Client requesting for refund after the contra...

aartichudasama · ‎07-14-2021

Hi Team,

Hope you are well and healthy.

I have been work with client since 9 month and i was added maual time also client was ended the contarct with positive feedback. today i get notification on my upwork account the client was requested for a refund. i will not refund the payment beacuse i did good work for the client that's why i was received good feedback.

Please advise.

Thanks.

petra_r · ‎07-14-2021

Aarti wrote:
I have been work with client since 9 month and i was added maual time also client was ended the contarct with positive feedback. today i get notification on my upwork account the client was requested for a refund.

When did the contract end? The client can dispute last week's hours, and, in some cases, at Upwork's sole discretion, hours logged in the last 30 days. The client would win any dispute over manual hours, which are not protected. In other words: Every time a client disputes manual time, the client wins the dispute by default. There is no protection for manual time.

You are free to tell the client that you won't be refundung any money. Unless the client disputes (if they still can), you can't be made to refund (unless there is a chargeback, but that's rare and would cost the client their Upwork account).

i did good work for the client that's why i was received good feedback.

3.35 stars out of 5 is not "good feedback"

It's poor feedback.

The average on Upwork is 4.9 out of 5.

aartichudasama · ‎07-14-2021

Hi Team,

Contract was ended at 10 july 2021. can i file the dispute?

Please advise.

Thanks

petra_r · ‎07-14-2021

Aarti C wrote:
Contract was ended at 10 july 2021. can i file the dispute?

Why would you file a dispute? Simply tell the client that you are not prepared to refund. On hourly contracts it would have to be the client who would file a dispute.

The client is out of time to file a normal dispute as clients can (in most cases) only dispute the hours logged the previous week. You didn't log any hours last week.

wlyonsatl · ‎07-14-2021

Petra,

Why are you claiming,"The average on Upwork is 4.9 out of 5." when earlier this year you clearly thought this "statistic" had no useful meaning?

https://community.upwork.com/t5/Freelancers/Average-Client-Ratings-of-Freelancers-According-to-Upwor...

a_lipsey · ‎07-14-2021

Will L wrote:
Petra,

Why are you claiming,"The average on Upwork is 4.9 out of 5." when earlier this year you clearly thought this "statistic" had no useful meaning?

https://community.upwork.com/t5/Freelancers/Average-Client-Ratings-of-Freelancers-According-to-Upwor...

Context, once again.

wlyonsatl · ‎07-15-2021

So, Amanda, what change in “context” makes this useless claim useful?

If "context" could make that claim true, Upwork would have simply changed the “context” of the statement "Clients rate freelancer4.9 / 5" from the Web site’s home page after I asked what it meant back in January (see attached screenshot). Instead that “statistic” has not appeared on the home page again.

Anyone repeating this meaningless “statistic” serves no one on this board any useful purpose and only creates unnecessarily high expectations and unnecessary anxiety and self-doubt in freelancers who don’t know better.

petra_r · ‎07-15-2021

Will L wrote:
Anyone repeating this meaningless “statistic” serves no one on this board any useful purpose and only creates unnecessarily high expectations.

Why would it set "unnecessarily high expectations" rather than serve as a reality check? When 4.9 is the average, as Upwork (to this day, on their site) maintain that it is, it explains that a 3.2 is not "good feedback" on Upwork.

It also shows why we have a JSS, why having 5 star feedback doesn't mean clients were happy. I'm not sure under what system a 3.2 would be considered "good feedback".

Screenshot from today:

wlyonsatl · ‎07-15-2021

I stand corrected Petra. In that page Upwork says the breakdown of client ratings of freelancers was:

1-2 stars 11,478
2-3 stars 8,824
3-4 stars 20,924
4-5 stars 1,094,074
5 stars 1,032,457

That’s some strong results in the 4 – 5 and 5 star ranges. And over a total of 2,167,757 project ratings.

What’s also very interesting on that page is the fact that there are 15,000 new client reviews every week. That works out to 780,000 reviews per year.

So, the 2,167,757 ratings that these rating statistics cover were received over at least the past 3 or so years (or probably more, assuming that the weekly reviews received number has grown from year to year in step with the growth of annual project counts for Upwork and its predecessors ).

For all of 2020 226,699 freelancers worked on Upwork projects. This means the average active freelancer on Upwork got a client review on only about 3.4 projects last year.

I would have expected that number to be much higher, but maybe that number is actually higher and the incidence of no client feedback is high? (I get feedback on about half or less of the projects I complete, but that has nothing to do with the average freelancer.)

