Client take the submitted work and not release the full payment of the milestone

[c90cb1a7]

Hello, I have recently worked for a new client for a fix price contract of 80$. The work is related to data analysis and answering the questions in the doc and and creating a presentation of findings. The client decide to create two milestones one is for giving the complete work 80$ and one is for after review 30$.

The deadline was short that's why i have to work late night to complete the project in the time period.

after submitted the all files the client was not sure about the work and decided to not to release the full amount of milestone just gave me 20 $ for that hole work.

So here is my question that is this type of client do the right thing or just taking advantage of the freelancers effort and time.

I have also raise the dispute against this and the upwork solve this issue by giving the milestone amount which i have worked for but till now the client didn't accept their fault.

[abinadab-agbo]

What specifically is the issue at hand:

- for you to get paid;

- or for the client to admit their fault?

[c90cb1a7]

I think in this case both are the issues.

[abinadab-agbo]

So, if you believe you should get the money, you'll have to fork out $275  $291 to go to arbitration.

Before arbitration, Upwork will attempt to mediate between you two and help you both reach a non-binding agreement.

From what you've explained, it looks like Upwork has already made a non-binding resolution on the matter, which the client refuses to accept.

Each party (the client, you, Upwork) will have to pay for arbitration for the case to now move forward.

If one party pays and the other doesn't, the dispute gets resolved in payer's favour and your $275  $291 is refunded.

If you have the funds and the appetite, you can pay for arbitration in hopes the client doesn't pay his own part.

Quite a gamble it will be for a project that small.

This is the only way to get your money.

Moving forward, you may want to work on your service delivery as your JSS suggests a pattern of failing to meet agreed client expectations.

[prestonhunter]

I'm not as interested in "what the client did wrong."

I'm more interested in what I did wrong, as the freelancer.

Because I am the freelancer.

I can only control what I do.

So the important thing for me to understand in this situation is what I did wrong, so that I can avoid making the same mistakes next time.

I can't necessarily predict if a client is going to be a wonderful client or terrible client.

But here is what I can do, as a freelancer:

Work only on funded milestones.

If there is $50 funded in escrow, then I do $50 worth of work, submit that, and stop.

If the budget is $500, that doesn't matter.

I ignore the budget.

ALSO:

Not all clients know how to handle fixed-price contracts properly.

So as a freelancer, I always start small. To give the client an opportunity to demonstrate that they can be trusted.

So if I haven't worked with the client before, I will agree to a contract that takes no more than an hour or two worth of work. Then I submit. Then the client releases payment without hassle and shows they can be trusted. Then I will agree to increasingly larger fixed-price contracts.

If the client shows they can't be trusted (by behaving like the client described in the original post in this thread), then I can walk away without having lost so much time.

For example:

I agreed to do "Task X" for $30.

When I finished, the client offered to pay me only $20.

Then I have a choice:

I can simply close the contract and stop communicating with this client, who is obviously wasting my time. Or I can do no more work at all until the client realizes he can't play games like that and releases $30 as agreed.

Having $30 on the line is a much better position to be in than if I had worked for a long time and $1500 on the line.

[abinadab-agbo]

Might a freelancer not gain from locking that $1500 in, than funding in parts, leaving the project prone to being overtaken by events on the client's side.

An argument could definitely be made to lock that money in lol, especially with clients with excellent history of collaboration with freelancers.

It's a trade-off each freelancer would do well to consider. I imagine large milestones like these would be highly discouraged for fields with very subjective interpretation (like design). I also imagine they'd make more sense for freelancers who really know their stuff and clients with excellent, verifiable histories on the platform.

[prestonhunter]

re: "Might a freelancer not gain from locking that $1500 in, than funding in parts, leaving the project prone to being overtaken by events on the client's side."

Let's forget about the dollar amount, because people have different rates. Let's talk about time.

I don't know what an unknown client is going to do with a fixed-price milestone worth 40 hours of work. They might decide to not pay.

So I don't trust them until they demonstrate they will pay.

