A Client is not responding

[7321d689]

I got my first client on September 4th and we immediately talked and I did some work for him for almost 2 hours. He told me I can enter it in, but I figured I'd be working with him for a while and I didn't charge him. Since then, I've sent him a few messages and he hasn't responded. Below are some of the details of the contract. I feel like he mislead me, if he only wanted about 2 hours of work. I thought it was going to be for 40 hours. The contract is open and he won't respond to my messages. Can I retro-actively charge him for the 2 hours I worked on September 4 and then close out the contract?

Weekly Limit  40 hrs/week

Manual Time  Manual time allowed

Start Date  September 4, 2020

Thanks,

Kevin

[lysis10 · Accepted solution]

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Kevin Q wrote:

I got my first client on September 4th and we immediately talked and I did some work for him for almost 2 hours. He told me I can enter it in, but I figured I'd be working with him for a while and I didn't charge him. Since then, I've sent him a few messages and he hasn't responded. Below are some of the details of the contract. I feel like he mislead me, if he only wanted about 2 hours of work. I thought it was going to be for 40 hours. The contract is open and he won't respond to my messages. Can I retro-actively charge him for the 2 hours I worked on September 4 and then close out the contract?

Weekly Limit  40 hrs/week

Manual Time  Manual time allowed

Start Date  September 4, 2020

Thanks,

Kevin

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You can add 2 hours to this week. That's what I would do. It's not protected but he told you to enter it before. 

[7321d689]

Thank you, Jennifer for the response. My biggest concern is that I don't understand the contract. It says up to 40 hours a week so I bid on it, thinking it would a good contract. I'm going to enter the two hours, just to see if he responds to my messages. I really don't care about the money, but I'm curious as to what is going on with the contract. I guess I'll see if he ever responds. 

[tlbp]

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Kevin Q wrote:

Thank you, Jennifer for the response. My biggest concern is that I don't understand the contract. It says up to 40 hours a week so I bid on it, thinking it would a good contract. I'm going to enter the two hours, just to see if he responds to my messages. I really don't care about the money, but I'm curious as to what is going on with the contract. I guess I'll see if he ever responds. 

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Do a quick search through the forums for threads about "unresponsive clients" or "red flags" 
Upwork clients aren't always the most reliable. There are some great client relationships to be found here, but you have to learn to read the signs. When you approach a potential contract, approach it from the perspective of you interviewing the client to determine if they are someone you trust and want to work with. Not every contract is one you want to win. 

[feed_my_eyes]

Just because the weekly limit says "up to 40 hours" it doesn't mean that you have a contract for 40 hours of work. It's normal to work for fewer hours than the limit says, and clients can end the contract whenever they like (though he should have at least responded to your messages).

[prestonhunter]

40 hours per week is a default value.

If a client hires you and expects you to the task in one hour, it is likely that the contract says 40 hours per week.

[7321d689]

The job posting also said 1-3 months. I was really mislead. Oh well, its a good lesson learned.

[prestonhunter]

re: "The job posting also said 1-3 months."

That is another pre-set option. I am sorry that you read so much into that. Now you know.

[feed_my_eyes]

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Kevin Q wrote:

The job posting also said 1-3 months. I was really mislead. Oh well, its a good lesson learned.

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As Preston said, those are the defaults that Upwork sets, and indicate a maximum limit, not a minimum limit - very few clients change those details. I'm sure that the client didn't intend to mislead you. You can usually tell from the project description roughly how many hours the project will actually take (and indeed, for fixed price projects, it's essential to do the scoping yourself and not rely on what the client has set as their budget).

[7321d689]

This is bad. I billed him for the 2 hours and he finally responded. He terminated the contract and left a bad review with a lie in it. I responded to it and sent him a personal message. He also made an excuse that I couldn't get his problem resolved. Is there any way I can get that not to show up on my profile? One lie he said was that I responded to his problem a week later with a solution that was not good. I responded to him right after our conversation but he either didn't read it or he just flat out lied.

[martina_plaschka]

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Kevin Q wrote:

This is bad. I billed him for the 2 hours and he finally responded. He terminated the contract and left a bad review with a lie in it. I responded to it and sent him a personal message. He also made an excuse that I couldn't get his problem resolved. Is there any way I can get that not to show up on my profile? One lie he said was that I responded to his problem a week later with a solution that was not good. I responded to him right after our conversation but he either didn't read it or he just flat out lied.

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If I were you, I would refund the amount and make the feedback disappear, it's just not worth the money. It will still be bad for your rating, but at least it will not sink your upwork career. Another thing: bad feedback is usually made much worse when the freelancer replies. 

