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umarshamir25
Community Member

Client refuses to pay fees and wants to deduct from my payment.

Hi! So I have a client that refused to pay for my work. She realizes that she had to pay a certain fee percentage set by upwork upon every milestone, therefore she refused to pay for the cost and wanted to deduct the amount from my payment. I have a long list of events of this client being super weird that I would like UpWork to investigate. To start with, she wanted a website with a certain agreed number of pages done for $500. I agreed with the amount and she kept on adding more and more pages for me to do. Being super linient, I carried on doing them without any complaints since she insisted I "helped" her. Fast forward to recent events, more and more pages were added (not to mention the mobile version that I would have to get done as well) without additional payment. We even had calls for 2-3 hours 2 or 3 times a week which was unpaid for. And when I decided enough is enough, I decided to only charge $100 for all of the additional contents (which I promise you was almost 4 times the amount/weight than initial that was agreed). This is when she started asking for details regarding the cost and that I was charging her too much! Knowing that this would get much worse, I asked for half of the payment and she agreed. Right now, I did 90% of the work, was paid half and I am no longer allowed acces to the contents that I worked on. Would love to chat with and agent if possible to solve my problem. Thanks!

24 REPLIES 24
prestonhunter
Community Member

Umar: You are using the tool incorrectly.

I'm sorry. Can you clarify?

Pretty much everything you did was an example of using Upwork incorrectly.

 

Here is a basic tip:

With a fixed-price contract, you specify the task that you will do, and then you don't do anything else. No other features. No phone calls of phone calls were not mentioned in the task description.

 

As soon as the client asks for anything else, you ask if they want to release all the money in escrow to you now and then start an hour contract, or if they want to let you finish the task as agreed.

What do you mean? She took my work and did not pay for it. Are you willing to help or not?

If you want to succeed here, you should embrace the idea that all the mistakes in this situation were made by the freelancer.

 

You have total control over how this freelancer behaves is the future. That is where your focus should be.

I'm just asking an agent to look into my case. How can you debate this matter here? Just take a look at all the things that is happening in the chat. Even the call were made here on UpWork! I'm sure they are recorded right? Right now, she refuses to pay me. that is the problem.

The main point is that, she refuses to pay for the fees on her side and wanted to deduct the fees from the agreed pricing. She wants me to pay for the fees. That is absurd! And the call was made here on UpWork!

Yes I DID all the work already. Now she still does want to pay. There are milestones and everything but she refuses to pay! Is it still my fault?

re: "Is it still my fault?"

 

It is always better if something is your fault.

That means that you have control. You have power.

You can change how things happen in the future.

 

Setting all of that aside, yes, the problems with this contract are your fault.

 

A client is not able to unilaterally decide to "not pay" a freelancer.

That isn't how the tool works.

The client can only pay you, or ask you for a refund. If the client asks you for a refund, you can say no.

 

So when you say that the client simply didn't pay you, it means you used the tool incorrectly.

 

I think you have already been paid what was agreed and what was funded in escrow.

 

Is there any other money funded in escrow?

If not, then this is over.

Ofcourse. This is how upwork works. You have all this information laid out infront of you, everything in ENGLISH but the client always wins no matter how obviously wrong they can be. If freelancers are being too picky and hard on add on pricings, the client can file a complaint or just leave a bad review for the freelancer. Oh and what a suprise, the review can't be removed?? My oh my... What is the use of "verified payment method" if you still need everything to be funded on escrow? Why can't clients be charged whenever they fail to meet they promises? This is rediculous. 

Hi Umar

 

I am sorry for your frustration and from what you say, she seems to have been less than honorable.

 

The advice given so far may seem blunt but in these cases, it is best to work out how things got to where they did so you can avoid it happening again. I won't say it is fun or even easy when you are angry that someone is screwing you over but it must be done or you will let it happen again.

 

There are Red Flags here the moment you were asked, expected, to do the first extra from the contracted agreement. A "customer" saying "help" doesn't make it ok, or even honorable for you to accept this demand to change one side of the contract without changing the other (what they get : what you get).

 

I think you should be chatting to Support through a formal request rather than just here in the Forum where we are mostly other Sellers like you and not part of Upwork staff.

 

You may still find though that some of the choices you have made to this point will limit what can be done to square things up.

