Client being unreasonable with unlimited revi...

walihjafferi · ‎06-26-2019

I have an open Fixed price project. The client paid for the one & only milestone on March 28, 2019.

It's been 3 months now and I have been working on his revisions / bug fixes and have already transferred the website to their server but he still wants more and more done and now wants me to include site optimization as part of the original job however it was never mentioned in the original job.

I have requested him politely many times but he is not closing the job on Upwork. Questions I have

1. Should I go ahead and close the project? I am sure he will leave me public and private negative feedback but being toplancer for the first time in life at least I can get his public feedback removed.
2. Can he force for refund or dispute or AAA? the only milestone was paid in March ., so its been 3 months now.

Any help/hints are appreciated. Thanks

colettelewis · ‎06-26-2019

Wali,

Tell him, politely that he has gone way beyond your agreement and close the contract. You have done three months free work. That is not acceptable. Yes, he will give you bad feedback because that sort of client always does, so you probably will have to use your perk.

If he asks for a refund, refuse. I doubt if he will dispute, but if he does, be prepared to take it to arbitration, which I am sure won't happen in this case.

Keep all the correspondence you have had with this client.

walihjafferi · ‎06-26-2019

But can he dispute the payment after 30 days? It's been 3 months that the last milestone was paid. Can he still dispute or take it to arbitration ?

petra_r · ‎06-26-2019

Wali Hassan J wrote:
But can he dispute the payment after 30 days? It's been 3 months that the last milestone was paid. Can he still dispute or take it to arbitration ?

No, he can't.

As far as I am concerned, bug fixes (bugs you created) should be fixed. Completely new stuff should be done under a new contract or milestone.

colettelewis · ‎06-26-2019

Wali Hassan J wrote:
But can he dispute the payment after 30 days? It's been 3 months that the last milestone was paid. Can he still dispute or take it to arbitration ?

I don't think he can, but if he does, all he can do is to ask for a refund and you will refuse it. The client then decides if he wants to dispute. If this happens, follow everything CS tells you to the letter. However, you should keep refusing to refund and take it to arbitration. I am sure it won't get that far.

If this were me, I would cancel that contract now. If you do, you will be asked to give reasons. You can truthfully say, because you have not been paid for three months.

Take your working life back.

prestonhunter · ‎06-26-2019

Wali:

This is a bad client, and probably a bad person.

He can't get a refund from you now. The time is too late for that.

End the contract as amicably as possible. But you shouldn't be working for 3 months without getting paid. That's ridiculous. You know this is wrong. If you were a client, you would never do that to someone else.

prestonhunter · ‎06-26-2019

Wali:

I don't know the details of the your situation, but clearly you let things get out of hand.

It can take practice, thought, and wisdom to get good at avoiding "scope creep" situations like this.

I think the most important thing is to make sure your task/milestone/contract specifications are very clear at the beginning, before agreeing to any fixed-price milestone or contract.

And then you need to be aware that you are NOT OBLIGATED TO DO ANYTHING that isn't specifically mentioned in the original agreement.

When I complete the task specified in an agreement, then that's it. It is done. I don't ask the client if the work is finished. I submit the work using the "Submit Work / Request Payment" button.

If the client asks for anything outside fo the agreement, then if it something small, I tell her: "Yes, I would be happy to do that. If you will go ahead and release payment for the completed work, then I'll do that for free."

If it is more than a minor task, then I will tell her: "Yes, that is a good idea. If you will go ahead and close the current contract, then we can set up a new hourly contract or fixed-price contract to do that next step."

walihjafferi · ‎06-26-2019

Thank you guys. Each one of you Rocks!

So the situation is that we started on very good note. He hired me, put all money in Escrow, I did the website and sent it to him for review. He then sent some revisions, I did those and sent it back for review.

He then said, his designer has to review the site but is probably busy so he won't hold my payment in good faith and will release it hoping I will take care of feedback. So he released full payment in March 2019.