[7321d689]

Thanks for the advice. To be honest, I'm a little bit down on this place now. I've applied for several positions and that was my only response. 

[7321d689]

iI am really upset about this. I'm going to sleep on it, but I'm wondering what options I have to clear up my reputation here. Is there a way I can dispute his review? What protection do we have against bad clients like this? He ruined my Upwork career with a dishonest review. 

First of all, I bid on his very vague contract. He immediately hired me with no goals or anything. I was surprised but quite happy.

Then he immediately sent me a message and asked if I could do a Zoom Meeting. He sent me the link but he couldn't get it to work. After 15-20 minutes of him fumbling around, he finally got it working. 

I thought the whole intent of the call was for an introduction so he could tell me what he wanted. However, he had a small file opened in Notepad and he struggled to share his screen with me. He then gave me the wrong information on an issue he was having and he lead me down the wrong path. I was kind of embarrassed for him but I really wanted to help him since he was looking for a tutor. He gave me no information, I had to download the stuff from his website to actually get the information I needed.

His code was so messed up that I was surprised. I can go into the technical details but I have never seen anything so wrong. His website is still up there and anyone can download to see what he's doing.

Anyways, after I found two issues for him, he said he had to go and I never heard from him again. Now, he gave me this review filled with lies in it. He even said he hired someone for cheaper to do it. This tipped me off, that he found someone cheaper on another site, and instead of just telling me that, he lied and wrote a really bad review for me. 

I don't care about the money, but I will refund it only if he takes off his written review and the 2.6 that he gave me. 

I've also noticed that he's been a member here since 2017 and I was the only person he's hired. He's had two job openings. 

[7321d689]

If anybody know about CSS and HTML, here's what he did:

He just wanted to have a simple link. He told me that he wanted it to be responsive and was told to do it the way he did it. What he did, was he had a <div> and in the CSS for the div, he had a background image. His baclground image was a jpg of the text that he had showing up in the link. In his anchor tag, he had nothing as the children. He used CSS with an absolute position and specified the top left parameters so that it matched up on only one screen size. I was wondering how he got the text to display for the anchor. It wasn't until we got off the phone and I downloaded the code and realized that the text for the link was in the jpg that he used as a background for the div. He still has that there. When I found out what he was doing, i sent him a message immediately. This was shortly after he got off the phone. In the review, he also lied and said that I gave him a response a week later.

What protection to we have against dishonest clients?

[martina_plaschka]

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Kevin Q wrote:

If anybody know about CSS and HTML, here's what he did:

He just wanted to have a simple link. He told me that he wanted it to be responsive and was told to do it the way he did it. What he did, was he had a <div> and in the CSS for the div, he had a background image. His baclground image was a jpg of the text that he had showing up in the link. In his anchor tag, he had nothing as the children. He used CSS with an absolute position and specified the top left parameters so that it matched up on only one screen size. I was wondering how he got the text to display for the anchor. It wasn't until we got off the phone and I downloaded the code and realized that the text for the link was in the jpg that he used as a background for the div. He still has that there. When I found out what he was doing, i sent him a message immediately. This was shortly after he got off the phone. In the review, he also lied and said that I gave him a response a week later.

What protection to we have against dishonest clients?

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You can't dispute feedback unless it is derogatory or unethical (I'm paraphrasing here, too lazy to look it up), so basically, no, you can't dispute feedback. Upwork is not stepping in as a referee between freelancers and clients, that would be preposterous to do. That's why refunding is your best option.

The client might be a habitual scammer giving bad feedback so that people refund him. The non-existent hiring rate would be an indicator of that. 

So, yes, you made a number of mistakes due to being inexperienced and too excited about that first offer. Time to learn and move on. 

[petra_r]

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Kevin Q wrote:

I don't care about the money, but I will refund it only if he takes off his written review and the 2.6 that he gave me. . 

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If you refund it, that will remove the contract and the review from your profile, but not your metrics.

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Kevin Q wrote:

First of all, I bid on his very vague contract. He immediately hired me with no goals or anything. I was surprised but quite happy.. 

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That's where you went fatally wrong. Never accept a contract until you know what you are accepting.

[tlbp]

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Kevin Q wrote:

Thanks for the advice. To be honest, I'm a little bit down on this place now. I've applied for several positions and that was my only response. 

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You went into your contract with a lot of misconceived ideas about what the information presented to you meant and a lot of assumptions about how the platform and its interactions should work. The outcome could have been worse. Someone else posted that he worked 80 hours for which he wasn't paid because he didn't use the proper contract type and entry methods. 

