What if you already paid the freelancer but the job turns out to be not up to standard?

[dab0d105]

Hi everyone,

I hired a freelancer to help me speed up my website. This person seemed to be knowledgable, and I didn't forsee any issues. We agreed on a fixed price for work completed. Before hiring him, Google Speed Insights showed a speed of 56 on mobile and 92 on desktop. I wanted to be "in green" for both categories - meaning that mobile would need to be at least 90.

Once hired, the freelancer tried to tell me that if I don't REMOVE my main picture on my website, then there is NO WAY to speed my website beyond the score of I think 70 on mobile. Basically, he tried to tell me that I have to sacrifice how my wesbite looks like in order to gain speed??? That I can't have a basic picture on the top of my main page? I called his bs on this and told him that other freelancers don't see this as an issue (I asked a few).  After that, he magically speed up my website to SOMEWHAT satisfactory results (81 on mobile but the website was loading fast, so I decided to take it becasue I was tired of constantly asking him to improve the speed). 

It's important to note that he himself told me that lazy load is BAD FOR SEO and that other freelancers would speed up my wesbite by turning lazy load on and lie to me about it. I cleary told him that I do NOT wish to turn lazy load on and sent him screenshots of what Google Speed Insights say the actual problems are. He seemed to have fixed that and the score impreved to the one noted above.

I paid the freelancer and gave him a good review (even though I was not THAT happy with the result, I THOUGHT he tried hard, so I wanted to be nice). To fast things forward by a week, I realized my Google Analytics was not working for the entire seven days (ever since he stopped working on it because he meddled with GA on the last day trying to optimize it). 

When that happened I tried to look for a solution and reviewed all the plugins he installed and I noticed that the lazy load is ON!!!! What a scam. I got so mad! I basically feel ripped off now. I feel that he didn't do anything other than installing a few plugins which is compeltely not worth the price I paid. 

When I turned off the lazy load (not the entire plugin - just the lazy load feature), the score dropped to 61 on mobile and 92 on desktop.

How do I solve this? Can I request a refund? Can I take my good review back?

I emailed him about the issues but he's not responding. Can he do something bad to my website to punish me for requesting a refund? Should I just let it go? (it was a lot of money for me though, so I feel bad about letting it go).

Thanks for all your insights!

[prestonhunter]

I don't work for Upwork. As a client, I have hired over 150 freelancers on Upwork. Below is my opinion:

re: "What if you already paid the freelancer but the job turns out to be not up to standard?"

Yes.

That happens.

Successful clients understand this, and plan for it.

But refund thinking hurts clients.

Successful clients plan to never ask for a refund, and never dispute, and never try to get money back from freelancers.

Because it is a gamble to try to do so, and it is a gamble that usually will NOT work out in the client's favor.

The wise, successful client INSTEAD monitors a freelancer's work closely, especially early on after hiring somebody, and makes sure that the work is what he needs. If a client doesn't love a freelancer's work, he should end the contract immediately. That works. That saves time. That saves money.

What doesn't work: Continue paying a freelancer, and then try to get money back from the freelancer.

[dab0d105]

Hi Preston, I completely see your point. I should have ended the contract when I had the chance. I was hopeful that the issues would get resolved and I won't need to do that. I felt bad ending a contract once he started working on it, but I put myself in a worse position by not doing so. I agree with your thoughts though and this will serve as my lesson on what not to do 🙂

Do you think though that I can at least change my review? Just to give a proper discription of what transpired for other potential clients? Thank you!

[jr-translation]

How long ago did you pay the freelancer?
In theory you find all the information here, but the links are either missing or broken.

[prestonhunter]

Aneta:
Some additional info for you:

re: "Can I request a refund?"

You can probably request that the freelancer give you a refund.

It doesn't cost any money to send him a message and request money from him.

But I wouldn't count on him giving you any money back.

re: "Can I take my good review back?"

No.

re: "Can he do something bad to my website to punish me for requesting a refund?"

No: As long as you changed all access credentials to your website and associated accounts, there is nothing that he can do to your website to punish you for requesting a refund.

re: "Should I just let it go?"

From a business perspective?

Yes.

It is rarely a good business decision to spend time and energy trying to get money from a freelancer who has done work for you in the past.

