Client made double payment; how do I do a refund?

[Ken J]

Well I told the client I would send him a check since Upwork does not seem to have any simple mechanism for me sending them money! Rather ridiculous if you ask me.

[Petra R]

Kenneth,

it CAN be sorted.

Tell us when the client has made the double payment, and whether you had maybe already withdrawn it? Did you already doa refund from your Upwork account?

Don't send a check, that's going to 1) mean you lose the Upwork fee and 2) make a mess as the client will be refunded again if you have already pressed the refund button.

Let us know the timelines of what happened, and what you have already done to try and rectify it.

[Ken J]

Here is a screenshot. I would not knowing have requested the second payment.

Somehow the project got deleted and so the client re added it. I had to manually enter my hours, so that is what probably caused the double billing.

[Petra R]

Kenneth, the problem is that you actually withdrew both the actual normal hourly payment, and the manual payment.

So there is now no simple way for Upwork to repay the client because you have already got the money so Upwork need to get it from you first, then give it to the client, plus you have already issued a refund! If the money was still on your Upwork account it would be easier.

There are 2 ways to do this, the ideal one involves contacting customer services because you have withdrawn the funds AND issued a refund.

The easiest would be to send a PayPal payment to Upwork to cover the money you withdrew. To do this you MUST contact support and get the correct email addy, and then  send the money, and then send the unique PayPal transaction ID in your support ticket so Finance can fish out the payment and apply it to your Upwork account. Upwork will then add the fee back and the client gets their money back

The other option, if you have ongoing contracts, is to make the client wait until those payments cover the full refund (only once the full value is reached will the money go back though, it won't go back in installments)

Do NOT send a check as you will lost the fee, which, in the case of a Upwork refund, Upwork sends back to the client along with your portion. also, because you have refunded, any new funds you may earn will be applied against that refund so the client ends up refunded twice...

[Ken J]

That DOES make sense!

[Alexander N]

Thanx for your input, Petra.

But I still have serious doubts about how JS in affected by refunds. For example, I once had a project for a large volume of technical documentation, that was put on hold and then shrank to single article. Naturally, funding also became significantly smaller. Like 20 times smaller or so.

Project was completed successfully and closed. But also refund from original milestone amount was processed. And “boom!”, my JS score went 2% down. Maybe… Maybe there were some factors involved that are unknown to me. But I see what I see.

Kenneth, sending money back to client by any method outside of Upwork might not be the best idea. It's not exactly approved by marketplace policy, if memory serves me right.

[Valeria K]

Hi Kenneth,

I am sorry about the confusion. To clarify, you currently have a negative balance on your account since you withdrew both payments and refunded one of them. That negative balance will be covered by your future earnings on Upwork. Please, refer to the ticket you have with Customer Support for more information.

[Ken J]

Yes but when will the client get his refund? Someone here said not until my balance goes back to zero.

[Petra R]

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@Kenneth P J wrote:
Yes but when will the client get his refund? Someone here said not until my balance goes back to zero.

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 This is correct, Kenneth. Do youhave on going jobs which will bring it to 0 quickly?

If you want your client to get it quickgo down the PayPal route but ONLY via Support.