Client doesn't participate in mediation but c...

truebusiness1 · ‎02-10-2022

Hi,

I have recently had a contract where I completed the work, submitted a request for payment and then heard nothing from the client at all for 9-10 days. On the 10th day I receive a message from the client saying, he engaged someone else to do the work, and is now going to seek a refund. I then receive an ESCROW refund request.
As I have completed the work, received no feedback or communication of any kind from, the client. I dispute the refund request and the matter is handed to the Upwork mediation team.
In order to resolve the matter quickly, I make an offer in the discussion with the mediator to the client, for him to receive 75% of his funds, so we can just part ways and move on. As the client has been so poor in terms of communicating I state that my offer is valid for a week.
The client ignors Upworks request for further information about the project. He igors my offer to resolve another 10 days passes.
Upwork them gives him a further few days to communicate. But the client again is completely silent.
I then receive a message from the mediator in the workspace stating that due to the non response I will receive full payment of funds held in ESCROW.
After 7 more days I finally get paid. That whole process took the best part of 3.5 weeks.

Now today, another few weeks after I have received the payment for the project. The client has contacted Upwork demanding a refund, and I get the generic message about arbitration. If the client wants to file and make payment of $291 USD then I am also forced to, or I face my account being stopped.

Can someone please tell me how this process is fair exactly?
I have at all times done exactly what Upwork has requested. Communicated as they have asked. Even made an offer to resolve so this didn't eat up any more of my time. The client doesnt participate at all, doesn't communicate and doesn't respond to Upwork whatsoever, but is afforded the opportunity to financially punish me further.

Job project was $400USD. After Upwork fees I received $320USD so being forced to pay $291USD is just the client making me receive nothing at all for all the work I did. I have no doubt I would be successful at arbitration, but I will loose all money I made on the project, plus a huge amount of time going through all of these processes.

This truly makes me loose all faith in this platform.

jared_k · ‎02-10-2022

Yeah, you truly had a miserable client and fixed price jobs can be manipulated by unethical clients. My advice is to call his bluff and pay the $291. Based on what you've said about his history, he probably won't put his end up and you'll be refunded and it'll be over. But that's just my opinion. I've never had a dispute go that far.

truebusiness1 · ‎02-10-2022

Thanks for your reply. It certainly has been a miserable experience.
I hope that one day Upwork amend their policies.

Clients that want refunds and then don't participate in the mediation process should not be allowed to proceed to Arbitration.
This client from a review f their profile has done this to a number of other freelancers. I learnt a very big lesson here in just how important it is to review the feeback of others.

wlyonsatl · ‎02-10-2022

One never knows, but Jared is likely right that the client will back down rather than pay for arbitration. (I would probably insist on arbitration as a matter of principle, but that doesn't mean it would be a good idea. Or that Upwork would allow it.)

Or Upwork might make you an offer of something below $400 to save everyone the time and cost of arbitration.

Please come back to the board and let us know how this worked out for you. It's ridiculous that the original ""mediation" took nearly a month.

truebusiness1 · ‎02-10-2022

Thanks Will.
Upwork in my view were quite good during the mediation process. The client however just didn't reply to any of their communication, which lead to Upwork giving opportunity after opportunity for a response.
Finally once a substantial amount of time had passed they awarded me the ESCROW funds.
It has now taken the client a further 3 weeks to even get back in touch with Upwork.
It really is just madness.

wlyonsatl · ‎02-11-2022

It will be small consolation to you, Courtney, but this client will be in for a rude surprise if he also tries to slow roll the arbitration. Arbitrators are totally in charge of their arbitrations and there are no do-overs or higher authorities to complain to after the arbitrator makes a decision.

The arbitrator will have little patience for any game playing and is going to try to reach a quick and fair resolution, which may or may not strictly take into account either the applicable law(s) a court would apply or Upwork's own rules and protocols. Neither party may be totally happy with the arbitrator's decision.

But you'll have to follow the rules and arbitrator's instructions without delay, Mr. Client, or lose out of hand.

d8701661 · ‎02-10-2022

I am very sorry to know that. That's why I submitted my proposal to clients on hourly contracts rather than fixed rate clients. I have never worked on a fixed price contract.

hydra2016 · ‎02-17-2022

Muhammad,

Unfortunately, after 6 years on Upwork, I have just had a really bad experience with an hourly contract, with manual time, positive feedbacks and stars from client, then all suddenly it showed the client's payment method has been refused, and I cannot get paid, because i used manual time.

Hourly contracts now ony with tracker, never again manual time

petra_r · ‎02-10-2022

Courtney M wrote:
Now today, another few weeks after I have received the payment for the project. The client has contacted Upwork demanding a refund, and I get the generic message about arbitration.

That would go afainst Upwork's own terms of service...

Courtney M wrote:
If the client wants to file and make payment of $291 USD

Ah, but would the client really do that? Are you sure they're not just bluffing?

