I am being scammed and in a dispute

[#1]

Hello,

I am new to Upwork. Today I talked to a freelancer and he wanted to move our chat to Whatsapp. I agreed. There he insisted on me paying him not through Upwork but I do not agree. Eventually, I made a contract on Upwork with a full deposit at $150 and 1 minute later I got an email announcing that he sent me the work but with no attachment. The next thing I see is that he deleted almost all of his messages on Whatsapp but luckily I captured a part of the chat. Too afraid, I ended the contract and now I'm in a dispute.

The only evidence I got is a piece of the chat he convinced me to pay him outside because Upwork charges a high fee, a timeline of him accepting the contract and submit his "work" (which is nothing) in only 1 minute. I want to ask if I am likely to walk out of this dispute with my full money. I see that I did nothing wrong but I am so afraid because I don't have enough money to go to an arbitrator. I really need your help. Thank you a lot

[#2]

Others here are more expert than I am in Upwork's ways, but if the freelancer did not submit any work to you via the Upwork system, then you the client can cancel the project at any time and not owe the freelance any money from Upwork's perspective. Money in escrow should be returned to you despite any protests from the freelancer.

It is a common complaint on this message board that many freelancers who are new to Upwork are defrauded by dishonest clients to whom they deliver agreed work outside Upwork and then the client cancels the project and the freelancer receives no payment for their work. 

Typivally, delivery of agreed work via Upwork = Release of funds in escrow

No delivery of work via Upwork = Client has option to never release funds in escrow and receive a full refund for all money in escrow

[#3]

Hello,

The specialist contacted me yesterday and today the freelancer claimed that he sent me the work through email (I actually gave me my email), while he didn't. I don't know how he will show the proof, I am afraid that he will do some photoshop or something. I would like to ask you if the work is delivered through email like you said, do clients have to pay? Thank you.

[#4]

It's not about "email."

It's not about "proof."

Escrow is a financial arrangement that Upwork did not make up. Upwork is required to abide by escrow rules, lest they lose the right to refer to their escrow system as "escrow." Upwork essentially is forbidden from making a decision regarding who gets the money. They are not going to look at anybody's proof.

This is a $150 contract that we are talking about, correct?

Keep in mind that you are NOT REQUIRED to continue fighting this or dealing with it. You have the right to simply ignore this matter and move on.

Do NOT hire this freelancer or work with him again. He is clearly a dishonest person.

[#5]

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Preston H wrote:

This is a $150 contract that we are talking about, correct?

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Preston, will you give Nguyen her $150 back if she lets this go? If not, advice about how to get her money back would be more useful.

[#6]

Rene:

Thank you for your question.

Yes, I have provided extensive information about her situation and provided details about how Upwork's fixed-price and escrow systems work.

Please don't hesitate to ask if you have any additional questions.

It IS important that she understand that she is not obligated to pursue this matter. The arbitration fee is $291. Only this client (and none of us) can make a decision for her about whether or not she should pay $291 for the opportunity to receive $150.

My hope would be that she doesn't need to make that decision.

If you will read other posts, you'll see that I have advocated for Upwork to simply get the money back to her. But I am just a user; I am in no position to impose that decision on Upwork.

If this is her own money then obviously she has some leeway about how she handles this. Obviously if she was working for an employer, most any employer would tell her to forget about this because the time she is spending on this is costing the employer more money than the possible amount that could be recovered.

[#7]

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Preston H wrote:

It IS important that she understand that she is not obligated to pursue this matter. The arbitration fee is $291. Only this client (and none of us) can make a decision for her about whether or not she should pay $291 for the opportunity to receive $150.

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Nguyen will not need to pay the arbitration fee unless the freelancer does. If she pursues the dispute and neither party pays for arbitration, then the escrow funds will be returned to the client.

ETA. Nguyen, don't worry about the freelancer faking evidence. Evidence does not matter unless the case goes to arbitration, and that will only occur if both parties choose to pay $291 each, which seems unlikely.