Also, you provided a number of details about your project and about things that are important to you. Some of the concepts you mentioned include:

Google Speed Insights
Google Analytics
lazy load
SEO
plugins

It's really important for your success as a client to understand that these aren't Upwork concepts, and Upwork doesn't really care about any of these things.

Upwork isn't going to read your description of events and make a decision in your favor based on your critique of a freelancer's work.

Your frustration is valid, but your best way to move forward is to learn how to use the Upwork platform as effectively as possible. Learn the ways that client such as myself and others save money and succeed with projects. Learn everything you can about refunds, disputes, arbitration, mediation. If you're like me, then all of your knowledge will help you decide to never use these things.

https://support.upwork.com/hc/en-us/articles/211062088-Request-a-Refund

https://support.upwork.com/hc/en-us/articles/211062158-Dispute-an-Agency-or-Freelancer-s-Hours

https://support.upwork.com/hc/en-us/articles/211062058-Get-an-Escrow-Refund

https://support.upwork.com/hc/en-us/articles/360011239593-Unresponsive-Freelancers

[dab0d105]

Once again, thank you Preston for your insights — very valuable! I will wait for his reply and will let him know I am deeply disappointed, but I won't do anything about it (i.e. I won't request a refund). I guess some lessons in life come with a price tag 🙂 

[dab0d105]

Hi Jennifer, I paid him on Monday, May 16th, and I only realized all those issues yesterday. I messaged him asking for explanations but no reply as of yet. It's been 48h and normally he was very quick to respond.

[prestonhunter]

You hired a person whose skill and quality of work is insufficient for your needs. You should not work with him again.

As he is no longer part of your team, it is not surprising that he is not responding to you quickly.

If I'm the client:

I regard that freelancer as someone who is no longer of interest.

[jr-translation]

I am sure the freelancer knew what he was doing and now that he got paid and has a good feedback, he feels he is on the upper hand (and he is for the moment). If you can provide enough proof that he tried to scam you from the start (ToS violation), it might turn into a "refund the client or get suspended" situation.

Tight now you should not expect to get any of your money back. Your best hope is for this freelancer to be removed from Upwork, but I also know of a case where a freelancer who scammed several clients out of seveal k$ and was reported multiple times. She was suspended for a while but has since returned.

[dab0d105]

Thank you Jennifer for your thoughts! I decided that I will no longer stress over this. I am getting annoyed at the very thought, so it's not worth it. My website is slower than when I started this thread... but I will get over this, and will try again in the future with another freelancer.

He finally responded but seemed annoyed that I dare to question him and disregarded the matter. When I confronted him about the lazy load, he had the nerve to tell me to put it back on to see my speed score improve (so he lied to me about using lazy load and now tells me to put it back on even though he himself told me it's bad for SEO and should not be done, ugh). Some poeple are unbelievable.  Lesson learned though, I will be more careful going forward! Thank you to everyone who responded, you guys are great!!

[9f99d850]

Hi Aneta;

If I don't like the work of a freelancer, I ignore his request for review, if he insists or continuously follows up for the review, I apologize and tell him the reason.

Refund is a painful experience, I am not sure if it comes to my bank account or not, so I decided to fund a lesser amount to the project till I see how it works.

[dab0d105]

I will keep that in mind going forward. I guess, sometimes it doesn't pay to be nice 🙂 I wasn't happy, but I wanted to give him a good review for his efforts (which is what I thought at the time). Too bad that I learned afterward that I was lied to lol 

[claudiacezy]

High scores on performance test platforms doesn't always equal decrease in actual and perceived loading times. There are many factors, those are only recommendations.

 
You should not limit testing the performance with Google Speed Insights but use also other tools.

[cholmgreen]

Exactly this! Google insights may not actually increase perceived speed. Try other tools, such as pingdom and GT matrix to help measure the load time. You can also do it from your browser in developer mode, but keep in mind you should be logged out of the site (as being in admin in e.g. WordPress slows your speed on the site).

Perceived speed also comes from using a proper CDN such as cloudflare etc.

[yitwail]

Aneta, I'm at the disadvantage of not knowing exactly what your job post specified, but if it included specific Pagespeed scores, then a freelancer should only apply if they're certain they can achieve that result, not offer excuses why they can't. Neither should you settle for using other tools because if SEO is a concern, then all things being equal, a significantly improved pagespeed score could increase Google ranking for your site.