Client Disputed contract

azamiftikhar · ‎09-03-2020

Hello Everyone. One of my client has disputed an hourly contract and asking for a complete refund for 300+ hours I worked on it. Though the contract is already closed two weeks ago. The reason he gives is substandard work and amount of hours it took. I have logged all of my hours properly using Upwork time tracker and have been sending my work for weekly review. He seemed to be pretty happy with the work but at the last moment just paused the contract and asks for refund. I strongly believe that he wasn't able to get any users for his applications and this whole application becomes useless for him. So now he is trying to recover whatever he can.

My Question - I have nearly around 20-25 manually logged hours ,primarily invested in brainstorming and strategy planning (logged only after clients approval).
Do I need to worry about anything?
Do I specifically need to menion anything to the Mediation Specialist that might help me in my case?

Thanks and Regards

Mir

a_lipsey · ‎09-03-2020

Mir R wrote:
Hello Everyone. One of my client has disputed an hourly contract and asking for a complete refund for 300+ hours I worked on it. Though the contract is already closed two weeks ago. The reason he gives is substandard work and amount of hours it took. I have logged all of my hours properly using Upwork time tracker and have been sending my work for weekly review. He seemed to be pretty happy with the work but at the last moment just paused the contract and asks for refund. I strongly believe that he wasn't able to get any users for his applications and this whole application becomes useless for him. So now he is trying to recover whatever he can.

My Question - I have nearly around 20-25 manually logged hours ,primarily invested in brainstorming and strategy planning (logged only after clients approval).
Do I need to worry about anything?
Do I specifically need to menion anything to the Mediation Specialist that might help me in my case?

Thanks and Regards
Mir

You will probably lose the manual hours. They are not protected. However, if he has just asked for a refund at this point, then you aren't going to mediation yet. First Upwork will try to work out the dispute between you two. Upwork simply facilitates, they do not make decisions or enforce any judgments from the dispute. If you two fail to reach agreement, either party can pay to go to arbitration, and both parties have to pay $291. If either of you do not, the other automatically wins. If you have used time tracker appropriately then you shouldn't really be at a risk to lose anything, besides the manual hours.

Hopefully someone who has been through a dispute on an hourly project can chime in.