Client demands for extra work.

md_rasel56 · ‎03-08-2019

<p>Hi everyone,
I was wondering if someone can advise me regarding the following situation:

My client invited me for a job interview on 11 November 2018 and I accepted the interview accordingly. I received the project after the interview. He provided me a shared spreadsheet and his project requirements were cleaning the full data, organizing, and finding out whether the school is situated in Urban or Suburban location based on the population of that area. That’s all were his project requirements. Within his shared sheet, the columns were Org Name, name, Org Code, Org type, Function, Contact Name, Address1, Address2, Town, State, Zip, Phone, Fax, Grade. There were 13 tabs in the shared sheet.

After accomplishing all the project requirements I submitted on 16th November 2018, next he checked and found all in order how he wanted, so, he approved the milestone on 21st November 2018. He was totally satisfied with the work. Next, he set another milestone and I was assigned to collect all the school list in New York with all the columns mentioned above and this time with email addresses.

So, I accepted the milestone and started working and also communicating every day. Suddenly on December 4, 2018, he said: **Edited for Community Guidelines**That he said, but he actually never shared with me any email address column, So, I replied to him, I did not get any email address column, I checked entirely. And I also requested him, if you have email addresses then please share with me I will re-work but he failed and did not reply.

After that he was silent and did not communicate with me a long time, meanwhile, I accomplished 2nd milestone and after submitting task I requested for payment but he did not reply or not even approved milestone, so, after 14 days it got approved automatically. But he used to visit Upwork daily bases. Now on 06th March 2019, he sent me some messages and extremely misbehaving with me. He is using dirty words against me, he is pushing me to find the email addresses for the first milestone otherwise he will provide negative feedback and he will report against me. I have already filled “Issue with client” ID #24785583, ID #24812572 but till now no response.

In this situation how should I approach? I did all his task very honestly but if this going on, my JSS will definitely hurt at the end. Please suggest me the best option. Thank you.</p>

prestonhunter · ‎03-08-2019

How much money is the yet-unpaid milestone worth?

Keep in mind that you always have the option to simply refund the escrow money and close the contract. And you can block him in the Upwork messenger tool from contact you.

I'm NOT saying that is what you should do right now. Just keeping our options open, and knowing the dollar amount of the contract will help make that decision.

melaniekhenson · ‎03-08-2019

Preston H wrote:
How much money is the yet-unpaid milestone worth?

Keep in mind that you always have the option to simply refund the escrow money and close the contract. And you can block him in the Upwork messenger tool from contact you.

I'm NOT saying that is what you should do right now. Just keeping our options open, and knowing the dollar amount of the contract will help make that decision.

Why should he refund? I doubt that will make the client give him a better rating, and he'll be out the money for the work, plus this means the feedback will still show as it won't be a 100% refund (another thing I definitely don't recommend, OP).

ETA: Plus, it will encourage this client to bully the next freelancer and the next. It's likely as not that this client has already learned this works and that other freelancers already refunded part or all of the money, left great FB hoping they'd get good FB in return, and were out the time, money and probably the stars. And now the OP is dealing with the results of that.

Just nope, OP...I do not recommend this. IF you had done shoddy work then a refund for the badly-done work might be in order, but that definitely doesn't sound like the case. Please don't help train clients to bully freelancers for free work. He's already shown he's willing to threaten and be unreasonable, so why would you think playing nice now would get you better feedback? I'd consider the feedback shot at this point and (depending upon what CS says when they get back to you) close the contract ASAP, leave ACCURATE AND APPROPRIATE but professionally-stated feedback (please, please, please do this!) and then vet my clients thoroughly in the future before accepting a job.

kat303 · ‎03-08-2019

Melanie H wrote:
Preston H wrote:
How much money is the yet-unpaid milestone worth?

Keep in mind that you always have the option to simply refund the escrow money and close the contract. And you can block him in the Upwork messenger tool from contact you.

