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gilkerson-sarah
Community Member

DIFFICULT Client Underpaid Me $1?

I recently completed a project with the most difficult client I have faced yet on Upwork. She regularly refused to fund milestones, underpaid me for work, demanded more pages than previously agreed upon, and criticized my work (even though it was exactly what she had pre-approved). I finally finished the contract, completing all work, even though I should have ended the contract long ago and walked away because it was just not worth the stress or the tiny amount she was paying me. In the end she said that my work was excellent. I haven't yet seen her review of me, but it does make me nervous.

However, she underpaid me by 1$ and then claimed it was my fault because I issued the invoice incorrectly. I told her that she could send that dollar in other ways, but she refused. At this point I am planning on moving on and just forgetting it, but it's just the principle of the thing and the horrible treatment I endured that makes this so irritating. Does anyone have any thoughts on what to do? I know it might seem silly, but I endured three months of struggle with this client and feel disrespected. 

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melaniekhenson
Community Member

Oh my goodness. I'm betting that by the time I hit the Submit button there will be a whole bunch of, erm, strident responses (there aren't any at all yet), but I'll chime in anyway.

 

Forget about the dollar. The principle doesn't stand up because it won't teach her anything. I think your feedback from this client is already shot and this won't help, so that's another factor. Leave honest and PROFESSIONAL feedback about the client and move on.

 

There are all kinds of people in the world. There are all kinds of clients. We unfortunately really do need to either manage them or cut them loose. That's part of being a freelancer. So sorry, this definitely doesn't sound like it was a whole lot of fun.

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12 REPLIES 12
petra_r
Community Member


Sarah G wrote:

 

However, she underpaid me by 1$ and then claimed it was my fault because I issued the invoice incorrectly. I told her that she could send that dollar in other ways, but she refused.


I'd  never waste my time mentioning a single Dollar to a client. It would not be worth my time to do so.

 


Sarah G wrote:

 I haven't yet seen her review of me, but it does make me nervous.


Have you left feedback for her? In that case just go to the contract and click on Terms & Settings, where you can see the feedback (and leave your own feedback if you haven't done so already.)

 

PS: Some of your jobs look a bit like "helping" students with their coursework.... be careful with that. There is a fine line - and on the wrong side of it lies academic fraud...

 

Thanks for the response. 🙂 It's not about the dollar amount, it's just about the way she's handled it all and then blamed me. You are right though; I will definitely leave her feedback that describes my experience and just let it go.

mtngigi
Community Member


PS: Some of your jobs look a bit like "helping" students with their coursework.... be careful with that. There is a fine line - and on the wrong side of it lies academic fraud...

 


While Upwork is busy hiding our bids, unnecessarily charging clients $50, limiting client invites, messing with our stats, and etc. etc. - this is what's slipping by right under their noses. Unbelievable.

astepanov83
Community Member

I've had a contract with many milestones. Once I forgot to check if a milestone is funded or not. That was actually the last milestone and it was not funded. I finished the work and asked the client to pay me. He said he had family problems and promised to pay later. Then he disappeared. That was $2k. I'm still waiting. 🙂

Oh my goodness! That is so awful!!! I'll count myself lucky for my $1...

renata101
Community Member


Sarah G wrote:

I recently completed a project with the most difficult client I have faced yet on Upwork. She regularly refused to fund milestones, underpaid me for work, demanded more pages than previously agreed upon, and criticized my work (even though it was exactly what she had pre-approved). I finally finished the contract, completing all work, even though I should have ended the contract long ago and walked away because it was just not worth the stress or the tiny amount she was paying me. In the end she said that my work was excellent. I haven't yet seen her review of me, but it does make me nervous.

However, she underpaid me by 1$ and then claimed it was my fault because I issued the invoice incorrectly. I told her that she could send that dollar in other ways, but she refused. At this point I am planning on moving on and just forgetting it, but it's just the principle of the thing and the horrible treatment I endured that makes this so irritating. Does anyone have any thoughts on what to do? I know it might seem silly, but I endured three months of struggle with this client and feel disrespected. 


Sarah, 

I think it's really important to take a step back and focus, not on the $1 that the client shorted you, but on the bigger picture of the behavior you decided to willingly accept from the client for three months. 

"She regularly refused to fund milestones."

Um, no. I don't want to sound excessively tough love about it.... but, yeah
, I do.
She refused "a milestone" and then you willingly went along for the ride for three months after that. I'm not sure how you're expecting people to respond to the $1 issue. If you freelance, you need to know how to take care of yourself because you're the one who's in charge of that.  

melaniekhenson
Community Member

Oh my goodness. I'm betting that by the time I hit the Submit button there will be a whole bunch of, erm, strident responses (there aren't any at all yet), but I'll chime in anyway.

