Solved: Abuse from client - is it worth complaining?

carringtongill54 · ‎01-28-2022

A client contacted me 14 months ago about a job and eventually hired me a year ago on an hourly rate to work on something for him but never sent any work. He got in touch earlier this month after a year and asked if I would start work. I asked for a meeting as I could remember literally nothing about the work and also wanted to know why a year had gone by. He ignored this and just sent an instruction (no deadlines). It took me about 10 days to getting round to looking at it (I am very busy and people who leave it a year, ignore requests for meetings and don't have deadlines go to the back of the queue) and when I did, I realised I did not have the time for the work. He ended the contract and I sent him a note explaining that I would not have had the time for the work anyway and wished him luck. He responded with a highly abusive message calling me unprofessional and a liar. I asked him to take it back and he has responded with more abuse. The contract is over - the work never started. Part of me wants to report him as I don't see why any freelancer should put up with personal abuse; another part of me thinks that I don't have the time. If I do report him, what will happen?

bevcam · ‎01-28-2022

I wouldn't bother wasting my time on him Gillain because despite being abusive and probably manipulative, he didn't do you any real harm. So what would you gain from reporting him other than wasting your time and getting irritated thinking of him?

Recently I had something similar. A client opened a contract for $5 to communicate via Google months ago. She sent me a scope and then disappeared, so no work was done and I closed the contract. She reappeared late last year with some excuse and I gave her the benefit of the doubt. Again, at my request, she funded $25 for me to chat with her client for 10 or 15 minutes. I did and they were really nice. I agreed to write content for them and she was going to fund the work on Escrow. They sent me loads of work, but no Escrow funding was forthcoming. I kept following up with her as the deadline neared. She sent me a nasty message insinuating that the $25 was for all the work. I didn't even bother responding to her insinuations; all I said was that she must know how Upwork works because she's hired FLs before. I closed the contract right away and she must've given me poor private feedback because my JSS dropped by 2%.

Personally, I wouldn't waste another nanosecond on her, don't waste one on him ;-).

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mwiggenhorn · ‎01-28-2022

Block him. Report him. Move on!

carringtongill54 · ‎01-28-2022

Quite happy to move on but just want to know what happens if I do report him/ Will it take up my time going forwards?

mwiggenhorn · ‎01-28-2022

If he has done this before, they may action his account. Other than providing the abusive message(s), I doubt they will ask anything else of you.

marc_compte · ‎01-28-2022

You should have a closer look at the ToS, but I'm not sure there is much to report. I know that sending threats is against the ToS (as in "if you don't do this I will leave you a bad review"). But if he just gets mad, calls you unprofessional or liar and ends up leaving you a bad review I'm not sure it is against the ToS.

You can simply block and move on. You may have to deal with a bad review, though. If you don't want to handle that, your other best option is to try to make room for this project. Explain him that you are very busy and your availability is not the same as it was a year ago. Try to negotiate a smaller scope that can get him up and running while he finds another freelancer.

bevcam · ‎01-28-2022

I wouldn't bother wasting my time on him Gillain because despite being abusive and probably manipulative, he didn't do you any real harm. So what would you gain from reporting him other than wasting your time and getting irritated thinking of him?

Recently I had something similar. A client opened a contract for $5 to communicate via Google months ago. She sent me a scope and then disappeared, so no work was done and I closed the contract. She reappeared late last year with some excuse and I gave her the benefit of the doubt. Again, at my request, she funded $25 for me to chat with her client for 10 or 15 minutes. I did and they were really nice. I agreed to write content for them and she was going to fund the work on Escrow. They sent me loads of work, but no Escrow funding was forthcoming. I kept following up with her as the deadline neared. She sent me a nasty message insinuating that the $25 was for all the work. I didn't even bother responding to her insinuations; all I said was that she must know how Upwork works because she's hired FLs before. I closed the contract right away and she must've given me poor private feedback because my JSS dropped by 2%.

Personally, I wouldn't waste another nanosecond on her, don't waste one on him ;-).

martina_plaschka · ‎01-28-2022

Good question - I don't know what happens when you report this to upwork, I assume that you would have to flag the invidual messages, so that might take up some time and not be worth it. If the client is just a nasty piece of work, upwork will probably not do much. I think they would reprimand and/or suspend him if it is racist, demeaning to a particular culture or people, things of that nature.

But these are just my assumptions, or maybe what I would hope would happen.