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brucebenson
Community Member

HELP ! How to report an abusive client who is threatening me?

Abusive Client Alert!  I Need help navigating the Help Center / Community / Support options.

 

I have reviewed all, and none address the fact I need to stop a raging client from trying to ruin my Upwork image.  

 

Background - I have worked many thousands of succesfull hours on Upwork.  No problems with clients of all types and demeaners.  But the past few days a particular client, that I have worked for over one year with no previous disputes, has gone very abusive on me. He is facing business stresses and is seemingly taking it out on me. 

 

Here are some samples of what he has messaged me on skype:

 

**Edited for community guidelines**

 

I have ended the contract, and left a message in Upwork documenting the clients concerns and how they have been resolved.  He is asking for refunds of time I have worked.  But there is nothing I did to cause me to refund the money.

 

HELP!  How do I report this type of behavior so my Upwork profile stays good?

 

Thanks!!!

 

Bruce

 

 

14 REPLIES 14
williambernal
Community Member

BB,

 

It appears that your contract with that client has already ended and they have left you feedback. Is that correct?

If the contract is closed, there is nothing more they can do to affect your profile. Also, you are top rated, meaning you can have a negative review removed from your profile every 3 months. 

florydev
Community Member

Bruce,

 

You are aware of this right:

https://support.upwork.com/hc/en-us/articles/219801228

 

It sucks it is such a long running job but seems like a good candidate for removal to me.  

 

The rest of that crap I wouldn't worry about.

prestonhunter
Community Member

I know it is not fun having a client be abusive like that... But it is kind of funny... the client claiming that the CEO of Upwork is a personal friend.

 

Obviously this client is simply being a bully and lying to you, and trying to get his way no matter what.

 

re: "How do I report this type of behavior so my Upwork profile stays good?"

 

You could create a support ticket, but I think reporting these events right here in the Community Forum maybe the best thing to do. It is possible that a Forum moderator will intervene and help.

 

The important thing is that you:

a) closed the contract and stopped working for this abusive client.

[and]

b) did NOT refund any money to him.

 

If you have not already done so, you should block this person within the Upwork Messages tool, and within Skype, and within any other method that this person uses to communicate with you.

 

There is no value to you to continuing to receive communications from him.

It is likely that the original poster's post will be edited... His quotes from Skype messages the client sent him are likely to be removed based on Community Forum rules.

 

But I want to directly address one message that the client sent to the freelancer.

 

The client said that he wants the freelancer to restore all of the time that the client "wasted" while working on the project.

 

This is simply a bizarre statement.

Nobody - not a freelancer, not corporate Upwork, and nobody else - can "restore time" to somebody else.

 

On Upwork, clients hire freelancers. Thus, it is a client who is using a freelancer's time. A client has complete and total control over hiring and firing freelancers. A client can close a contract at any time, for any reason.

 

If a client is disappointed in the results of a contract, that is unfortunate. But that is normal. Not every contract is going to be successful. Not every freelancer is going to work out for a client. When this happens, then the proper thing for a client to do is to stop working with the freelancer.

 

It is NOT POSSIBLE to "restore time" to a client or a project. So the correct thing for clients to do - if they want to avoid wasting time - is to review the work submitted by freelancers and stop working with the freelancers who do not provide them with the most value.


Preston H wrote:

 

Nobody - not a freelancer, not corporate Upwork, and nobody else - can "restore time" to somebody else.

 

If a client is disappointed in the results of a contract, that is unfortunate. But that is normal. Not every contract is going to be successful. Not every freelancer is going to work out for a client. When this happens, then the proper thing for a client to do is to stop working with the freelancer.

 

It is NOT POSSIBLE to "restore time" to a client or a project. 


**Edited for Community Guidelines**what the client means by it. He means "money?"

 

You know fully well what the client means (it did not take two posts of talking round and round the issue) carefully avoiding the fact that the client can dispute the last 30 days. If any hours during that time are not tracked 100% according to the rules, those hours will indeed be "restored to the client "- he gets money back, which is obviously what is meant here.

 

**Edited for Community Guidelines** The OP is ill served by your "all will be fine, the client can't do a thng" drivel. The client can indeed do all sorts of things.

 

I completely agree that the "my pal the CEO" nonsense is just that. But the client could theoretically still get a month's worth of money out of the OP.

 

The OP should report the client. 

 

Threatening behavior and, I daresay, false claims to be a personal friend of the CEO are  not likely to work in this "client's" favour. 


Nichola L wrote:

The OP should report the client. 


Indeed. That was, in fact, his question. He did not ask for two rambling posts worth of drivel that pretended to have no clue what was meant.

 

If the client used Upwork messages, there is a "report message" function on every message. Use it.

Otherwise take screenshots and create a support request.

 

 

Thanks Petra!  How do I create a Support Request?

Thanks Nichola! 

The question remains, how exaclty do I  "Report the client" for abusive behavior ?  I do not see this as an option anywhere on Upwork....

colettelewis
Community Member


Bruce B wrote:

[...]

HELP!  How do I report this type of behavior so my Upwork profile stays good?

 

Thanks!!!

 

Bruce

 

_____________________________

Bruce,

I have flagged your post to notify a mod, who hopefully can take this further for you. However, you can use your top-rated perk to have public and private feedback removed. 


 

I agree this is the time to use your top-rated perk to remove that feedback. 

 

I would have to say though that it's pretty hard to believe them considering how long you worked with them, if there were problems like this, it seems like they would have ended the contract MANY hours and payments ago.

 

Sorry you're experiencing this. 


Amanda L wrote:

I agree this is the time to use your top-rated perk to remove that feedback. 

 

I would have to say though that it's pretty hard to believe them considering how long you worked with them, if there were problems like this, it seems like they would have ended the contract MANY hours and payments ago.


I thought the same thing as well.

 

I have considered how the Upwork JSS system works in particular because I tend to have less jobs overall but some of them go longer I have thought about this very scenario.  As much as I want to believe in my wonderfulness I think there is always the potential of things going sideways and a client that loved me last week suddenly hates me (probaby for no reason at all because I am sincerely awesomeness).  

 

BojanS
Community Manager
Community Manager

Hi Bruce,

 

Thank you for flagging this to us. I was able to gather information from your report and will escalate it to our team for the review.

 

Please do use the flag option to report any inappropriate content in messages!

 

Edited to add: Additionally, please check out this help article with more information about dispute process on hourly contracts in case you aren't able to come to a mutual agreement with the client.

 

Thank you.

~ Bojan
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