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sergiolombardo
Community Member

Client cancelled the contract once I delivered the project for a final review.

Hello people,

I'm a Top-Rated Designer and I've never got any issue with clients so far. On the 27th on November, a new client  contacted me and proposed me a UI project for a quite small budget. 

The project sounded at least interesting so I accepted the job and offered him 2 revisions for the whole project.

 

First, he did not provide any visual reference and further information. Just a textual list of the App's sections.  He was very unresponsive and sometimes it would take him 2-3 days to reply to my messages. So I asked to postpone the deadline a bit and he was fine with this. I sent him a draft for a first revision and once everything was reviewd, I sent 25 UI screens back to him. Basically, this was already a 90% completed app design. 

He had a last turnaround revision available and said he would let me know on the next steps.

 

After a few hours he cancelled the project withouth any reason/communication and even the project budget was funded, I see that I haven't got paid for it. I found out he is a UI/UX designer himself and, I assume, he can now just copy my designs without needing to pay me out.   

 

Is there anything I can do to dispute something against this client and at least get paid? The budget was on escrow.

Is this going to affect my JSS?

4 REPLIES 4
petra_r
Community Member


Sergio L wrote:

 

Basically, this was already a 90% completed app design. 

He had a last turnaround revision available and said he would let me know on the next steps.

 

After a few hours he cancelled the project withouth any reason/communication and even the project budget was funded, I see that I haven't got paid for it.


You should be sent (or see on the contract) a request for the return of the Escrow funds.

There you can either approve or reject, which will create a dispute.

@Petra , thanks for your reply. I can't see the request yet. Is it maybe because I haven't yet released the feedback to the client? Or maybe because the project was on a (funded) milestone?

 

I see that I should be able to approve the end of the contract when the client asks to do so. But I actually didn't receive any request like this. Just got a message stating that the client has Canceled the contract.

wlyonsatl
Community Member

Sergio,

 

You've been at this a while and obviously do good work for your clients and treat them fairly.

 

For my own part, on the few fixed price projects I work on I only submit milestone work close to being finished by using the green submission button on the project page, making it clear in the accompanying message to the client that I don't expect the client to release funds yet and what I need from the client in order in order to complete the milestone. 

 

I've never had a client complain about this approach, but a dishonest client with bad intentions probably would. The louder one complained, the more certain I would be that they were up to no good. 

 

As we have heard many times on this board, many freelancers have had dishonest clients close projects when they have received completed or nearly completed work, meaning the freelancer has no means via Upwork of ever getting paid for their work and the client gets his/her escrowed funds refunded by Upwork.

 

 

Thanks for your nice words Will. I like your approach and I'll definitely try it in the future.

Hopefully, these kind of clients will keep an appropriate distance from me in the future. I worked about 20-25 hours for this project and I feel like I've been clearly cheated throughout my honesty itself.

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