[#8]

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Rene K wrote:

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Preston H wrote:

This is a $150 contract that we are talking about, correct?

---

Preston, will you give Nguyen her $150 back if she lets this go? If not, advice about how to get her money back would be more useful.

---

Also, ignoring is not a good idea. A freelancer can get suspended for ignoring the mediator, which we've seen people post about getting suspended for doing just that on this forum. Valeria also confirmed that they do suspend for ignoring the mediator. 

Better advice would be to tell the mediator that you no longer want to fight it, but generally I think a majority of freelancers can get at least SOME money out of a dispute. The going offer it seems is $50, which I always reject but it might be worth it on a $150 contract. 

eta: I should specify this is for a freelancer, not a client. AFAIK, clients don't get suspended for dropping out and no longer responding. I've had that happen a couple times.

[#9]

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Preston H wrote:

This is a $150 contract that we are talking about, correct?

Keep in mind that you are NOT REQUIRED to continue fighting this or dealing with it. You have the right to simply ignore this matter and move on.

---

Obviously she is not "required" to continue dealing with it. Obviously she could reward the fraudulent behaviour of the freelancer by letting him have her money, so he'll have a good laugh and double his efforts to defraud the next person. And the next. And the next.

If every victim of such behaviour is shamed into letting it go because it's "only" $ 150 (which means more to some people than others) such freelancers just carry on.

It takes no time at all to briefly respond to a dispute thread, no need to even mention arbitration because there is no way the freelancer would go to arbitration knowing fully well he'd not have a leg to stand on, so in the end she'd win by default anyway.

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Preston H wrote:

It's not about "email."

It's not about "proof."

They are not going to look at anybody's proof.

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Of course they are looking at proof. They just don't make a legally binding decision,only a non-binding suggestion, but obviously they do look at it or they couldn't make a non-binding suggestion, could they?

[#10]

Hm.. statement of dispute means freelancer submitted the result via Upwork, but you are not agree with the quality delivered. If there is no any item submitted, what dispute we are speaking about? Sorry, I am kind of confused.

[#11]

This is what I received, only a text and no attachment. He still convinced me to approved it as discussed in both Upwork message and Whatsapp. 

[#12]

Hi Nguyen, 

I'm sorry to learn about your experience in Upwork. I can see that you've recently filed your dispute against this freelancer. The team will reach out to you within two business days once they have reviewed your concern thoroughly. 

[#13]

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Nguyen L wrote:

This is what I received, only a text and no attachment. He still convinced me to approved it as discussed in both Upwork message and Whatsapp. 

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You approved the request for payment?

[#14]

No, the money is still in Escrow. Actually, I ended the contract BEFORE I realized he had sent me the "work", because I saw no file at all, I didn't know that a freelancer can submit work with no attachment.

[#15]

I believe that Nguyen's description of events is accurate. He appears to be dealing with a very dishonest freelancer who understands how the Upwork user interface works.

Bill and Valery are thinking about things in "human terms." But the buttons that this freelancer pushed caused things to happen purely through Upwork's operational software, bypassing any human oversight.

Obviously it is not "fair" for a freelancer to use the "Submit Work / Request Payment" button without actually doing any work. But that is what this freelancer did. Upwork's software has no way of knowing that the freelancer did not actually do any work.

Havig closed the contract, the "dispute" that the client is in now is an opportunity for "mediation."

Upwork officially can NOT decide the outcome of the dispute. Upwork can only recommend that the freelancer and client communicate with each other and work out a mutually acceptable agreement.

Except in very rare circumstances.

THIS MAY BE one of those very rare circumstances.

At this point, there is nothing at risk for the client if he explains the situation to the Upwork mediator and hope that the mediator is willing to simply authorize the money to be refunded to the client.

Keep in mid that if this can not be resolved at the "dispute" stage, then the next step is arbitration, which will incur a $291 non-refundable fee for all three parties (client, freelancer, Upwork).