I'm NOT saying that is what you should do right now. Just keeping our options open, and knowing the dollar amount of the contract will help make that decision.
Why should he refund? I doubt that will make the client give him a better rating, and he'll be out the money for the work, plus this means the feedback will still show as it won't be a 100% refund (another thing I definitely don't recommend, OP).

ETA: Plus, it will encourage this client to bully the next freelancer and the next. It's likely as not that this client has already learned this works and that other freelancers already refunded part or all of the money, left great FB hoping they'd get good FB in return, and were out the time, money and probably the stars. And now the OP is dealing with the results of that.

Just nope, OP...I do not recommend this. IF you had done shoddy work then a refund for the badly-done work might be in order, but that definitely doesn't sound like the case. Please don't help train clients to bully freelancers for free work. He's already shown he's willing to threaten and be unreasonable, so why would you think playing nice now would get you better feedback? I'd consider the feedback shot at this point and (depending upon what CS says when they get back to you) close the contract ASAP, leave ACCURATE AND APPROPRIATE but professionally-stated feedback (please, please, please do this!) and then vet my clients thoroughly in the future before accepting a job.

-------------------------

If I could give you 1,000 thumbs up for the above response I would. Way too many clients are using this tactic. Telling the freelancer their work is good, and then asking for a refund. I sure hope that this freelancer doesn't buy into this tactic and if he has to take this all the way to arbitration, he should.

It's time that this tactic should stop. And the only way that can happen is that freelancers stop giving in to those demands. (of course, if the freelancer's work is shoddy, half undone and totally unprofessional and unusable do to a myriad of mistakes, that's a different story.)

To the OP. If this job is still open, close it. Submit all correspondense to Upwork. Do NOT give in to this clients threats and demands. And if you have to go all the way to arbitration.

md_rasel56 · ‎03-08-2019

Hi Kathy, thank you for your reply.
This contact is still open and the first milestone he approved on 21st November, 2018 and the second milestone he did not respond for approval, so, it automatically got approved after 14 days. The second milestone was paid automatically on 24th of December 2018.
He is demanding huge excess work from the first milestone. My work was not half done or shoddy or full of mistakes because he reviewed my work, praised and approved, that ensured that my work was exactly according to his requirements.

md_rasel56 · ‎03-08-2019

Hi Melanie H,
Thank you for your opinion.
Yes, he said he will provide negative feedback and will report to Upwork. His threats are pointless because I did all his project requirements very well and what he demands we never agreed and nowhere it is mentioned on the job post. Maintained also the deadline. I did not do any shoddy work. He is demanding excess work in the 1st milestone but when I submitted it for his approval he reviewed very well my task and consumed 4/5 days then he approved. He commented in chat the work was very good and so he requested me to do the second milestone.
Now all he can do is close the contact and provide negative feedback unreasonably.
I already complained through chat support but not enough response till now.

md_rasel56 · ‎03-08-2019

Hi Preston H, thank you for the reply.
Both milestones are fully paid. No amount in the escrow. First milestone he approved and second milestone he didn't respond, so it got approved after 14 days.

melaniekhenson · ‎03-08-2019

Did he make this negative feedback threat in your Upwork messages?

If so, reporting him was correct. Feedback manipulation is not allowed on Upwork. Send a follow-up message to CS to see what's going on.

md_rasel56 · ‎03-08-2019

Yes, he made that negative feedback threat in the chat.
He used unacceptable words like
"What the **bleep**"
And
"Add them to the **bleep**ing spreadsheet"
I sent the screenshots to the UpWork support. I hope they will kindly send me a reply.

tlbp · ‎03-08-2019

How long ago did the contract close? Or is it still open?

md_rasel56 · ‎03-08-2019

Yes it's still open and both milestones are fully paid.

md_rasel56 · ‎03-08-2019

Hi Tonya P,
Thank you for your reply.
Contract is open but both milestones are fully paid.
First milestone he approved on 21 November 2018 and second milestone was paid on 24th of December 2018.
Now he is demanding huge amount of excess work from the first milestone. He is also using abusive words.