Sep 10, 2019 03:19:30 PM by Dena S
Solved! Go to Solution.
Sep 12, 2019 07:40:34 AM by Will L
Upwork losing 100% of its fees due to frivolous client requests for refunds is a good reason for Upwork to do something about refunds for these clients. Taking money out of Upwork's pocket must get management's attention.
What can Upwork do? Beats me.
Other than tracking a client's pattern of behavior, which Upwork clearly already does with both freelancers and clients, and refusing a client's excessive requests for refunds. (What is "excessive"? That's up to Upwork to decide.)
If Upwork complies without question with all refund requests from clients who have shown a pattern of regularly requesting refunds that Upwork says it can't say "No" to, that would be very disappointing to freelancers who work hard for their money.
Sep 10, 2019 03:28:12 PM Edited Sep 10, 2019 03:30:00 PM by Abinadab A
Before a client can close a contract, they must leave feedback.
So, feedback has already been left for you on that contract, and it's most likely negative.
Your JSS has already taken quite a beating (you'll see it in the next update).
So your choice is between,
- the other JSS hit that will arise from a zero-earnings contract, and
- the other JSS hit that will arise from a dispute.
You must choose one of the two Devils, good sis.
The two Devils are both terrible.
Sep 10, 2019 03:34:59 PM by Tiffany S
The dispute process isn't about proving anything. No one will be looking at your evidence. Someone from Upwork will try to help the two of you come to an agreement. If you can't come to an agreement, they will NOT make a ruling. Your options at that point will be to pay for arbitration or to let the money be returned to the client. No pay contracts are bad for JSS.
Depending on your priority, you may want to either negotiate for partial payment or stand firm and go to arbitration (where someone WILL look at your evidence and make a ruling). It will cost you $291, though. You don't get that back even if you win, but you do get it back if you pay and the client backs down and doesn't pay her portion.
Sep 10, 2019 04:32:40 PM by Preston H
re: "Frustrating that sometimes no matter how carefully you screen clients or the quality of work you provide, freelancers always risk either not getting paid or negative reviews (or both) even when work was done well and submitted early."
I agree.
I'm seeing too much of this reported in the Community Forum.
And I have seen some bad behavior among some of my own clients.
I don't know if this is a trend? If there was some change in marketing? If I'm just imagining this getting worse?
But whatever it is...
I'm not going to be surprised if clients - as a whole - "jump the shark" on this issue and push Upwork too far... If too many clients ask for refunds, maybe Upwork will say "enough already" and place tight restrictions on the practice.
Sep 10, 2019 05:16:18 PM by Dena S
Sep 10, 2019 05:20:12 PM by Dena S
Sep 10, 2019 05:56:26 PM by Tiffany S
Dena S wrote:
Any suggestions for keeping this from happening again? As a new freelancer, I have to occasionally take chances with new clients (and some of my favorite clients were the first time I accepted a job from them). I had everything in writing, and somehow thought that offered some protection. So, $291 to have Upwork look at it, for a job that was worth less than that?
No. $291 to have an outside arbitrator look at it. Upwork, as an escrow agent, can't make a ruling. If you go to arbitration, you pay 1/3 of the arbitrator's fee, the client pays 1/3, and Upwork pays 1/3.
No way to dispute private feedback?
There's no way to dispute any feedback, from either side, unless it violates one of a few very narrowly defined rules. Anything else would be an unmanageable nightmare, as hundreds of people every day demanded a review of feedback they didn't like. And, of course, you can't SEE your private feedback, so it would be tough to claim it was inaccurate with any credibility.
So the client wins by default every time and they know this?
That's not remotely true. A lot of freelancers go to arbitration and win. In fact, I've only ever seen one freelancer say she went to arbitration and lost, and she made some obviously fatal mistakes in the arbitration process.
Other times, the freelancer puts up the $291 and the client backs down rather than paying, and then the freelancer gets the money in escrow and the $291 back.
It is a problem, though, for freelancers who do a lot of small jobs, since it's usually not cost-effective to arbitrate. That's what bad clients bank on.
IF that is how it works, I am surprised we get paid as frequently as we do.
Most clients (like most freelancers, as your issue here illustrates) don't take the time to truly understand the system before contracting. So, many are unaware that they can often steal small jobs because the freelancer won't arbitrate. And, of course, a client who wants to continue to use Upwork can't make a practice of this. Finally, and most importantly, most clients pay the people who provide them services--the Upwork system isn't remotely necessary for that. Clients outside the platform regularly pay their bills without escrow and mediation.