Upwork, even for freelance and business experience, is treacherous if you don't first have a clear understanding of its clients and its rules. Unfortunately, I suspect that many freelancers don't discover the forum (where that knowledge can most easily be gained) until they have already suffered damage. 

The advice others have provided is correct. You don't want that review showing on your profile. Give back the money, consider it tuition, and move forward with your newly gained, valuable knowledge. 

[7321d689]

I want to thank everyone for their great advice. However, my wife and I discussed this alot and feel that it's just best for me to leave Upwork.

Previously, I got some advice that I should lower my rates to get some quick clients so that I could get a better rating and then bid on some bigger and bigger projects. I tried that and it didn't work. I've spent alot of time researching jobs and bidding on them. All the good jobs already have over 50 bids on them, and alot of the people have good ratings so my profile doesn't even get looked at. That leaves me with just bidding on jobs like this. 

Obviously, I don't really care about the $40 ($32 after commission) and could easily refund it. That would be great to have his review disappear, but it won't erase the 2.6 rating he gave me. Say for example, I got another contract and got a 5.0, my rating would still just be 3.8. From my bidding history and my response rate, without even having bad metrics, I still had a tough time finding clients.

I know Upwork provides a great service and I know that alot of people have found alot of sucess with  it, but I feel it's best for me to move on. I'm a grown person and I accept that I have made a ton of mistakes and I don't blame Upwork for them. I wish I everybody the best of luck and hope you're all successful..Thank you for listening to my vent and offering great advice.

[petra_r]

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Kevin Q wrote:

That would be great to have his review disappear, but it won't erase the 2.6 rating he gave me. Say for example, I got another contract and got a 5.0, my rating would still just be 3.8.

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You do know clients would see no trace of that contract at all if you refunded and nobody sees your average star rating, right?

[7321d689]

Thank you Petra. I did not know that. I'll refund the money.

I'll keep my account active but might take a couple of weeks off from Upwork and try to develop a new strategy here. I'm definitely going to learn from this and not make the same mistake again.

[7321d689]

OK I refunded his money and did not know I would get the opportunity to leave a note with it. I know it won't do any good but I left a note and told him how I felt. 

Take your money back and next time be a little more considerate. When you accepted the contract and wanted to meet, I had no idea you were going to start asking for help. I was expecting an overview of what you wanted and we were going to develop a plan of attack. I also could not see what you had on the screen and had a difficult time following what you were showing me. Your current html and css were so backwards and wrong, that it took me a while to figure out what you were even trying to do. Nobody puts text in a jpeg file and sets it as a background image in a div so that you can set a link to it.

Also, I would have expected you to be a man and not a coward and tell me that you had an issue with me and you thought that I was dumb instead of weasling out and not responding to me and then ruining my reputation with a bad review. This says alot about your character and the way you run your business.

Oh and by the way, I have several patents and I know html and css very well. Good luck with you life and I hope you have great success. 

[lysis10]

Well, you're leaving Upwork so my comment is to people reading this thread:

When a client says to log time, just log time don't say "I'll do it for free" and then weeks later say "haha just kidding you didn't give me work so I'll charge you now."

[7321d689]

I understand and agree with you. That's why I had a tough time doing it and the reason why I asked people for advice. The only reason why I said "I did it for free" was because he was supposed to get back to me with more work and I wanted to get a good relationship going. This is definitely something I learned and won't do that again. 

[jessicasimko]

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Kevin Q wrote:

Thank you Petra. I did not know that. I'll refund the money.

I'll keep my account active but might take a couple of weeks off from Upwork and try to develop a new strategy here. I'm definitely going to learn from this and not make the same mistake again.

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This place can be tough to start out on, that is the truth.  But you should know...  yes, a refund removes the star rating and comments. So if this was your first job, your profile will look clean now.  However (just so you are prepared), if you do stay and get more jobs, you will get a job success score after you complete your 4th (maybe 5th?) job. This score will be on your profile and is often used by clients as a search metric.  When clients close out jobs, they also have to leave private feedback and that rating is what goes into your job success score - and as a new freelancer, that can't be erased with a refund.  I would guess he gave you a low score there as well. This will show up on your job success score even though you refunded the job and removed it from your profile. Even if the next several jobs go perfectly, your first job success score will probably be low (it might be 75% or something like that)   You can still work hard to build it up but I just didn't want you to think that the refund made this permanently go away. 

[7321d689]

I want to thank everybody here who helped me out with this last year. I came really close to leaving Upwork, but only stayed because of the advice everyone here gave me. It's been 13 months, and a couple of weeks ago, I made Top Rated. If I can help anyone out in any way, please let me know. I'd like to return the favor.