I don't want to work 40 hours and not get paid.

I would rather work 1 hour and not get paid.

[petra_r]

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Preston H wrote:

I don't want to work 40 hours and not get paid.

I would rather work 1 hour and not get paid.

---

And I would prefer to work 40 hours and get paid. It's not easy for a client to not pay, and I've never been afraid of clients not paying me, why would they? In the unlikely event that they try, I don't let them. So I agree with the "get the whole thing funded up front and be done with it".

[prestonhunter · Accepted solution]

If you feel that you can safely enter into a large fixed-price contract with an unfamiliar client, then more power to you.

I simply don't think it is safe to do so.

The typical freelancer has no way of knowing if an unfamiliar client is going to use a fixed-price contract properly or abuse it.

I don't think it's safe to work for 40 hours as a first time fixed-price milestone with a client.

I don't know if, after doing all that work, the client is going to release payment or endlessly request changes.

Starting with something smaller to verify that the client likes the freelancer's work and to verify that the client pays the freelancer as expected without monkey business is safer for both sides.

[abinadab-agbo]

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Petra R wrote:

---

Preston H wrote:

I don't want to work 40 hours and not get paid.

I would rather work 1 hour and not get paid.

---

And I would prefer to work 40 hours and get paid. It's not easy for a client to not pay, and I've never been afraid of clients not paying me, why would they? In the unlikely event that they try, I don't let them. So I agree with the "get the whole thing funded up front and be done with it".

---

Yes, this was my drift.

Normally, I used to accept one month of work funded, as the first milestone.

Of late, I would actually seriously consider 3-4 months of work funded, if such clients come my way.

I would recall this is partly the reason for the recent changes to the JSS - to facilitate larger milestones without inactivity for long periods, with no penalty to the JSS.

Well I should stress again - only for:

- freelancers who know their stuff

- freelancers not in fields prone to highly subjective interpretation

- clients who do not have a history of avoiding to pay for work done.

And have your $275 $291 ready in case of any surprises 😉

Actually, disputes don't happen that much on Upwork, esp for freelancers serious about doing great work. I know it gets reported often in the forum, but for serious freelancers it may be sth like 1 in 250 or even more contracts.

It's a calculated risk a freelancer must make their own decision on.

[petra_r]

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Abinadab A wrote:

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Petra R wrote:

---

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And I would prefer to work 40 hours and get paid. It's not easy for a client to not pay, and I've never been afraid of clients not paying me, why would they? In the unlikely event that they try, I don't let them. So I agree with the "get the whole thing funded up front and be done with it".

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Yes, this was my drift.

Normally, I used to accept one month of work funded, as the first milestone.

Of late, I would actually seriously consider 3-4 months of work funded, if such clients come my way.

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You can't do that, at 3 months the contract closes automatically and the funds are returned to the client. I also wouldn't want to do 3 months to be fair,  I just do anything up to around $1500 in one milestone, that's around 10 days to a couple of weeks depending on what elese I have on.

With a well trusted client I've done milestones of up to $3000

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Abinadab A wrote: And have your $275 ready in case of any surprises 😉.

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It's $291 😉

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Abinadab A wrote:

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Actually, disputes don't happen that much on Upwork, esp for freelancers serious about doing great work. I know it gets reported often in the forum, but for serious freelancers it may be sth like 1 in 250 or even more contracts.

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Exactly. I can't imagine being so scared of my clients. If you choose your clients carefully and manage the contract properly, something like that should be super-rare. I've managed a grand total of one dispute in well over 300 contracts and I walked away with the money without having to go to arbitration because the client conceded. And that one was my fault because I should never have agreed to work with the client in the first place. I saw the red flags and ignored them. My own fault.

[c90cb1a7]

Yeah, I have already ended the contract right away. Befor starting of the contact i have also send the client of my work sample similar to that project and after seeing the previous work the client was agree to giving me this contract. 

I have also see that this client hiers one other freelancer for this same project I think this client was compairing the work of two freelancers and after that paying the amount of only one freelancer work.