Sep 10, 2019 06:12:23 PM by Dena S
Sep 10, 2019 07:15:20 PM by Tiffany S
Wait, was this an hourly job? Did you use the time tracker?
I assumed fixed price when you mentioned the dispute, but I looked at your profile and the job that seems to match this story was hourly.
Sep 10, 2019 07:35:11 PM by Petra R
Tiffany S wrote:Wait, was this an hourly job? Did you use the time tracker?
I assumed fixed price when you mentioned the dispute, but I looked at your profile and the job that seems to match this story was hourly.
It's the hourly contract with the 2.75 feedback, so the dispute process is very simple:
Upwork looks at the work diary (ONLY) and the freelancer wins if
AND
AND
AND
Any hours where any (!) one or more of the above do not apply, the client wins the dispute for.
There is no arbitration and no looking at who said / promised / demanded / wanted what.
All that matters is the work diary.
Sep 10, 2019 06:01:18 PM by Tiffany S
Dena S wrote:
Any suggestions for keeping this from happening again? As a new freelancer, I have to occasionally take chances with new clients (and some of my favorite clients were the first time I accepted a job from them). I had everything in writing, and somehow thought that offered some protection. So, $291 to have Upwork look at it, for a job that was worth less than that? No way to dispute private feedback? So the client wins by default every time and they know this? IF that is how it works, I am surprised we get paid as frequently as we do.
Maybe break your jobs into smaller milestones. It might be a little bit of a hassle but if, say, you did one or two chapters as a milestone (at least for the first couple of milestones) then you would never have invested a lot of time without getting paid.
Sep 10, 2019 05:20:17 PM by Tiffany S
Dena S wrote:
So there really is no way to help yourself in this situation? That’s extremely disappointing as I have been working very hard to maintain a decent reputation on this site and hoped for top-rated. I have been overall very happy with the platform, but you guys are saying someone can just decide to not pay and leave negative private feedback, regardless of the job you have done for them?
Well, no. You can choose to go to arbitration, as described above. Of course a client can leave whatever feedback they feel is appropriate--feedback is subjective, and that's true of every customer of every type of business on virtually every platform where feedback is an option.
Sep 10, 2019 05:25:01 PM by Dena S
Sep 10, 2019 05:21:13 PM by Dena S
Sep 11, 2019 06:16:54 PM Edited Sep 11, 2019 06:19:02 PM by Chris P
Just wondering, Dena.
Did you read the final post on page one of this thread already?
This contains all the information you will need to continue defending your dispute.
And, by the way, 92% JSS is actually a very respectable score for a relative newcomer. 🙂
Best of luck!
Sep 12, 2019 05:31:23 AM by Dena S
Sep 12, 2019 05:41:54 AM Edited Sep 12, 2019 05:43:41 AM by Petra R
Dena S wrote:
The client and I decided to do a flat rate, but she had set it up as an hourly contract (new client who didn’t know how to do it). So, in messenger here, we agreed to just split the work into two parts and I would manually enter time to equal 1/2 the payment. I know, now, that it was a mistake. I understand the money is gone, and chalking it up to another lesson learned. My only question is do I just approve the refund? And how do I best mitigate the damage to JSS? Thank you!
That was a bad idea. It means however many hours the client chooses to dispute, she will win by default.
You might as well just accept the dispute because you will lose it anyway.
How to best mitigate the damage to your JSS... did that contract end before or after the last update?
In general, the only way is having a bunch of contracts end really well...
Sep 12, 2019 05:58:10 AM Edited Sep 12, 2019 06:05:25 AM by Abinadab A
Hi!
I would suggest that no further action is required on your part.
Do not approve or reject the refund request, at least just to delay the
client's money a little 😉
The client will eventually get their money after a few days, whether you
dispute or not.
If you dispute your JSS will take a greater hit as disputes do indeed
affect the JSS (separately from the negative review, and also separately
from the fact that you earned nothing from that contract).
Sep 12, 2019 06:07:31 AM Edited Sep 12, 2019 06:09:19 AM by Petra R
Abinadab A wrote:
If you dispute your JSS will take a greater hit as disputes do indeed
affect the JSS (separately from the negative review, and also separately
from the fact that you earned nothing from that contract).
The damage is done. This is an HOURLY contract and disputes only have an additional negative effect in some fairly rare cases, not automatically. Most of the time they have no "additional" negative effect at all.
There is no benefit to delaying the outcome, other than sheer malice.
Sep 12, 2019 06:26:11 AM by Abinadab A
There might indeed be benefit to the OP in delaying the outcome by a few days by failing to take action.
