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aa667346
Community Member

The design is flawed, but freelancers turn away. I would like to get a refund.

Hello.

 

I requested a hardware design from a freelancer.

He submitted the design to me

He asked me to approve the payment, so I approved the payment.

but

When I manufactured the hardware, it was defective and it didn't work.

I asked the freelancer, but for a variety of reasons, I only get insincere answers and He can't figure out the problem.

I paid for it and I even paid for the design and production, but the results are terrible.

Obviously, he said he would help me until the end if there was a problem, When problems arise, freelancers turn away from me.

Time goes by and I'm losing money.

I'd like a refund.
What should I do in this case?

ACCEPTED SOLUTION
759e32fa
Moderator
Moderator

Hi Jason,

 

I'm sorry to hear about your experience. If the payment was released from escrow within the last 30 days you can request a refund from talent through Upwork and file a dispute if they refuse. You can still request a refund of released funds for up to 180 days after payment is released, but you will only be able to file a dispute for the first 30 days. After that, it is up to the freelancer or agency whether to give you a refund. Go here to learn more about this process.


~ AJ
Upwork

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17 REPLIES 17
prestonhunter
Community Member

What should you do?

In my opinion, you should focus on yourself and your project, rather than focusing on one freelancer who let you down,

.

When you try to get a refund, you are elevating the importance of one underperforming freelancer.

 

To provide us with context, and so that we can better assist you, can you tell us how much money in total you paid to that freelancer?

I paid $2,000 USD to the freelancer.

759e32fa
Moderator
Moderator

Hi Jason,

 

I'm sorry to hear about your experience. If the payment was released from escrow within the last 30 days you can request a refund from talent through Upwork and file a dispute if they refuse. You can still request a refund of released funds for up to 180 days after payment is released, but you will only be able to file a dispute for the first 30 days. After that, it is up to the freelancer or agency whether to give you a refund. Go here to learn more about this process.


~ AJ
Upwork
bobafett999
Community Member

Well Jason I am sorry that things didn't work out for you.  You have to remember  that Upwork is not a Walmart where you can return stuff for whatever reason.  It is also not a vending machine where you plop coins and get the exact stuff.

 

Upwork is a wonderful place to get stuff done relatively inexpensively.  But you take the risk.  In real business not every employee you hire works out.  If you don't like them, you fire them.  But you can't ask for refund of their salary.  Can you?

 

In my pre-upwork life, I was in that kind of space.  Doing a design and manufacturing in first pass was a mirage

 

Even in those days $2,000 were peanuts.

I don't agree with your idea.

Then, should the buyer keep losing money if there is no problem with the freelancer working 100 times and submitting 100 defective results?

If so, they will all submit defective results.

 

Also, I provided them with a company's already verified reference design and it was a design that only needed to be done the same.

Your attitude of saying that without knowing the circumstances is very wrong.

Well Jason this is the exact scenario i mentioned," In real business not every employee you hire works out.  If you don't like them, you fire them.  But you can't ask for refund of their salary.  Can you?"

 

Let us say I am the owner of the company and I hired you to do a job.  You subcontracted that job and the contractor failed.

 

Now should I hold you responsible for your failure?  I gave you the task.  I don't care how you complete that task.  I expect results.  I expect you to own the task, if that was successful and you saved me bunch of money by subcontracting- fine.  I will give you a raise and may be a promotion.  But here, you failed.  Should I ask you for a refund of your salary for whatever amount of time you spent on this task?

 

Remember Upwork is not a vending machine.  You plop money and here comes a freelancer from the chute and starts dancing to your tune the way you want.  Don't you think it is partly your fault too that you pressed the wrong button in selecting the freelancer based on whatever matrix you used.

 

Next time go local or modify the criteria you had previously designed.  Take this is a learning experience. Find out what went wrong in the process.  If you selected a freelancer based on price thousands of miles away that  could be a culprit.  May be if you had hired the freelancer on hourly basis he might be more inclined to make the necessary modifications to the original design.  May be he was a smooth talking fraud and a cheater.  May be you were not  a good project manager to manage the work of a sub contractor. 

 

Again, if you are looking for high success rate go local.

LuiggiR
Moderator
Moderator

Hello everyone,

 

Some posts in this thread were removed as they were in violation of the Community Guidelines. While we'll continue to allow criticism, posts that come without constructive feedback or are disparaging of other members won't be allowed. Forums like the Community are at their best when participants treat each other with respect and courtesy.


We do appreciate your participation, so please be considerate of this in your future replies.

~ Luiggi
Upwork
jeremiah-brown
Community Member

Jason, what kind of hardware design is it?  I may do this type of work and would be willing to take a look at the items in question.  

I would not charge to simply look over the items, but any work and corrections would need to be on an hourly basis.  

Sometimes I see this issue come up in product design as a result of the software being used.  One such software is Fusion 360.  This is a design software that allows users to have a free hobbyist copy - which is not supposed to be used for commercial purposes.  As you can imagine, it is frequently exploited for commercial work, and as a result, can lead to untrained/unqualified individuals performing work.  

Feel free to reach out and we can discuss at your leisure.


52f63ae4
Community Member

Can't provide any hardware design help.

bobafett999
Community Member

Utkarsh:  do you think your qualification and skill set matches the problem at hand? Read the first post and decide.

 

If you randomly apply any job that has 'design' in the body, people will think you are not capable.

The best advice I can provide to any client who wants to save time and money is this:

 

Proactively decide to never ask freelancers for money. No matter what. Never dispute. Never ask for a refund. Form a mental block against those concepts. Because refund thinking hurts clients.

 

Instead of sending money to an underperforming freelancer, and subsequently asking for that money back, do this:

Monitor a freelancer's work, especially early on, and stop sending money to the freelancer if you don't love their work.

 

Trying to get money back from a freelancer is a huge gamble, and usually doesn't work.

Yes. I will do as you advise me from now on.

I thought I could get protection for my order.
That was my wrong idea.

You do your job and don't leave comments here.

I don't want to hear your opinion.

I don't think this area is working.
I'm trying to hire an agency to request a refund, but this function is not entered properly. What should I do?

Please reply.

When you post in a public forum, you may receive comments you don't like. Only the moderators can remove posts. Everyone is free to post as long as they follow community guidelines.

paywell
Community Member

I am sorry to hear about the problem.

I believe that in normal cases you would release the funds and have 5 days before they are made available to the Freelancer. 

During this period, you can revert the release of funds from the Contract menu (the option is called "end contract and pay nothing").

 

In your situation, you can only try to get Upwork to mediate a refund, and if this fails - then try and go to court with the Freelancer. 

 

I can understand, that a longer time period than 5/30 days can pass between project and manufacturing. 

And what you do during this time, whether you double-check the work or put your trust in the Freelancer - it is completely up to you.

But Upwork has definitely got your back during a 5-day buffer period after the funds have been released, as well as during a 30-day period, when you can get a refund, together with mediation services. 

 

If I were a Client, I would do one of the following, to avoid such situations in the future:

  1. Split the job into milestones. One: project and the release of half or 1/3 of the funds, Two: Manufacture of a sample, Three: Correction of errors and/or Payment of the rest.
  2. Hire two freelancers: one who does the project and one who checks it. Mind you, that even you are looking to cut costs,  the second freelancer should be a well-paid professional with excellent credentials. 

 

Good luck with your project. 

 

P.S. to get Support - press "Get Support" in the lower right corner of this window. Then write "live support agent" or something of that sort, in order to get a person to answer you.

aa667346
Community Member

 

Your reply was very gentlemanly and good.

Thank you very much for your advice.
I will follow your advice in the future.

Have a nice day.

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