Chargeback without client request

[#1]

Hello there 👋
This was my first job on Upwork 😥, After I finished the job, the client approved it, and the money was transferred to my account.
After 8 days, I received notification that the client had requested a chargeback. However, when I spoke with the client, she denied that he had requested a chargeback, and her account is on hold now.

I'm waiting for a reply from the Upwork team, but my concern here is how Upwork protects us as freelancers.
The client has the right to request chargeback after submission within 5 days, and based on my case, he has the right to also request chargeback after 5 days.

That means that as a freelancer, I could work on a project for hours or days, while the client could request a chargeback any day after delevier the work , causing me to lose money and time.

[#2]

If Upwork has nothing to do with it, why it doesn't allow the freelancers to withdraw money when clients requested for charge back. 

[#3]

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Hamna A wrote:

If Upwork has nothing to do with it, why it doesn't allow the freelancers to withdraw money when clients requested for charge back. 

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I'm afraid you haven't understood me.
It is NOT Upwork who makes the chargeback. The CLIENT does it.
Upwork has to get the money back. If you had not withdrawn the money, Upwork would have collected it from there. As there is no money, they will charge you what you earn, so you will not be able to withdraw untill they recover this money.
All this if I am not mistaken.

[#4]

The bank freezes the accounts. The business (Upwork) is not involved in the process. Until legal or financial penalties mandate a change, no business will become involved. In the case of most chargebacks, the card number is stolen.

[#5]

Mohamed Y.

We see on this board so many freelancer problems with chargebacks by fraudulent clients that it's a wonder any freelancer will use fixed price contracts with new, untested clients. (Of course, fixed price arrangements often make the most sense, not taking into account the potential for loss due to client fraud.)

I wish Upwork management would explain why it isn't allowing, or even forcing, fixed price  clients to make irreversible bank-to-bank payments via Zelle or similar payments services rather than credit cards, which would significantly reduce the likelihood of chargebacks. Of course, Upwork also loses its fees when a client's payment is reversed by the client or the client's bank, so Upwork must have a reason to let this costly loophole continue to be available to clients.

For the three months ended June 30, 2022 74% of Upwork's revenue came from US clients, most of whom could easily use non-credit card US payment methods to transfer funds to Upwork on behalf of freelancers. And the US government says it will introduce an even cheaper option for retail bank-to-bank money transfers in 2023, so it's about time that Upwork find a more secure way to get paid so both it and freelancers lose less money to payment-related client fraud.

Upwork could even make the use of these more reliable payment methods optional and mark each new project with the type of payment method the client is using. Freelancers can then decide whether they want to submit a proposal to work on that project. I imagine some projects would receive more proposals than others (and maybe even lower freelancer pricing) based on this information, but both freelancers and Upwork would make more money overall. And freelancers who currently avoid fixed price projects would be more likely to accept work under fixed price contracts, which at least some clients would appreciate.

Luckily for those of us who only do hourly projects, adhering to Upwork's rules for tracking freelancer activities means we likely won't lose all of our income on any particular project due to client fraud. To reduce its liability in such cases, Upwork does go through a project's tracked time and delete time Upwork, in its sole discretion, believes does not meet Upwork's requirements. There is no recourse on these decisions, but even partial protection is better than no protection at all.

[#6]

Did you get your money back??? After 90 days what Upwork said to you??

I scammed by this two times. And Upwork not support me. Freelancer not safe on Upwork.

[#7]

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Muhammad T wrote:

Did you get your money back??? After 90 days what Upwork said to you??

I scammed by this two times. And Upwork not support me. Freelancer not safe on Upwork.

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In order not to be scammed again (you can tell us what happened so we can help you more), you should read the TOS, Academia and Wes's post about scams.
Also, you should do something with your profile. Now it's nothing.

[#8]

I think we keep referring to people as scammers and assuming people who chargeback are Thugs or what ever was said above. What happens when a freelancer manually clocks hours, but does not provide evidence that they worked on your contract. Then Upwork does nothing to get you (the client) your money back and closes the dispute? Then you talk to your credit card company and they dispute with Upwork then you get suspended as a client?