It took his designer a couple of weeks to get back to us, since the feedback was too big ( site was too big ), he sent an email with all bugs / fixes and some additions that I did for him in good faith. We kept going back and forth on emails with all bug fixes ( he would send few bugs and include some minor changes in every email for example, can we change this? can we replace image? can we add this form there? can we add these buttons and link it to that? ) .. I kept doing it but of course enough was enough. I told him to send me a final email with only Bugs and that do not send any changes. He sent the final email ( still sent few additions ) I told him I am doing minor additions in good faith, won't do major ones. We agreed. He got the final email's issues resolved and then asked me to transfer the site.

I told him to close project on Upwork before I transfer the site, he said no I know how Upwork works and if you are paid in full, you give me my site and I will close the project. I did so without arguing further. Since then he has the site ( been a week ) and even after sending multiple requests, he is not closing project and now he emails me saying, there are still bugs that were overlooked in past emails and that site is very heavy and loads very slow and is un-usable and I can not do anything with this site.

I told him its an image heavy site and my job was to convert PSD to Wordpress website ( Project description does not say anything about SEO / Optimization / Performance / Site load etc ) . I told him if he wants optimization done, he has to open a new contract, hire me or any one else.

Since this conversation was happening all over email since he released funds on Upwork, yesterday I have messaged him on Upwork asking him to send me any bugs and I will take care of them. I told him I won't do any "Can you", "Can we" changes and no optimization.

Now I am waiting on his reply. If he has any bugs that he wants fixed, I will do them via Upwork. If he still tries to be un reasonable, I am closing the job and see what he does. I don't want to lose money as I have spent almost double hours and effort and energy doing his site and he has the full site now too. That's why I have come here to seek advise from you guys too and just talk it all out.

Thanks guys.

kat303 · ‎06-26-2019

Wali Hassan J wrote:
I have an open Fixed price project. The client paid for the one & only milestone on March 28, 2019.
It's been 3 months now and I have been working on his revisions / bug fixes and have already transferred the website to their server but he still wants more and more done and now wants me to include site optimization as part of the original job however it was never mentioned in the original job.

I have requested him politely many times but he is not closing the job on Upwork. Questions I have

1. Should I go ahead and close the project? I am sure he will leave me public and private negative feedback but being toplancer for the first time in life at least I can get his public feedback removed.
Since the client refuses to close the contract, and you've already completed the scope of work then YES, close the contract. You can tell the client that you've gone above and beyond the scope of work for this contract but you'll be more then happy to do any revisions they may have, Just click on the hire me button and set up an hourly contract and you'll get right on it.

(name of client), Since I have completed the requirements of the contract and even gone above and beyond those requirements I am closing this contract. I'll be more than happy to continue working with you. All you have to do is to set up an hourly contract and then click the Hire button and I'll get right on working with any revisions you have.
2. Can he force for refund or dispute or AAA? the only milestone was paid in March ., so its been 3 months now.
No, he can not open a dispute, or go to arbitration because the time limit to do that has long passed (30 days from when the last milestone was paid out.) He may ask for a refund, but as said before, the time limit has passed and he is not entitled to a refund nor will he get one even from Upwork.

Any help/hints are appreciated. Thanks
If you close the contract, the client will be notified to leave feedback. he is not required to. He may or may not, but if he does and it's negative, you can either respond to that, (short, sweet and professional) or use your top rated perk to remove both the private and public feedback.

prestonhunter · ‎06-26-2019

Wali:

It sounds like you have a positive attitude.

On your next fixed-price contract, you will know not to let things get out of hand like this.

Come talk to us at the first hint of scope creep, if you don't know what to do.

Helping a client with a web project does not mean indentured servitude. You'll get it right.

jamesseligman · ‎06-26-2019

Bugs are one thing, fixes/revisions are another.

Bugs are a fault in any program; which clearly most WordPress sites are pretty stable when it comes to code, unless you mess with the core files or get a plugin that doesn't act well with another one..

Fixes and revisions you should be paid for, if a PSD is provided and you built the site per the PSD, anything above that IMO is an additional cost, period. Don't care if it's changing out an image, button color, move this here, move that there, etc. You need to be paid for your time.

Moving forward, make sure that you incude how many revisions/fixes that you will do and anything above that they need to hire you on an hourly contact.

Client being unreasonable with unlimited revisions and bug fixes