File a dispute for unresponsive client not working

[ff2c27b3]

Hey everyone,

I worked with a client on a fixed-priced project. We split the project into to milestones.

The client funded the total of 1200$ for the whole project and released payment for the first milestone as soon as I delivered.

Problem now is I delivered the second milestone and the client never realeased payment for the second milestone. I have been waiting for 2 months now. 

I want to file a dispute but this is not working. As soon as I geht to the page were I am supposed to file a dispute I just get to the chat-support where I get redirected to some random topics about this.

check attached files for more.

[g_vasilevski]

Hi Adrian,

I'm sorry for the inconvenience this has caused you. Our team will reach out to you via ticket and email as soon as possible and will assist you further with your dispute. Thank you.

[petra_r]

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Adrian M wrote:

I worked with a client on a fixed-priced project. We split the project into to milestones.

The client funded the total of 1200$ for the whole project and released payment for the first milestone as soon as I delivered.

Problem now is I delivered the second milestone and the client never realeased payment for the second milestone.

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That's where you went wrong. There was no active 2nd milestone. It was never funded.

Basically what you should have done was either to have the contract as one milestone and submitted it as one, or had it as two milestones, with the second milestone being funded and activated after you submitted the first and before you started working on the second milestone. 

There is now money floating in escrow that isn't in any way attached to a milestone.

[vitaliy-kuzmich]

This will be a lesson to you mate, you should never use fixed price projects, because you are not protected! As I know upwork provides full protection only in case hourly tracked projects(fix me if I am wrong). Recently I always had problems with fixed price projects, it is kind of projects when you always work more, and get a risk that client would not pay to you! In case hourly tracked project, you would get a huge banner if something goes wrong with client, and you should not track your hours(actually you would not be able to do that)

[martina_plaschka]

Not really. What he did wrong was working when the milestone was unfunded. Upwork explicitely tells you not to do that when accepting a contract. Every time. 

[vitaliy-kuzmich]

Unfunded milestone ? huh ? But the contract started right ? Should the contract be on pause, in case current milestone not funded ? From my past expereince fixed price projects always have some problems with payments. In case hourly track project, you as a freelancer just have more protection by default.

[martina_plaschka]

Yes hourly is the best option, but many clients prefer fixed, which makes more sense depending on the project. 

No, a contract does not need to be technically paused. When a contract is split into milestones, you submit the first and tell the client: I'm ready to proceed to the next milestone once you have funded it, thank you! And then wait for that to happen. It's really very simple. 

Most of my contracts are fixed, and I have never had a problem with payment. 

[vitaliy-kuzmich]

Maybe it is specific to your domain, but in mine, clients that asks to work for fixed, has no proven upwork profile or their feedbacks just bad , so I have to ignore most of them... It is possbile to agreed fixed price with client and just track agreed amount, if the price goes out of budget, freelancer should stop tracking time and continue work for free. This is actually what clients want, when ask to work for fixed price projects. In my domain very often I see job posts   create a web site with 30 pages of specification for budget of 100$. When the actual budget for this kind of job should be starting at 10000$

[prestonhunter]

Vitally: 

I agree with your assessment.

A lot of things can go wrong with a fixed-price contract. Even if a freelancer is experienced and knows how the platform works.

New freelancers should only use hourly contracts until they have taken the time to read about how fixed-price contracts work, and taken time to decide how they will avoid scope creep.

[petra_r]

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Vitaliy K wrote:

From my past expereince fixed price projects always have some problems with payments. 

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From my experience, fixed rate contracts (of which I've done over 200) virtually never have any problems with payment. I've never NOT been paid every Cent I've worked for. So our individual experiences differ greatly.