In the last three years of working on Upwork, I have had just 2-3 disputes.
Fast forward last week, and I have had to dispute as many as three clients. Here are the details.
1. #1 client wanted an academic essay. Says just to write one page as a draft out of a total of ten pages and send. I send it and the feedback was to continue, with new additional instructions and to include citations. I had already stated in the initial message I will do the citations later as I develop the content.
Fast forward 8-10 hours, and I get a refund request. Why? Because the quality was suddenly poor now in the one page I had submitted. Even though she sent me additional instructions for the project that was important, which she didn't even send before. Absolutely no communication but requests a total refund by cancelling the project. Already had written 7-8 pages, and with zero response, had to dispute.
Later got to know she is a college student - don't know why Upwork allows that.
2. A CBD client in the U.S. needed a 5,000 word home page for their website for SEO as well as two other articles of 3,000 words each. Stated "rewrite from other pages."
I believe you let the client know once you think that their approach is wrong, but if a client wants things done a certain way, you do that. So, 5,000 words for a homepage made no sense, but if the client needed it for SEO, I wrote that. There were no additional instructions. I submitted files on different days, and after around 3 days, I see the client paying me $28 out of $300 (For 11,000 words), and requesting a refund for the remaining $272!
Why? The content was "bit basic". Let me tell you the topic he asked me to write on for one of those 3,000-word web pages was - "xyz product for sale" for SEO. That's all he had in the instructions, which additionally asked for rewrites from other web pages online.
Again, had to dispute it, because he didn't even respond, and just asked for $272 in return and disappeared. No communication.
3. Now, the third story. I don't know why clients feel entitled to make freelancers work for free. The client has an SEO agency in Ireland. Is too busy at work probably. Hence, he needs a writer who needs zero edits according to him. Unfortunately, he doesn't have time to review work but when asked, just say - 'it has errors and I am not going to pay'.
When I said I will have to dispute it, he gives me a few sentences that had both proofreading issues and personal preferences to how he wants it to be said. For example, he doesn't like this sentence, "Other businesses do the opposite: they create profile duplicates on the app."
I state that am always willing to revise, but he states "In order for you to proofread and fix issues I need to spend time to highlight all of them." And he doesn't have that time. And expects me to refund the entire amount because of that.
This particular client doesn't have a good review anyway on Upwork. Again, disputed. But will go to arbitration with this guy for sure.
Can't figure out if it's a rough patch for me right now, or Upwork's getting really bad clients. Maybe I did something right before that am not doing right now.
Just wanted to ask other freelancers if they have faced a similar situation recently? And if I am taking the right approach? Maybe am better off not taking new clients for now.