 

🙂

FInally someone with some sense! Thank you Benedict! I appreciate the empathy. We are trying to make this platform a positive space. There should be an element of trust but I get it, to be safe everything should be written in milestones. But nonetheless, she takes advantage of my leniency. How do I chat with support tho? My account is not a top rated account.


Umar S wrote:

How do I chat with support tho? My account is not a top rated account.


Don't waste your or support's time. If there is no money in escrow, there is nothing that can be done. There is no legal way Upwork can get that money from the client. 

 

And Chat is only available to top rated freelancers.


Umar S wrote:

What is the use of "verified payment method" if you still need everything to be funded on escrow? 


Because that is the whole point of escrow.


You can't dispute money that isn't funded. So your choice is for the client to pay you the agreed amount minus 3% or for the client to pay nothing.

 

designuz
Community Member

That is exactly my point! If "payment method is verified" is not important, why even put it there as a thing? As if I would have to watch out for that. It should be ONLY be a thing to pay attention to for hourly based projects I guess? Whatever it is, ESCROW is the one that should be highlighted.

I know right! Why should it even be on there??

AveryO
Community Manager
Community Manager

Hi Zalikha, 

For milestones, there is a note beside the milestone if it has already been funded or not. It should show as "active" if there is money in escrow, or "inactive" if the escrow has not been funded. You will also see the note "not funded" under the amount. Here's an example: 

Screen Shot 2021-03-01 at 3.04.01 PM.png


~ Avery
Upwork

Hi Umar, 


I'm sorry it took time for me to review your case. It sounds like you are referring to Contract ID 26410564, and I can see that you have already been paid for the first milestone. If there is a second milestone that you have already worked on, please know that as a freelancer, you always have the option of disputing the non-release of milestone paymentWe also have fixed-price protection in place to make sure that you get paid for work completed. 

If you worked on other milestones, and there was no money is in escrow, we will not be able to help you collect any funds that have been promised but not deposited to escrow. Therefore, it's important that the amount held in escrow is appropriate for the work you will perform for that milestone. 


~ Avery
Upwork

Oh my god. Another person with some sense! Thank you for your time Avery! The amount was not in escrow for the second milestone. It was only funded. The problem is now, I tried discussing with the client about the charges that I'm charging her for the work but she refused to pay for the fees that was supposed to be paid on her behalf. Instead she wanted to deduct the fee of my payment. Can an agent kindly explain to her that the fee on her side should be paid by her and not be deducted from my end. That is totally unfair. I have my end of fees to pay too right? By not agreeing to pay the fees on her end, she refused to pay for everything at at all which is ridiculous. What are my options now?


wrote:

The amount was not in escrow for the second milestone. It was only funded. 


If it was funded, it WAS in escrow because that is exactly what funded means. "Funded" means it's in escrow.

 


What are my options now?

Have you submitted the work for the second milestone for payment? If so, you get paid 14 days later unless the client requests changes.

Oh my. I'm sorry I am being confusing. What I meant was, the amount was not in escrow for the second milestone. It was only funded for the first one. She had the milestone writen as the second milestone but it is not funded. Sorry again. My mind is just too furious to have met someone like this.

Let's just focus on one thing for now. The thing is right now, the client had only. paid me half of what I did. I understand I am not usinge "the tool correctly" as what Preston repeatedly said. But my point is, the client said that she was not willing to pay the fees (10% owhat ever percentage) that was charged to her on her side. She said, those amount should be deducted from my current billing. She refuses to pay for those. I said, that is not fair and I have to report her to UpWork. She was offended and paid me half of my work and threatens as if she would need to find another freelancer to finish my project. Which was soo unfair given that I had done 90% of the work. Yes yes yes again I am not using the tool correctly but can we focus on how she chose to not pay for her fees and decides to deduct it from my payment? Can somebody explain to her that those are her fees and not mine!! I have my fees to!


Umar S wrote:

But my point is, the client said that she was not willing to pay the fees (10% owhat ever percentage)


It's 3%

 


Umar S wrote:

I said, that is not fair and I have to report her to UpWork


You made rather a fool of yourself threatening the client to report them to Upwork. There is nothing to report the client for.

 

Let's be practical: You can, at this point, choose between being paid all that you believe you are owed minus 3% (which is essentially next to nothing) and being paid nothing. That's it. Due to the fact that you worked on an inactive milestone, those are your choices.


So make up your mind if you want to be paid 97% of the second milestone or nothing. 

Lol. Ok Petra. Another kudos to you for stating the obvious!!!

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