But be that as it may, the client should categorically not be able or allowed to force arbitration at this stage, That's ridiculous.

truebusiness1 · ‎02-10-2022

Hi Petra,

Perhaps the client is bluffing, but I will have to wait it out to see I guess.

In terms of it being a few weeks since payment was made to me. Payment was released on the Upwork system after the clients failure to communicate in mediation on 19th January. So it's almost 4 weeks. Upwork in the message I received today states that because 30 days hasn't passed, the client can commence arbitration. They have given him a few days to do this with a cut off date of next week. I really had no idea that it was this long, I thought they had 14 days to do this, or 30 days from the dispute. The dispute was made in the first few days on January, so we are well beyond that.

I agree that it is ridiculous. I'm pretty disappointed that he is even afforded this option after not communicating for so long.

petra_r · ‎02-11-2022

Courtney M wrote:
Upwork in the message I received today states that because 30 days hasn't passed, the client can commence arbitration.

Sorry, that is utterly unacceptable and I am certain it is not how the system is meant to be used.

I actually think that overall the dispute system is as good as it could get considering the different agendas and the fact that disputes are, by their very nature, unpleasant, provided it is used according to the rules, but this doesn't seem right or really in the spirit of things. I seem to clearly remember that once a dispute was closed in favor of one or the other party, it was "game over". I'd be deeply disappointed if that had changed.

The "30 days" is the dispute deadline, not the time from a dispute having already been decided and closed.

I would ask the mediator to escalate the matter to their supervisor because what they are doing does not appear to be in line with Upwork's terms of service: 6.1 -4.

Lack of Participation: Client and Freelancer must respond to the Notice of Escrow Dispute within 5 calendar days. If one party does not timely respond to the Notice of Escrow Dispute, Client and Freelancer agree that the lack of timely response acts as an irrevocable authorization and instruction to Upwork Escrow to release the funds in Escrow from the non-responding party to the responding party."

"irrevocable" means "can't be argued with or overturned".

truebusiness1 · ‎02-11-2022

Hi Petra,

Thank you so much for posting this. I am actually going to put this to the mediator this morning.

thank you so much.

truebusiness1 · ‎02-11-2022

With the 30 day timeline, the mediator is refering to 6.2 stating that the client has 30 days from when the funds were released to dispute.

However, this is a separate issue. So really the process should start again not go straight to arbitration?

Eg: There is a dispute about the project, client requests funds to be returned to them that are held in ESCROW, I disute this. Dispute is conducted and results in my favour as the client never responded to Upwork. Now, almost 30 days later, he is requesting a refund of funds from Upwork that have been released to me as the freelancer. So In accordance with 6.2 the process is to file a dispute and the matter needs to proceed through Upworks dispute mediation prcess, which in the first instance is NOT arbitration, but is the mediation process again.

I have written this in the ticket to the Upwork person, and have requested that the matter be referred to a Supervisor as I have concerns that the correct process isn't being followed here. I hope I get somewhere, but I highly doubt it at the moment.

feed_my_eyes · ‎02-11-2022

Courtney M wrote:
With the 30 day timeline, the mediator is refering to 6.2 stating that the client has 30 days from when the funds were released to dispute.

Yes, the client has 30 days to dispute, but it sounds like they DID dispute and then didn't comply with any of Upwork's requests or make any responses before the deadline, that's why the payment was released to you? It's troubling if Upwork is allowing them to come back and re-open the matter; the client shouldn't be allowed another shot at mediation, never mind arbitration. I do think you should push back on this and request help from someone higher up. Good luck, and let us know what happens.

tagrendy · ‎02-11-2022

Yeah, but this can be just grounds to authorize Escrow money release to Freelancer, client can still request arbitration for all released money in the contract to be refunded. I think the word irrevocably was used to just emphasize that the client cannot ask Upwork to put the released money back into Escrow, rather than request refund as a non-Escrow money if that makes sense.

truebusiness1 · ‎02-11-2022

Hi Petra,

I just want to really thank you for giving some great advice with my situation! You should work for Upwork girl, as you are absolutely correct in your advice.

I actually wrote to the Upwork mediator this morning raising concerns as you had flagged, and I also asked that the matter be raised with a supervisor.

The response I have received to that is pretty much;

- the client has "reached out to Upwork recently"

- they understand the arbitration notice was "unexpected"

- they acknowledge the client didn't participate in the mediation at all but claim the client is able to just proceed to arbitration should they choose to.
- also they've stated now that they've reached out to the client further (as I've stated that I believe going straight to arbitration is against Upworks Terms of Service as this dispute has been closed and is now a separate ESCROW issue which must follow the correct process) and they have suggested mediation as an option to resolve.

So we are effectively going back to the start.