But there is no category for “No Feedback” on the page you linked to, Petra.

Please do let me know if I’ve made any errors in the math above.

researchediting · ‎07-14-2021

Will L wrote:
Petra,

Why are you claiming,"The average on Upwork is 4.9 out of 5." when earlier this year you clearly thought this "statistic" had no useful meaning?

https://community.upwork.com/t5/Freelancers/Average-Client-Ratings-of-Freelancers-According-to-Upwor...

Those two attributed assertions are hardly contradictory, and rather reinforce each other.

aartichudasama · ‎07-14-2021

Hey Patra,

Can you give me a proof that 3.5 star feedback is poor? Also, Can you show me a terms and condition that Upwork is only accept 4.9 star feedback is good?

Awaiting your reply

Thanks

petra_r · ‎07-14-2021

Aarti C wrote:
Can you give me a proof that 3.5 star feedback is poor? Also, Can you show me a terms and condition that Upwork is only accept 4.9 star feedback is good?

Aarti, 3.35... Nobody said that Upwork believes that only 4.9 is good. I said that 4.9 is the average.

This was in response to you saying the client left good feedback.

The point was that the client clearly wasn't particularly happy, or they wouldn't be asking for a refund and wouldn't have left the feedback they did. If you look at the client's history, they left 5 stars for every other freelancer.

That doesn't change the fact that the client is out of time to dispute and you can deny the refund request by simply telling the client that you won't be refunding.

aartichudasama · ‎07-15-2021

Hey Petra,

I think you are not getting my point. The point is without any proof how can you judge that Client is not happy. Why don't you investigate that point that why Client is asking for Refund? I really don't understand why you are not consider my point.

Please Investigate properly without proof you cant say that I did not work well. The thing is If Client don't want to pay freelancer they can do anything for Refund.

Please review everything and ask to the Client about the real fact.

Thanks

petra_r · ‎07-15-2021

Aarti C wrote:
Please Investigate properly without proof you cant say that I did not work well.

I didn't say that you didn't work well at all. I said that the client wasn't very happy. It doesn't matter though, because as I explained, the client isn't able to dispute and you can simply decline to refund.

Aarti C wrote:
Why don't you investigate that point that why Client is asking for Refund?

There is nothing to investigate. The client asked for a refund, you can decline to give a refund. This is between you and the client. You don't have to refund.

Aarti C wrote:
The thing is If Client don't want to pay freelancer they can do anything for Refund.

The client can *ASK* for a refund, but you don't have to give them a refund. Just tell the client that you are not going to refund.

Upwork won't get involved unless the client asks them to. And even if the client does, the review period is over.

aartichudasama · ‎07-15-2021

Hey Petra,

I cant find the Option of Decline the Request.

Please help me

Thanks

petra_r · ‎07-15-2021

Aarti C wrote:
I cant find the Option of Decline the Request.

You can decline the request in writing in the message thread to the client.

There is no "decline" button, only a cancel button, which makes the window go away. Just concentrate on the fact that the function the client used is not a dispute and can't make you refund any money. It is no more than a "Plase send me some money back" function. It is NOT a dispute.

By the way, I have always found it quite sneaky of Upwork to not put a "decline" function on those things. It would be the obvious thing to do and will have been omitted deliberately as a not so subtle way to make the freelancer more likely to refund...

prestonhunter · ‎07-15-2021

On the client-side user interface, there are some BUTTONS that clients can click which generate automated refund requests.

The fact that a client clicks a button doesn't mean that the client deserves a refund.

It doesn't even mean that the client actually thinks she deserves a refund.

I believe that what often happens is a client sees the button and thinks "Oh! Free money?"

And then the client clicks the button just to see what happens.

That produces an automated refund request. Some such buttons generate an automated refund request which (as Petra points out) is nothing more than a message. It has no power to actually compel anything to happen.

But there are other buttons and user interface controls that have more "power", such as when a client edits the amount of escrow money to be released to release LESS than the full escrow funding. THAT action on the part of a client will result in the client's refund request being automatically granted if the freelancer does nothing.

To be safe and professional, I think that freelancers should always respond to refund requests. That doesn't mean they should say "yes." (In most situations, freelancers SHOULD DECLINE refund request.) But freelancers should always respond. That "response" might be clicking a cancel button. Or clicking a decline button. Or sending a short message.

tlbp · ‎07-15-2021

It looks like you and the client did not part on good terms. They are certainly causing a lot of fuss over 14 hours.

Client requesting for refund after the contract ended