 

Forget about the dollar. The principle doesn't stand up because it won't teach her anything. I think your feedback from this client is already shot and this won't help, so that's another factor. Leave honest and PROFESSIONAL feedback about the client and move on.

 

There are all kinds of people in the world. There are all kinds of clients. We unfortunately really do need to either manage them or cut them loose. That's part of being a freelancer. So sorry, this definitely doesn't sound like it was a whole lot of fun.

Thank you for your kind and helpful response. 🙂 It was actually a project that I found very personally useful, so I kept working on it just to learn more about the topic. In the future, I will be much more careful about which clients and jobs I choose. 

Sarah -- I would like to second Petra's helpful observation regarding academic fraud. It is not only self-evidently unethical to participate in academic fraud, but it is against Upwork's ToS. Although UW's ToS prohibits doing work outright for students (high school students, middle school students, college students, PhD candidates, etc.), experience has shown that this is not an area that Upwork Customer Service is skilled at policing. It is often left to Freelancers to do the vetting on their own.

 

I often report academic fraud jobs, in a variety of ways. I am pretty good at spotting them in job posts and in Freelancers' job histories. I also do a fair amount of work WITH academics, in editing papers and helping with admissions packages, so I understand that there is a gray area to be negotiated. But, again: THERE IS A LINE. 

 

ETA:  I cannot spot a history of academic fraud in the Profiles of Freelancers who have set their Profiles to "Private," of course.


Janean L wrote:

Sarah -- I would like to second Petra's helpful observation regarding academic fraud. It is not only self-evidently unethical to participate in academic fraud, but it is against Upwork's ToS. Although UW's ToS prohibits doing work outright for students (high school students, middle school students, college students, PhD candidates, etc.), experience has shown that this is not an area that Upwork Customer Service is skilled at policing. It is often left to Freelancers to do the vetting on their own.

 

I often report academic fraud jobs, in a variety of ways. I am pretty good at spotting them in job posts and in Freelancers' job histories. I also do a fair amount of work WITH academics, in editing papers and helping with admissions packages, so I understand that there is a gray area to be negotiated. But, again: THERE IS A LINE. 

 

ETA:  I cannot spot a history of academic fraud in the Profiles of Freelancers who have set their Profiles to "Private," of course.




Don't worry - the cat was already out of the bag.


Sarah G wrote:

Thank you for your kind and helpful response. 🙂 It was actually a project that I found very personally useful, so I kept working on it just to learn more about the topic. In the future, I will be much more careful about which clients and jobs I choose. 


Part of the learning curve sometimes involves figuring out what to do when things come up mid-contract. It's not unreasonable to say "no, I can't start work on this until there's a funded milestone." That's part of what the platform provides in terms of security that you'll be paid for the work you're about to do. You're perfectly within your right to refuse to start until there's a funded milestone in place. 

It's also okay to refuse to do something that wasn't in the original plan. Clients asking for additional work that's not part of the inital discussion of project details and deliverables is something that's so common it's got a name: scope creep. 

kat303
Community Member


Sarah G wrote:

I recently completed a project with the most difficult client I have faced yet on Upwork. She regularly refused to fund milestones, underpaid me for work, demanded more pages than previously agreed upon, and criticized my work (even though it was exactly what she had pre-approved). I finally finished the contract, completing all work, even though I should have ended the contract long ago and walked away because it was just not worth the stress or the tiny amount she was paying me. In the end she said that my work was excellent. I haven't yet seen her review of me, but it does make me nervous.

However, she underpaid me by 1$ and then claimed it was my fault because I issued the invoice incorrectly. I told her that she could send that dollar in other ways, but she refused. At this point I am planning on moving on and just forgetting it, but it's just the principle of the thing and the horrible treatment I endured that makes this so irritating. Does anyone have any thoughts on what to do? I know it might seem silly, but I endured three months of struggle with this client and feel disrespected. 


------------------------

Really!!!! for $1 you contacted this client about $1? 

A client is only difficult if yoiu continue to let them be difficult. If She refused to fund milestones, then you do NOT do the work assigned for that milestone. It's as simple as that. And if it's an ongoing occurance, then you have the right to professionally and nicely end working with her. You are not obligated to continue working with a client if things are not going as they should. Why continue working, getting stressed out etc with a client who criticzes your work, under paid you, refusing to fund milestones. 

Hi XXX

Although I learned and enjoyed the actual project, I feel that we are not a good fit for working with each other. I will finish this last extra milestone and then I will close this contract. I hope that you can another freelancer who is a much better fit to work on this job. 

 

When you give public feedback I would not mention that you were unpaid by $1. Be honest, professional, brief in your review. No whining, venting, etc. Just rate the client as a whole. 

 

As for the stress, irritation and horrible treatment you received, that is on you. You didn't have to endure that. IMO forget the whole thing, Move on. 

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