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anshulrastogi
Community Member

Client Asking for Refund on hourly job

Dear Guru's,

 

Could you please help. The client ended the hourly contract on 3rd Aug and on 4th Aug demanded the complete refund on the workhours put from 27th july till 2nd Aug. I didn't responded at that time as no where in the contract is mentioned that I have to refund the amount if sales do not come, neither he spoke about this anywhere or later.

 

Now, After a week I got the earning in my upwork account.

 

Now today he suddenly again demanded to refund this amount. I really put all my efforts in selling his product, but their was somehow No Demand for his product in the market due to overprice of his product.

 

Am I really obliged to refund him for my time and efforts went into his project. He has already given 1 star rating to me for that project which reflects in my profile and would affect the JSS now.

 

Today I politely answered him, but he's adamantly sticking to refund & saying his time was wasted as No Deal has come. Then I told him that this clause is no where mentioned in the job contract that "If No Deal: Then I have to refund the amount".

 

What all can happen now? I definitely do not want to give refund as I'm seeing this client is doing wrong by asking the refund on the time and efforts spent on his project. Please help me now.

 

Thanks

13 REPLIES 13
a_lipsey
Community Member


Anshul R wrote:

Dear Guru's,

 

Could you please help. The client ended the hourly contract on 3rd Aug and on 4th Aug demanded the complete refund on the workhours put from 27th july till 2nd Aug. I didn't responded at that time as no where in the contract is mentioned that I have to refund the amount if sales do not come, neither he spoke about this anywhere or later.

 

Now, After a week I got the earning in my upwork account.

 

Now today he suddenly again demanded to refund this amount. I really put all my efforts in selling his product, but their was somehow No Demand for his product in the market due to overprice of his product.

 

Am I really obliged to refund him for my time and efforts went into his project. He has already given 1 star rating to me for that project which reflects in my profile and would affect the JSS now.

 

Today I politely answered him, but he's adamantly sticking to refund & saying his time was wasted as No Deal has come. Then I told him that this clause is no where mentioned in the job contract that "If No Deal: Then I have to refund the amount".

 

What all can happen now? I definitely do not want to give refund as I'm seeing this client is doing wrong by asking the refund on the time and efforts spent on his project. Please help me now.

 

Thanks


Do not refund. Hourly projects are for hours worked, they are not for specific deliverables. If he wanted to stipulate a deliverable he should have used a fixed price model. As long as you used time tracker properly and left meaningful memos, he cannot dispute the hours (well he can but won't win). He's already left you a bad review. Keep the money. 

Thanks Amanda, I won't refund. I used upwork Tracker with proper Memos

 

 

prestonhunter
Community Member

Anshul:
In the situation you describe, the client is behaving unprofessionally, unethically, and immorally.

 

It can help to turn this around and think about it from the other perspective: If YOU were the client, would you do something like this to another person?

Of course you wouldn't. If YOU were the client, you would not have asked for a refund in this situation.

 

Understanding that can help you to more fully realize that you do NOT owe that client a refund.

Thanks for the response Preston. Yes this is unprofessional and completely unethical and I won't refund him anything.

 

 

Anshul - I just went through a similar event with a client. I had an hourly contract and I made sure to include memos. I refused to give a refund so he put it into dispute. I won because I had all the tracking. He then put it into hourly mediation - and we are still going through that but he is giving up. So, stick to your guns. You spent the time and you tracked your time and you will get paid.

Thanks for sharing your experience. This **Edited for community guidelines** client is asking for refund
after 20 days.

Yeah... I don't know what is wrong with some people.

 

If you hire someone to work for you hourly, then you pay them for their time. This concept is thousands of years old. This is not rocket science.

Hi, Joan.

 

I'm glad to hear you prevailed with that client.

 

What is "hourly mediation"?

Will - Hourly mediation was news to me. First the client asked for a refund and I refused. So he filed for a dispute. I won the dispute because it was hourly and all the tracking for 10+ hours were approved. Then he filed for hourly mediation and I had never heard of that. Upwork protects us for hourly jobs if the tracking is good - but even if you win that, I found that a client can ask for hourly mediation. So a mediator comes along and tries to get the freelancer and the client to come to an agreement. I decided why should I do that. I had won the dispute. The client was still in the mediation asking for a refund- and I refused. So now it seems he has given up but I am still waiting to hear from the mediator that the case is closed. It is all taking too much time.

dsmgdesign
Community Member

Clients can only dispute the previous week on hourly contracts. Also, the feedback period is 14 days from the end of the contract. As long as you have passed this, you don't need to worry about it. The client can't do a thing to get their money back or damage your reputation on Upwork. 

David - I think you are wrong. A client can still dispute an hourly contract if they missed doing that for the previous week. It then apparently just takes longer to get resolved. My client in my dispute did try to damage my reputation with the horrible feedback he left. He also said he was going to write to the head of Upwork and get me banned from the site.

If you are a client, you can observe the work diary in near real time.

You can ask the freelancer to send you the files at any time.

 

You have five days after a work week end to review work and dispute time segments.

 

I understand that Upwork extends clients EVEN MORE opportunity to file a "dispute."

But it's bad form. Dirty pool. Regardless of what Upwork "allows."

 

If you are a client who is a decent human being, then if you don't want to keep working with a freelancer and paying her, then end the contract. Don't let them keep working, benefit from their labor, and then ask for the money back that you paid them.

Preston,

 

What is "hourly mediation" and when did Upwork start offering it?

 

I don't remember every having heard that term used before.

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