Read: Dispute Non-Release of a Milestone Payment

Also, the fine print:

Release and Delivery of Amounts in Escrow

As used in these Escrow Instructions, “Release Condition” means any of the following:...

12. We believe, in our sole discretion, that fraud, an illegal act, or a violation of Upwork's Terms of Service has been committed or is being committed or attempted, in which case Client and Freelancer irrevocably authorize and instruct Upwork Escrow to take such actions as we deem appropriate in our sole discretion and in accordance with applicable law, in order to prevent or remedy such acts, including without limitation to return the funds associated with such acts to their source of payment.

[#16]

Nguyen,

Upwork's support staff can easily check whether any file was attached to the fraudulent freelancer's message to you.

If there was not, the freelancer's claim for payment was obviously bogus. I assume that would be a violation of Upworks Terms of Service and there would be no need for arbitration.

[#17]

Nguyen,

Please come back to the board and let us know how this problem was resolved.

Good luck.

[#18]

I haven't had contact from the specialist yet. I will come back and tell you how it is solved. Thank you all for caring about the case.

[#19]

I'm commenting here as a reminder to myself to follow up on this case.

I'm new to Upwork, so I'm curious to see what they're going to do here. Are they going to stop the payment from going through to a blatant scammer, or are they going to get you to pay $300 to recover $150? Let's find out! 😛

[#20]

Hello,

I would like to show you how the case was solved. The specialist from Upwork did ask for proof from both the client (me) and the freelancer. The freelancer said he sent work for me through email, but when the specialist asked him to provide a copy of the work as a proof, the freelancer did not reply. After around 3 days of not hearing any comments from the freelancer, Upwork decided to release $150 from escrow back to me. 

So yeah, after the experience, I believe in the way Upwork solve cases and was not disappointed. 'Gonna continue using Upwork to connect to freelancers, though I have to admit that I'm a little afraid when hiring one that doesn't have much work experience because of thinking he might be a fraud, just like last time.

[#21]

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Nguyen L wrote:

Hello,

I would like to show you how the case was solved. The specialist from Upwork did ask for proof from both the client (me) and the freelancer. The freelancer said he sent work for me through email, but when the specialist asked him to provide a copy of the work as a proof, the freelancer did not reply. After around 3 days of not hearing any comments from the freelancer, Upwork decided to release $150 from escrow back to me. 

So yeah, after the experience, I believe in the way Upwork solve cases and was not disappointed. 'Gonna continue using Upwork to connect to freelancers, though I have to admit that I'm a little afraid when hiring one that doesn't have much work experience because of thinking he might be a fraud, just like last time.

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Freelancer got suspended too lol I'm sure we'll hear from him here or on reddit saying he got suspended for NO REASON.

[#22]

lol i don't think he got the guts 

[#23]

Hi, Nguyen.

Thank you for following up and telling us how this worked out. It looks like Upwork did the right thing here. Congratulations!

Contrary to what other posters have said with great conviction on various threads on this subject, Upwork has shown that it reserves the right (as clearly described in Upwork's terms of service) to release or return escrow based on factors Upwork thinks are relevant rather than the decision being totally controlled by laws and regulations regarding escrow.

That is as it should be.

[#24]

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Will L wrote:

Hi, Nguyen.

Thank you for following up and telling us how this worked out. It looks like Upwork did the right thing here. Congratulations!

Contrary to what other posters have said with great conviction on various threads on this subject, Upwork has shown that it reserves the right (as clearly described in Upwork's terms of service) to release or return escrow based on factors Upwork thinks are relevant rather than the decision being totally controlled by laws and regulations regarding escrow.

That is as it should be.

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If either client or freelancer stop responding, then yes the other party wins. They tell you this when the dispute starts.

eta: they also tell freelancers that if they stop responding, it could result in suspension of their account, so you want to make sure you respond to the mediator.

[#25]

Which also shows that Upwork can and does make decisions about release of escrow.