re: "I engaged a freelancer from Austria to get some website development done. He worked quite good and always answered my messages within 1-2 days. A couple of weeks ago, he then ment, that he could finish the project within the following days. Since then, 3 weeks ago, he doesn't answer any of my messages or phone calls. I can't get my head around it. Why would he do this, just a few days before he was about to finish the project and finally get his payment?"

Upwork will not be able to tell you why. Nor will any of the Forum participants.

How much does it matter to you to find out the reason why?

If the freelancer provided a reason, are you certain you would believe the reason he stated?

You may need to focus more on what you do next. If this project is important to you, then you should focus on using the materials you have received thus far, and hiring other freelancers to continue the work.

re: "So what can I do now?"

Hire other people to continue the project.

re: "Does Upwork itself has any mechanisms that I could use?"

Upwork will sometimes make attempts to contact freelancers directly in situations such as this.

re: "...or would you suppose any legal actions?"

Legal actions? That would not be a question for Upwork. Upwork has its own set of rules and policies, and the people who work for Upwork follow those rules and policies. Think of it as "what happens on Upwork, stays on Upwork." If you are interested in "legal actions," that isn't something that Upwork would be directly involved with or be able to advise you about.

As a practical matter, what you have is a website development problem, not a "legal" problem. Legal advisors will not build your website for you.

Any project that is significant enough in scope and complexity will face situations in which team members are no longer able to continue working on the project. This is normal. People get married, change career paths, get sick, die, adopt puppies, or simply disappear and you have no way of knowing why. Any experienced project manager anticipates turnover and prepares for it.