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davidberan89
Community Member

Client threatened me.

Hello,

 

I am not sure what to do but I will now try to explain this case in short.

I am a 3D artist with ONLY good experience on Upwork so far - Top Rated Plus and about 100% Job success. Always had nice clients and cool jobs.
Two days ago I started to work for a client/agency (will post name on request) and everything started as usual.

I asked him to set up a Upwork contract - what he did ( 10h limit - 40$/h) and told him that it would take me one day roughly. He agreed.

 

After some back and forth the Client told me that he is the Head of the agency and that I need to comunicate with the IT/3D guy who only has Skype. 

So I contacted this guy on Skype where he told me what he needs etc. 
He told me that he wants me to complete the first task (create a realistic head to show various skin conditions) as a PAYED test task. 
Today (after 2 days of work) he finally was happy with my work and wanted to know how many hours I needed.

 


Told him that it took me 12 hours in total. He was reacting very strange, telling me that he will only pay for two hours + a 3D model I had to buy to complete this task.
I told him that it is okey for me if he only pays for the 10hours maximum we a both agreed with in the beginning (took me a bit longer that one day (8h) because he wanted a ton of different stuff during the process). I also attatch on of the renderings I created to give you a little more context.

He then said that he won't pay me anything if I do not agree with the 2 hours. I did not agree and now he canceled the contract and I did not recieve a cent. ( There was a lot more inappropiate behaviour from his side but I do not want this post to explode )

I have the whole SKYPE conversation saved. I know that I probably will never see a cent from this guy because I did not log any hours etc. but I really want to save other freelancers from experiencing the same from this client.

So please can one of you nice Upwork people can get in contact with me? 

Cheers

David




7 REPLIES 7
BojanS
Community Manager
Community Manager

I'm sorry to hear about your experience with this client, David. 

 

Could you please click on my name and send me a PM with more information about your report? I'll check it and escalate accordingly.

 

We highly recommend that you log time with the Upwork Desktop App on future hourly contracts.

 

Thank you!

~ Bojan
Upwork
petra_r
Community Member


David B wrote:

Told him that it took me 12 hours in total. He was reacting very strange, telling me that he will only pay for two hours + a 3D model I had to buy to complete this task.


 

There shouldn't even have been any such conversation.

 

If they opened an hourly contract, you tracked your time properly with the tracker while doing the work and you get paid automatically for whatever hours you worked. 

Unfortunately I did not track anything. In the beginning he asked me to manually add the hours after finishing the work. 
Then, when I ask if I am now "allowed" to add the hours the discussion started.

I know it's my fault that I did not track hours and like I said in my post on top - I do not really care about the money I wasn't payed for - I just want to prevent this scammer from doing that to other freelancers in the future.
He went from:
"Okay, I agree you to work on this payed test task for about one day"
to
"No, I will only pay 2 hours because this was a test task"
to
"Okay I won't pay for anything until you delete the screenshots" (I made evidence screenshots of his behaviour from the Skype chat and postet them in the upwork messenger that proves that he is deliberately scamming me) 

Because I did not delete the screenshots and also did not agree with the 2 hours in the end he just ended the contract and was never seen again.


End of the story

 


David B wrote:

Unfortunately I did not track anything.

 

End of the story


Yup.

It does suck because your JSS will likely take a little hit, but strictly speaking the client didn't technically breach any terms of service.

 

That said, your work still belongs to you and reminding the client that they can't use it might help a little.

Just had a look at some of the other Feedbacks from other Freelancers:

 

These two Feedbacks especially are more or less the same thing I have experienced with this client but even worse.

 

"This person threatened me with a bad review. He promised a full-time job, in fact, it was 8 hours. He asks to remove screenshots, cheats and reduces the final cost by all means. After that, he disappeared for a long time and simply closed the contract. One of the worst clients in my practice."

 

"Do not recommend this client. He didn't pay as discussed saying someone else did the job for the less budget. Be careful while discussing the project and budget. "


I know that as a freelancer you tend to give good feedback to the client even if something went wrong because you are more vulnurable as a freeelancer and do not want to risk that the client hits you back with a bad review so I am sure that there are more of these experiences but never come to the surface.

 

How can this client still be able to be here on Upwork? I know that he probably avoids to break the rules in the most cases but there has to be some sort of punishment for treating freelancers badly, scamming and dekliberately avoid to pay for finished work..?!


David B wrote:

Just had a look at some of the other Feedbacks from other Freelancers!


Another thing learned: The time to carefully check a client's history is before applying...


David B wrote:

Just had a look at some of the other Feedbacks from other Freelancers:

 

These two Feedbacks especially are more or less the same thing I have experienced with this client but even worse.

 

"This person threatened me with a bad review. He promised a full-time job, in fact, it was 8 hours. He asks to remove screenshots, cheats and reduces the final cost by all means. After that, he disappeared for a long time and simply closed the contract. One of the worst clients in my practice."

 

"Do not recommend this client. He didn't pay as discussed saying someone else did the job for the less budget. Be careful while discussing the project and budget. "


I know that as a freelancer you tend to give good feedback to the client even if something went wrong because you are more vulnurable as a freeelancer and do not want to risk that the client hits you back with a bad review so I am sure that there are more of these experiences but never come to the surface.

 

How can this client still be able to be here on Upwork? I know that he probably avoids to break the rules in the most cases but there has to be some sort of punishment for treating freelancers badly, scamming and dekliberately avoid to pay for finished work..?!



I think you wanted to believe that you would get paid even though there were many red flags that you wouldn't. We all get pulled in by hope sometimes. Scammers depend on that fact to get free work. 

 

But, Upwork's sphere of authority is limited to its platform. When you communicate using the message room and follow appropriate contract and billing procedures, then Upwork can have some input. If you communicate via another method and don't follow the correct procedures, then you are not long within Upwork's jurisdiction.

Even one of those two protections would help. I can communicate all I want with a client (once contracted) outside of Upwork and if I use the time tracker properly, get paid. The internet is not the place to rely on faith. 



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