Employer not paying for work

[halimasaadiya]

Client made a mini milestone of $100 and another milestone of work completion $650. As the whole work was decided to be done for total $750.
When I started working and delivered much work applied for payment of $100. Which was released by upwork policy or 14days. After that I continued working on the task and kept on delivering and realized much later that the employer didn't put the $650 milestone money in Escrow and is not activated. When I demanded him to put money in ESCROW after delivered around 80% of work, he started using deception and now going aggressive and lying and attacking me. He is saying upwork cannot make him move a muscle to pay me for the work I have done.
This was my 1st project and I believed that upwork will take care of frauds which is why when employer asked me to get upwork out of the deal not to pay service fee i didn't agree and said deal will be done on upwork only.
Please resolve his project was more then $1000 for which I asked only $750. I have spent my entire days and night please help me get the fair share.
Thank you

[prestonhunter]

You made a mistake.

In the future, do not work on unfunded milestones.

[halimasaadiya]

Please tell me what can be done, how his profile can be blocked or reported?

[petra_r]

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Halima S wrote:
 He is saying upwork cannot make him move a muscle to pay me for the work I have done.

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The client is right.

However, the client also can not use the unpaid portion of the work.

[halimasaadiya]

How to stop him?

[petra_r]

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Halima S wrote:
How to stop him?

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Don't concentrate on thinking about revenge.

Learn from this and move on.

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Halima S wrote:
Please tell me what can be done, how his profile can be blocked or reported?

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Absolutely nothing.

Anything that isn't activated and funded, is literally meaningless.

[halimasaadiya]

Yes I understand but he will keep doing this with other freelancers if not stopped.

[petra_r]

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Halima S wrote:
Yes I understand but he will keep doing this with other freelancers if not stopped.

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Leave appropriate feedback.

[halimasaadiya]

If I end the contract myself Will I be able to give a review?

And if I end the Contact will Upwork be able to handle the issue or I must not end the contract?

[petra_r]

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Halima S wrote:

If I end the contract myself Will I be able to give a review?

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Yes you will, just as your client will be able to, as well.

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Halima S wrote:

And if I end the Contact will Upwork be able to handle the issue or I must not end the contract?

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There won't be any "handling the issue" and even if there were, it would not matter if the contract is open or closed.

[prestonhunter]

re: "I understand but he will keep doing this with other freelancers if not stopped."

Not necessarily.

If all freelancers will use Upwork correctly and NOT work on unfunded milestones, then it will be impossible for this client (or any client) to do this kind of thing.

[robin_hyman]

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Halima S wrote:
Client made a mini milestone of $100 and another milestone of work completion $650. As the whole work was decided to be done for total $750.
When I started working and delivered much work applied for payment of $100. Which was released by upwork policy or 14days. After that I continued working on the task and kept on delivering and realized much later that the employer didn't put the $650 milestone money in Escrow and is not activated. When I demanded him to put money in ESCROW after delivered around 80% of work, he started using deception and now going aggressive and lying and attacking me. He is saying upwork cannot make him move a muscle to pay me for the work I have done.
This was my 1st project and I believed that upwork will take care of frauds which is why when employer asked me to get upwork out of the deal not to pay service fee i didn't agree and said deal will be done on upwork only.
Please resolve his project was more then $1000 for which I asked only $750. I have spent my entire days and night please help me get the fair share.
Thank you

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Halima,

As a freelancer it is your due diligence to make sure fixed-priced projects are appropriately funded BEFORE you start on the project.  At this point it is your fault for working for free.  

Since you are new to the platform, here are some pointers with how to handle fixed-priced projects in the future:

* Never start on a project until you have everything you need

* Milestones are steps in the project.  Example:  Milestone 1 - deliver first draft; Milestone 2 - deliver revision; MIlestone 3 - deliver 2nd revision/final delivery.  If the project was for $1,000, I would have asked for the majority of it up front in Milestone 1 ($750) in case the client disappears.  

* Once the first Milestone is complete, submit your project or updates through Upwork's submission tool.  If the client doesn't approve, no worries.  You will be paid in 14 days

* After you receive payment for Milestone #1, don't start work until Milestone #2 has been funded.

In addition to the above, you should look out for red flags when deciding to work with a client.  There are many discussions about this on these forums.

Good luck!

[halimasaadiya]

Thank you for the information, I learned a hard way.

[g_vasilevski]

Hi Halima,

I`m sorry to hear about the bad experience you had with your client. 
In addition to the information shared here, I would like also to confirm that our fixed price payment protection does not cover promised funds and unfunded milestones. 

Always make sure that the agreed budget is fully funded on your milestone/s. To learn more how you`re protected on fixed price contracts check out this Help Article.

Our team will also investigate the client, if any violations are found proper actions will be taken. Thank you.

[halimasaadiya]

Thank you so`much, I will be waiting. If you need more proofs of his Skype chat I have those too, and you can scroll through the whole Upwork chat as well.