I'm so frustrated. Honestly this process is the biggest joke.

petra_r · ‎02-11-2022

Courtney M wrote:
- also they've stated now that they've reached out to the client further (as I've stated that I believe going straight to arbitration is against Upworks Terms of Service as this dispute has been closed and is now a separate ESCROW issue which must follow the correct process) and they have suggested mediation as an option to resolve.

So we are effectively going back to the start.

This is still not good enough.

You're basically being gaslighted here...

The mediator now saying that they are suggesting "mediation" is interesting because "mediation" is non-binding. This sounds like back-pedalling to me. "Mediation" would mean the mediator tries to find a non-binding compromise, and if you say "Nope, not going to do that" that's the end of it.

Once a dispute has been closed that should be it. Otherwise, what is stopping a client to reopen a dispute twice more, 3 more times, 9 more times.

Make them show you where in the ToS it says that a closed and resolved dispute may be reopened and forced to go to arbitration.

Ask for it to escalated to their tem lead and above for as far as it takes.

This is wrong on so many levels and you should not take this lying down.

feed_my_eyes · ‎02-12-2022

Petra R wrote:
Make them show you where in the ToS it says that a closed and resolved dispute may be reopened and forced to go to arbitration.

Yes, that's really messed up. If you've already been through three weeks of the mediation process, you shouldn't be forced to go through it again.

If Upwork has changed the rules and they do force mediation upon you again, Courtney, I'd take the gloves off, cut straight to the chase and tell the mediator that you aren't willing to compromise, your previous offer of a partial refund is now off the table, and you'd like to proceed with arbitration. (Petra, please correct me if I'm wrong, but I'd be spitting nails at this point!)

tagrendy · ‎02-10-2022

It's not fair, you should pay $291, otherwise your account will be suspended. It's also very likely he will back down. After you successfully go through this idiotic process, do contact Upwork and report the client, so other freelancers don't have to deal with him.

truebusiness1 · ‎02-10-2022

I will pay the $291 USD if he files as I will have no choice to. I just think it really is an avenue for clients to subject freelancers to an element of financial abuse really.

As the freelancer here. I received $320 for the work. Have spent the time and effort doing the project. I possibly will pay $291 of that $320 for arbitration costs. Even if arbitration is awarded in my favour, which I have absolutely no doubt would be the case. I've only made $29, and spent weeks complying with Upworks requests for info, and trying to resolve things. The client, yep has lost the project fee $400 including Upwork fees, and could be out another $291 but for a large entity with this client is, $691 is chicken feed really, so out of spite they could do this just to ensure I've made no money on the project.

I just think it's really wrong.

tagrendy · ‎02-11-2022

I agree, I've complained about this Escrow system many times and have myself been exploited by it.

truebusiness1 · ‎02-11-2022

Can anyone tell me how you report a client to Upwork?
This clients reviews (I know, I should have taken the time to read them before agreeing to a Contract, I have learned a BIG lesson here) absolutely reflect that I am not the first person to have encountered this experience. With over 10 other people in their reviews referencing similar experiences.

Is there a process so these clients can be stopped? Surely Upwork has not look at the poor experieonces of so many people and remove people from the platform?

petra_r · ‎02-12-2022

Courtney, that is nothing short of shocking!

Courtney M wrote:
(I know, I should have taken the time to read them before agreeing to a Contract, I have learned a BIG lesson here)

Yes, that is one big lesson to take away from this... I go over feedback (left and received) with a fibne toothcomb.

Ask me how I learned to do that 😉

I would suggest quite strongly that you bring that up in "mediation" - This client is clearly playing the system and Upwork are enabling him!!!

sullivanliz · ‎02-11-2022

You can flag jobs and messages but I don't think you can report clients themselves. It is said that Upwork sometimes removes clients if they have a really terrible record, I don't know much about that but others here might. Sounds like this client might fit that description though.

This sounds like a frustrating situation!

kochubei_valeria · ‎02-16-2022

Hi Courtney,

We have been discussing this case with the team and it appears there was an issue with how it was handled. I won't be able to share specific details here publicly, but one of our team members will be following up with you directly with more information shortly.

In general, while we do offer arbitration for Fixed-Price disputes that are within the 30-day dispute deadline, for cases that are closed due to non-participation the release of escrow is irrevocable and arbitration should not have been an option.

Apologies for the delay and inconvenience this has caused.

~ Valeria

truebusiness1 · ‎02-17-2022

Hi All,

As was indicated by the Upwork representative, this matter wasn't handles correctly.
Upwork has apologised to me, however it was a really really stressful time.
I just wanted to say a huge thank you to the members of the community who provided some really fantasic advice. I have no doubt that had I not received assistance from this group that I would have suffered a considerable financial loss as a result of this contract. So to everyone who has assisted with this topic, THANK YOU!!!

Client doesn't participate in mediation but can now go to AAA Arbitration is this right?