Client tryies to blackmail newbye freelancer

[kalempir]

Help with advice.
My client has closed the contract with an hourly fee and is trying to blackmail with a bad review to return the money. He explains this by dissatisfaction with my work. But if he was dissatisfied with the work, he should have said this in advance and we could have stopped cooperation. And so it turns out that I did everything that he said and in the end, he does not want to pay. I am a newbie, and customer feedback is very important to me right now. I think the client has planned all this in advance. After all, in the end, he got what he wanted (even assuming that the work was not perfect). What do I do? 

[petra_r]

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Sanzharbek A wrote:

 What do I do? 

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If you used the tracker properly to log your time, politelyy decline to refund. If you haven't, you might as well refund as you can't win a dispute in that case.

The client has already left feedback... When a client ends a contract, they have to leave feedback. If I have identified the right client, he's always left good feedback in the past.

[prestonhunter]

Upwork allows clients to close a contract AT ANY TIME.

Clients can view work diaries at any time. Clients can control how many hours per week a freelancer may work. Clients can pause a contract at any time.

Clients have nearly all the power here. They have almost unlimited flexibility. This is a GOOD thing.

If the client does not like your work, she can simply stop paying you to do any more work.

Upwork's policy is "an hour worked, an hour paid"... meaning that hourly contract freelancers are supposed to be paid for the time that they work.

It is NOT Upwork's intention that clients hire a freelancer to do work, and then not pay the freelancer for their work. That is essentially theft. It is stealing the freelancer's time, and stealing Upwork's fee.

What you (as the freelancer) should do is this:

You SHOULD refund all of the hours you billed to the client which were spent working on other people's projects or doing your own personal stuff, such as playing video games. You should NOT refund any time that you spent working on the client's project.