Hourly freelancer disappeared. Project not finished / code not working.

[4da71c7a]

I tried reaching out to him for several weeks now. What can I do?

[petra_r]

End the contract, leave appropriate feedback, hire someone else.

[a8f7da23]

Hi Petra,

We have a work that started in 2015 and was never finished, we have paid nearly $10000 and the website doesn't seem to work and they never truly change anything.

This started with Elance and was moved to upwork.

Please advise.

Regards,

NC

[reinierb]

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@Nuno C wrote:

Hi Petra,

We have a work that started in 2015 and was never finished, we have paid nearly $10000 and the website doesn't seem to work and they never truly change anything.

This started with Elance and was moved to upwork.

Please advise.

Regards,

NC

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 See and follow the excellent advice Petra gave the OP. 

[a8f7da23]

Hi Reinier,

So the money we have paid for a job that was never finished is lost?

Is this the kind of support we should expect from Upwork / Elance?

Thanks,

NC

[VladimirG]

Hi Nuno,

I'm sorry to hear about your experience. I checked and see that you have an open contract and hired a freelancer in 2016. I also see that no time has been logged on the contract and you haven't issued any payments on Upwork. Can you please advise if the funds you mentioned were processed on Elance or by other means?

[a8f7da23]

Hi,

All the funds were processed by Elance in 2015, we have emails exchange, we kept following up with them, giving feedback about the same problems over and over again, they have said that they were fixing the problems, until they stopped relying.

We have fixed a full price for all their work (you can see total payment attached). We then gave them more time to finished the job, I should have contacted Elance/Upwork straight away, but we only ever wanted the job finished.

We have contacted them, at the beginning they answered and now stopped answering.

There is nothing else you can do? You are allowing Ejuicy to undermine Elance and Upwork name and making sure people cannot count with you regarding a dispute.

I'm looking forward to hearing from you.

Kind regards,

[VladimirG]

Hi Nuno,

Thanks for following up. I checked and apart for a couple of messages, it doesn't look like you communicated with the freelancer through Upwork. Even though the payments were issued more than two years ago on a different platform and don't qualify for Upwork Payment Protection, I'll have someone reach out to you to review additional information and advise you directly.

[a8f7da23]

Hi,

All the funds were processed by Elance in 2015, we have emails exchange, we kept following up with them, giving feedback about the same problems over and over again, they have said that they were fixing the problems, until they stopped relying.

We have fixed a full price for all their work (you can see total payment attached). We then gave them more time to finished the job, I should have contacted Elance/Upwork straight away, but we only ever wanted the job finished.

We have contacted them, at the beginning they answered and now stopped answering.

There is nothing else you can do? You are allowing

**Edited for Community Guidelines** 

to undermine Elance and Upwork name and making sure people cannot count with you regarding a dispute.

I'm looking forward to hearing from you.

Kind regards,

[nkocendova]

Hi Nuno,

One of our team members has reached out to you to assist you with this concern. I'd ask that you kindly respond to the agent with the additional details so that they can assist you further, you will be able to access this ticket here and give your reply. Thank you!

[reinierb]

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@Nuno C wrote:

Hi Reinier,

So the money we have paid for a job that was never finished is lost?

Afraid so, unless -

1) you can persuade the freelancer to return all your money

2) you have the time, money, energy, and bloody-mindedness to sue the freelancer- provided of course, that you are both in the same country.

Is this the kind of support we should expect from Upwork / Elance?

There is nothing Elance can do, since it does not exist anymore. Upwork can also do nothing, because the onus was on you to make sure you received what you paid for. If you released funds without checking the deliverables, I'm afraid you have only yourself to blame.

Sure, this sucks, but we don't have all the facts about this contract. I take it that this was an hourly paid job, which means that arbitration is not available. If it was a fixed price job, you can try to initiate a dispute, but it is highly unlikely anything will come of it.  

Thanks,

NC

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