Client wants a refund and throwing me baseless and false accusations

[hephep07]

Hello, Upwork Community. Warning: Lengthy thread ahead as I am trying to be as detailed as possible.

I am new here to Upwork and I just got my client last week. The client agreed to send me a contract to help increase his traffic as he was wondering why his website was already running for 6 months and he still got no traffic. We agreed on the terms that I should do a website audit first to determine the issues of his website not getting any traffic. He even asked me to send him the detailed report, which I agreed, of course, so he can send it to Upwork to file a dispute with his freelancers since it has been six months and he still don't have traffic. But when I sent him the report and delivered some bad news about the messy website, he did not accept it. I mean you can literally see what is wrong with the website as I had provided detailed information as well as the URL in my report. He still won't accept it as he claimed his website was reviewed by "reputable companies." Not really sure who were these companies he was talking about. Instead, he put the blame on me (when I was just working for more than 3 hours) and ended the contract.

In the website audit, I found out that there are serious problems with his website, a job that's supposed to take around 1 hour of my time has taken more than 3 hours as I had to sweep his website for everything that is wrong. There were a lot of broken links, hyperlinks that were pasted in the content body (it looks terrible), and there are pages on his blog with dummy texts. He had images on those pages but the texts are those predefined text placeholders the one CMS always automatically generates. Like those "Lorem Ipsum" texts. I had attached a screenshot below. And worst of all, there is a certain page that cannot be accessed because it was password-protected.

Now he had admitted to me that he had no knowledge about computers before I started, and has said that he had lots of freelancers work for him in the past which he ended because he got zero results. Although I have no proof, the errors on his website were probably caused by these freelancers who managed his website since it has already been there. Luckily, WordPress also records the time when a post got published or modified. I mean how can they not spot those errors if they are serious in their jobs. His website doesn't even have a Meta Title and Description, yet he claimed it was reviewed by reputable companies. Though, his one website on WordPress cannot be logged in anymore, and claiming that I was the one who have changed the log-in details. Which I did not do, because 1.) I have no interest in hijacking someone's website; 2.) I came here for honest work to make a living. I would not do such a thing that would jeopardize my hard-earned contract and my chances of getting a contract in the future specially he was my first client on this platform. It's just unfortunate for me that I was the one who reported these problems to him and the blame was passed on to me. He insulted me and called me a scammer when I was just doing my job and threatened me that he would file a dispute and now he wants a refund for the hours, which I am not willing to do since I worked for those hours.

Now what I am asking is what are my chances on this matter should he decide to escalate it to the dispute team? Will this hurt my chances of securing future contracts? Thank you very much for reading this lengthy thread. I am new here and it was my first contract and it's a shame that I have to go through with this scenario. Thank you again everyone and have a nice day.

**Edited for Community Guidelines**

**Edited for Community Guidelines**

[prestonhunter]

I am very sorry that you are experiencing this.

Of course you should not give this client a refund. It was unprofessional, unethical and immoral for him to ask you for a refund.

Unfortunately this client has no idea how to manage a project like this.

Unless he either hires a project manager manager or learns how to be a project manager, it is unlikely that he will ever succeed in accomplishing his goals.

One of the most important things a web development client should understand is:

It is not a freelance developer's responsibility to make sure the project succeeds.

It is not Upwork's responsibility.

It is not the client's responsibility.

It is the project manager's responsibility.

If you don't have a project manager for a development project of significant size and scope, then the project will probably fail.

[hephep07]

Thank you for your input, Mr. Preston. I really appreciate it. And I agree with you. I respect this person since, of course, he was my client. His problem was that the way I see it, he is not willing (and not open) to suggestions and recommendations, and was triggered when I pointed out the errors on his website. That's what we're here for, right? To look for something that we see, based on our knowledge and experience, we can improve so that we can correct it. Again, thank you for this. Very much appreciated

[AveryO]

Hi Ephraim, 

I'm sorry to learn about your experience. I looked into this, and I can see that the contract started and ended last week. There are two ways in which your client can proceed with a dispute. They can dispute the hours you logged last week (during the Weekly Billing Cycle's review period). In your case, this week is the client's review period for last week's hours. Here is more information on what you can do if a client disputes the hours you logged on an hourly contract. Alternatively, they can request dispute assistance if the last payment on a contract was within the previous 30 days.

You and your client have 14 days from July 14 to leave feedback for each other. Since you are the owner of your freelancer business, I suggest you proceed with whatever is most advantageous for you.

I hope you can settle this with your client amicably. Good luck!

[hephep07]

Thank you, Ms. Avery. It just feels nice hearing this straight from the UpWork team. I will keep this in mind

[98a330a1]

@Avery O **edited for Community Guidelines**

---

Hi Ephraim, 

I'm sorry to learn about your experience. I looked into this, and I can see that the contract started and ended last week. There are two ways in which your client can proceed with a dispute. They can dispute the hours you logged last week (during the Weekly Billing Cycle's review period). In your case, this week is the client's review period for last week's hours. Here is more information  on what you can do if a client disputes the hours you logged on an hourly contract. Alternatively, they can request dispute assistance if the last payment on a contract was within the previous 30 days.

You and your client have 14 days from July 14 to leave feedback  for each other. Since you are the owner of your freelancer business, I suggest you proceed with whatever is most advantageous for you.

I hope you can settle this with your client amicably. Good luck!

~ Avery

I have no issues using this approach at all. Thanks!

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[wlyonsatl]

Ephraim,

It is my experience that Upwork will provide payment protection on hourly time properly tracked using TimeTracker, regardless how loudly a client complains or disputes the freelancer's work.

It is unfortunate this is your first Upwork client. This is the type of client that makes me want Upwork to provide potential client's history of disputes, project cancellations, etc. publicly, so we freelancers know what we're getting into.

Keep in mind that if this client has repeatedly shown that he is difficult to work with, Upwork says his feedback will not count in the calculation of your Job Success Score. You will have no way to know whether this is true with this client and, as far as I know, his written "feedback" on your project will still be visible on your profile for potential future clients to see.

Don't hesitate to respond to the feedback this client leaves, but a) keep your response professional and short and b) wait a day or two between writing it and posting it, to give yourself a chance to confirm that it really is professional and short. Good clients understand that there are bad clients, and there is no reason not to succinctly explain the problems you had with this particular client. His potential future freelancers will also benefit from your feedback.

Good luck!

[hephep07]

Thank you for this. Regarding the feedback, can I file something on Upwork to have this hidden on my profile? I really think this unfair treatment by this client will really hurt my chances of securing future projects since it will be my only feedback as of this moment and it is highly possible that he left some bad feedback. Also, it says that I cannot see his feedback until I wrote feedback, too. So I am not really sure at this point if he even left with feedback or not.

[759e32fa]

Hi Ephraim,

I'm sorry to hear about your experience. Feedback removal is only available to Top Rated and Top Rated Plus freelancers.

In your case, refunding the client the full amount will remove the job from your work history and no feedback shall show up on your profile. But please note that the private feedback that the client will leave is still going to impact your Job Success Score.