My sistustion listed below:

A freelancer "claims" they did 650 hours of work at $50/hour. With all this "work" I looked through every line of code with 3 different developers and everyone of them told me that there is nothing that the freelancer did that aligns with the contract and the work they did does not equate to more than 40 hours MAX. I went through the dispute and mediation process and Upwork agree that the freelancer should pay me some money back because he could not show or prove that he did actually complete work that aligned with the project. The freelancer refused and Upwork closed my dispute, pretty much saying their is nothing they could do. So after gathering all the evidence I asked for the freelancers information to sue them or there company and Upwork references the subpoena protocol and did not provide me with this information. Therefore I talked to my credit card company to get my money back and they chargeback a good portion of the money that this freelancer charged (manual time entry no time tracker tool). Now my account is suspended and my other freelancers cannot get paid because this freelancer tried to rip me off. He did not do the work I asked h to do and continued to say "I am working on it I just need more time", "I have to keep building the UI", "the project is not possible", "buy me more products to use on your project", etc. He has 3 other reviews saying the same thing that happened to me that I didn't believe and now I do. I loved Upwork and thought it was a trusted platform that protected clients also, but as you can see the only way for clients to be able to get money back for a freelancer who does not work on your project is a chargeback. They do not protect clients even when the freelancer in the dispute process does not provide any evidence of them doing the work you asked.
The other owner of my business has about 400k followers across social media and she is going to make videos about everything that has happened and she is going on Reddit to talk about our experiences here. It is insane they now my account is suspended when I tried to do everything the way that Upwork wanted and they did nothing to this freelancer after the freelancer rarely even responded to the messages in the dispute process. The best Upwork did was offer $2000 in Upwork credit which is only a fraction of the about ~35,000 spent on this contract. Which does not even account for the wasted called, zooms, IMs, reviewed work, and lost time working on a project that directly affects my business.

People need to know about my experience on Upwork and how there is no protection for clients they just freeze or ban your account and give you no money back even tho as a small business $35,000 is a huge expense that literally is killing my business right now. It caused me to have to take out a business loan because I HAVE to have this application built and now I have to completely start over.

These kind of videos go crazy viral on TikTok, instsgram, Reddit, Twitter, and YouTube and the other business owner is preparing them as we speak. And I am going to post about it too.

[#9]

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Darius S wrote:

I think we keep referring to people as scammers and assuming people who chargeback are Thugs or what ever was said above. What happens when a freelancer manually clocks hours, but does not provide evidence that they worked on your contract. Then Upwork does nothing to get you (the client) your money back and closes the dispute? Then you talk to your credit card company and they dispute with Upwork then you get suspended as a client?

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Well, as I have pointed out in response to your other - nearly identical - posts in other discussions, you failed to manage your freelancer and continued to gift them money for little work, then later claimed fraud. Well it was fraud, but you had ample opportunity to fire them - literally every week that you chose to not dispute their hours.

And you violated Upwork's Terms of Service by issuing a chargeback, hence the suspension. And Upwork doesn't have the money - that all went to the freelancer.

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Darius S wrote:

The freelancer refused and Upwork closed my dispute, pretty much saying their is nothing they could do. So after gathering all the evidence I asked for the freelancers information to sue them or there company and Upwork references the subpoena protocol and did not provide me with this information.

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In general, the mediator's job is to mediate, not arbitrate. They do have the authority to investigate and reverse funds if it appears that the charges are fraudulent, at their sole discretion - but only for the 30 days prior to the initiation of the dispute. It is unfortunate that Upwork did not immediately provide you with the Freelancer's information so that you could file suit in court. But you have enough information from the freelancer's profile to be able to file suit. Then, once you file suit, you can subpoena Upwork for the information that you require. You planned to file suit anyways, so why didn't you do that?

Also, you should have pushed harder, asked to speak to a supervisor, something. I had an outrageous client who refused to pay me for services rendered until he was forced to by an arbitrator. He had phone calls with high level Upwork managers. The sum in question? $3,381.00 (when he was getting millions of dollars in seed funding). Your financial concern is nearly 10x that. So try harder to get Upwork on the phone. Cancel your chargeback request and solve this the proper way.

Put all of your creative energies into solving your financial problem, not venting about it to the world. The world's not going to help you fix it.

Edited to delete a redundant word