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yasmin-yassin
Community Member

A fraud client

My name is Yasmin.
I am a translator on Upwork. Yesterday I applied for job after I read the job description. Regarding the job description the word count is 4499 and the budget is $200. The client mentioned in the end of the job description "please send me your rate" I send already my rate per word $0.05 to him. When he send me the offer i found out that increase the budget and become $225 so that I accepted the offer and every thing is fine. Then the client told me the word count is more than 4500 words and he will pay the added money as a bonus at the end of project. I doubted in this and I asked him that tell me the real number of words and clarify this matter. Because the translation will be done on his translation platform and i can't count the number of words in it. He said me that the word count is 4500 but that is not real. I didn't want to accuse him of fraud therefore i tried to copy the words and paste in word document to know the real number and found that is more than 11,000 words although i couldn't copy and past all the words. I apologized to him for this project. Then he send me a message saying that the word count is 11,000 in one tab only -the project is divided into 5 tabs- but the others tabs include more than 7,000 words. So my question is i would want to end the contract and don't deal with this client. Will this action affect badly on my job success or on my upwork account? and if you have any suggestion please let me know.
Many thanks,
Yasmin
 
14 REPLIES 14
prestonhunter
Community Member

re: "Then the client told me the word count is more than 4500 words and he will pay the added money as a bonus at the end of project."

 

I'm not sure where you are from. But it sounds like you already know this is bozo speak for "I will not pay you."

 

This client is a total waste of your time.

 

I agree that you should do NO more work on this project.

 

Have you already done SOME work?

 

You should know that you have some power here.

 

The client can NOT GET HIS MONEY BACK unless YOU agree to give him his money back.

Even if you don't do any more work.

(Unless he files a dispute, which would then go to mediation... and even then, he can't get his money back unless you agree... Unless you both go to abritration, which would cost him $291.)

 

Here is what I would do:

 

I would tell him:

"Jim, I wish you well on this project, but due to some things out of my control, I will not be able to do any further work on the project. If you you would like me to, I will agree to refunding $220 immediately. You would only pay me $5.00."

 

That is a pretty nice incentive for him. He could receive $220 right now!

 

If you receive $5.00 in pay, then you will not end up with a zero-pay contract, so that would be better for you.

 

Be nice to him. Be polite. Hopefully he will like the idea of getting all that money back.

 

OR you could simply close the project immediately, and release ALL the money back to him, and take the hit to your JSS.


Preston H wrote:

I'm not sure where you are from.


How is that relevant?

 

Yasmin, if you walk out on the job, your JSS may well take a hit either way, either because you abandoned a job and the client left poor feedback, or because the client left no feedback and you ended up with a "nothing paid" contract.

 

However, you are top-rated with a JSS of 97%, so hopefully, you have your top-rated perk available and can use it if need be to eliminate the impact of the job on your JSS.

 

However, it's potentially a large job at your preferred rate- so why not translate as much as is funded (if $ 220 is funded and you agreed to $ 0.05 per word, you translate 4400 words) - then submit and commence translation once the $ 220 are released and the next milestone is funded and so on until the job is done in reasonable milestone stages.

 

re: "How is that relevant?"

 

It's not.

 

That's the point.

 

No matter where she is from or what languages she speaks, she recognized that when this client said he would pay her a bonus... That he was lying to her and trying to trick her.

 

Hence the title of this thread: "fraud client."

 

She correctly "translated" this client's total nonsense.

The client send me this message "What is the $5 for? I am surprised that you accuse me of 7,000 words when there are not that many and I make it clear I will pay for the extra and put it in the contract instead of a bonus. Did you decide you should not have bid on the job or what?"  

I don't like to work with him because he wasn't frank and clear from the begining and i think that he will not pay $ 5. What should I do in this case? 


Yasmin Y wrote:

The client send me this message "What is the $5 for? I am surprised that you accuse me of 7,000 words when there are not that many and I make it clear I will pay for the extra and put it in the contract instead of a bonus. Did you decide you should not have bid on the job or what?"  

I don't like to work with him because he wasn't frank and clear from the begining and i think that he will not pay $ 5. What should I do in this case? 


I expected this to happen when I read you intended to follow that poor advice...

 

Well, it looks like you'll end up with a poor outcome either way. Asking for $ 5 when nothing was done was ridiculous.

 

As you'll end up with that contract affecting you either way you might as well just close the contract if you don't want to do the job, with nothing paid (it makes no difference anyway whether it is nothing paid or poor feedback, just with poor feedback it leaves a visible mark on your profile which is a lot worse than not getting $ 5....)

 

This could have been so easily avoided 😞

 

Do you have your top rated perk available (meaning you haven't used it in the last 10 contracts and 3 months?)

 

 

Yes, I didn't use it. According to I have mentioned that I think that the fraud client is right in both cases and the freelancer is the only loser.


Yasmin Y wrote:

Yes, I didn't use it.


In that case, if you don't want to do the job, close the contract and use your perk to eliminate the effect of it on your JSS.

 

Next time something like that happens, just complete the work to the extent of the funded milestone, request payment and ask for a new milestone to be set and funded for the next set and so on.

 

There was no need for this contract to turn sour or to assume the client would not pay for more work if handled correctly. But what is done is done now, it's time for damage control. A real shame.

 


Yasmin Y wrote:

Yes, I didn't use it. According to I have mentioned that I think that the fraud client is right in both cases and the freelancer is the only loser.


Yes you DID use it or no, you didn't use it?

 

That wasn't a fraud client. A "fraud client" would not have created a milestone of $ 220.

 

You'd have had no problem at all had you translated 4400 words for the $ 220 and then asked the client to create a new milestone for another XXXX.


The whole thing only went down the drain (as it was obviously going to) when you used that idiotic "Pay me $ 5 to get your $ 220 back" nonsense.

 

This situation need never have gone wrong, you just had to manage it.

 

Many thanks Preston. I like your idea.

Yasmin,  follow Petra's advice.  She is a translator - and most importantly - she understands Upwork better than half the people on their staff and definitely better than other freelancers.

Half?

Preston, you have given some ludicrous advice to people in the past ... but this one is, hands down, the most incorrect and incompetent to date.

 

I don't usually call people out in the forums but you owe Yasmin an apology and before you post such nonsense again  - THINK!


Wendy C wrote:

Preston, you have given some ludicrous advice to people in the past ... but this one is, hands down, the most incorrect and incompetent to date.


Sadly, it isn't.

 

It is just one where the consequences of following dreadful, utterly ignorant or even outright malicious advice become clear sooner rather than later...

 

 

 

lysis10
Community Member

It's also kinda sad that this client doesn't sound like he was trying to bait and switch. It sounds like he just wanted her to do 4500 words (one tab, it seems and he even increased the milestone amount based on her rate she quoted) and then she could have collected and asked for another tab's milestone. Kept going until the whole thing was done.

 

This was poorly handled. womp womp

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