The "zero-pay contract effect" on her JSS might not take effect by the next update if she delays a little (next JSS update is this Sunday). I say "might" because I don't know the exact timeline for the dispute - I don't know the date the refund request was initiated.
If she delays a little, the JSS hit might be small, and she might be able to do two contracts within the next week or two to neutralise the next one.
And yes, disputes on hourly contracts do have an additional effect separate from the negative review. Though I can't comment on if that's is also the case in a contract where all the time is manual time.
Sep 12, 2019 07:05:13 AM Edited Sep 12, 2019 07:06:12 AM by Petra R
Abinadab A wrote:There might indeed be benefit to the OP in delaying the outcome by a few days by failing to take action.
The contract has already ended, she already got bad feedback, public and private, it is already going to count as negative in Sunday's update, and if she accepts the dispute rather than losing after arguing for no good reason and losing it anyway, there will be no "additional" negative outcome.
Disputes do not automatically add more negativity to an already entirely negative outcome.
Sep 12, 2019 05:32:29 AM by Dena S
Sep 12, 2019 06:11:31 AM by Phyllis G
Dena S wrote:
Thank you. Unfortunately, it will change dramatically at the next update. Any suggestions to recover it as quickly as possible?
The only way to rehabilitate a sub-par JSS is to accumulate enough closed contracts with perfect feedback to outweigh the existing ones in the score. Obviously, you want to achieve that as soon as you can, but don't let that sense of urgency overwhelm you. Early on, when you still have relatively few closed projects on your history, it's more important than it will ever be again to choose only best-fit projects and best-fit clients. It can feel like a no-win situation but it's not--it just calls for patience, focus, discipline, and persistence.
One thing I would add: never, ever submit anything to a client without a thorough proof-read. It doesn't matter if it's understood to be a draft, or an interim product, work-in-progress or whatever. In the event you find yourself tied up with an unreasonable client or things don't go as expected for whatever reason, work with typos or grammatical errors just hands them free ammunition and it's unnecessary. Sure, we are all human and a wee error slips by from time to time. But if you make this a guiding principle, then those errors will happen a LOT less often.
Sep 11, 2019 07:30:45 PM by Kathy T
Dena - is this job a Fixed rate job with funds in escrow or is this an hourly job?
If this is an hourly job, please read Petra's response. On hourly jobs, there is no arbitration or arbitration fee. It all depends on how you used the Tracker.
If this was a fixed rate job, then it doesn't matter what course you take because the damage is already done If the client closed the contract then they had to leave both public and private feedback. And if you refund the monies in escrow it will count as a job with no money earned and that will have an affect on your JSS.
IMO if this was fixed rate, go for arbitration.Pay the fee. It's highly unlikely the client will also pay the fee since she doesn't want to pay you anyway for your work. She's not going to lose the arbitration fee to get back the funds in escrow that are less then the fee. So, if the client doesn't pay the fee and you do, you get the fee back plus whatever was deposited into escrow. (depending on whether this was fixed rate)
Sep 12, 2019 07:23:37 AM by Will L
Preston,
If a milestone payment of $200 has been completed by Upwork, the freelancer could receive $160 and Upwork could keep $40 as its 20% fee.
If the $200 payment is refunded to the client in full, is the freelancer contributing $160 to the refund and Upwork refunds the remaining 40%?
Sep 12, 2019 07:30:21 AM by Petra R
Will L wrote:Preston,
I'm not Preston, but
Will L wrote:
If a milestone payment of $200 has been completed by Upwork, the freelancer could receive $160 and Upwork could keep $40 as its 20% fee.
If the $200 payment is refunded to the client in full, is the freelancer contributing $160 to the refund and Upwork refunds the remaining 40%?
Indeed. The freelancer refunds $ 200, of which $ 160 comes from their available (or pending) balance, and $ 40 from Upwork adding back the fee.
Sep 12, 2019 07:40:34 AM by Will L
Upwork losing 100% of its fees due to frivolous client requests for refunds is a good reason for Upwork to do something about refunds for these clients. Taking money out of Upwork's pocket must get management's attention.
What can Upwork do? Beats me.
Other than tracking a client's pattern of behavior, which Upwork clearly already does with both freelancers and clients, and refusing a client's excessive requests for refunds. (What is "excessive"? That's up to Upwork to decide.)
If Upwork complies without question with all refund requests from clients who have shown a pattern of regularly requesting refunds that Upwork says it can't say "No" to, that would be very disappointing to freelancers who work hard for their money.
Sep 12, 2019 02:23:19 PM by Dena S
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