Having a problem with the quality of work of one of your freelancers and the money has been taken

[4a553c73]

Hi

I hired a freelancer to do a business plan for me and to date the quality of work its been poor we agreed on milstones payments once they are completed however money has ben paid without my approval.

also I neeed to clarify some payments made to a second freelancer as it seems some money has been paid above our agreed fees with her

i would really like a promt response.

Kind regards

Juan 

[alysegoody]

Were the contracts hourly or fixed pirce?

[prestonhunter]

re: "I hired a freelancer to do a business plan for me and to date the quality of work its been poor"

Then stop working with that freelancer.

There is nothing you are going to do that will increase the quality of this freelancer's work. He is performing at the level of his ability. If you require higher quality work, you will need to hire somebody else.

Stop wasting time with this underperforming freelancer.

re: "we agreed on milstones payments once they are completed however money has ben paid without my approval."

Actually, the freelancer was paid WITH your approval.

You may not fully understand how payments work, but you clicked on a button under a message that stated exactly what was going to happen. You may have not read everything associated with this. That's okay. But now you know.

You DID approve of the payment.

One of the ways to approve of a milestone payment is for you to review the work and manually click a button that releases payment to the freelancer. Another way to approve of a milestone payment is to do nothing for 14 days after a freelancer submits work using the official submit button.

ANOTHER way to approve of work is to set up an hourly contract. If you have an hourly contract, then the freelancer logs time and your credit card is billed AUTOMATICALLY for the time logged.

These are all ways that a client approves of payments to a freelancer. Some of these approvals are through non-action on the client's part.

re: "also I neeed to clarify some payments made to a second freelancer as it seems some money has been paid above our agreed fees with her"

There is a difference between:

"the amount of money you want to pay" or "the amount of you discussed paying"

versus

"The amount of money you actually agreed to pay through your use of the actual Upwork user interface."

I think that you are unfamiliar with the Upwork system, and you are paying more money than you anticipated paying due to your unfamiliarity.

It is important for you to understand that it is NOT Upwork's intention that you get any of that money back. It will be worth your time to learn more about how clients such as yourself are billed for freelancer services. If you have ANY questions at all, feel free to ask questions right here in this thread.

[AndreaG]

Hi Juan,

I'm sorry to hear you had a bad experience with this freelancer. Please know, as per the Fixed-Price Escrow Instructions, when your freelancer submits a milestone for your approval, you have 14 days to review. If you do not take action, that is considered approval, and funds are automatically released to the freelancer. You still have the option to request a refund from your freelancer through Upwork once the funds have been released.

It looks like the second contract you're referring to is an Hourly Contract and you've set up a Weekly Payment when creating it. Setting a Weekly Payment in the Advanced Options section means you are paying your freelancer an additional amount each week. This payment is on top of standard hourly billing based on your freelancers' Work Diaries. I would suggest you discuss this with your freelancer and request a refund from them. In order to avoid being billed the Weekly Payment again, you'll need to end this contract and start a new one without the Weekly Payment.

If you have any questions or need any further assistance please let us know!