I got SCAMMED. How to get rid of these accounts/scammers?

[imfurqan]

Hi,

It's been a while now regarding this 'Scam' which eventually turned out to a scam. So, I decided to ask Upwork and the Upwork community.

A client hired me on a $38/hr contract and he allowed me to log manually. He also asked me for different software - I provided him with a suggestion for the software he wants to use for the future even asked different vendors on his behalf. It consumed me a lot of time but I didn't charge him as a courtesy.

I delivered the project and the total was $228 (6 hrs*38) also I provided him with a free revision and some changes. All was going good and suddenly when payment was in the pending period, the contract was placed on hold. I asked him if he had any issue but he denied. After two days the amount was refunded.

I asked him several times but he always replied "I am figuring it out" and now from last month or two he never replied.

I hope I can get my amount back and I hope Upwork will come up with some strict policies so it may not happen to others. Thank you. Looking forward to a solution and support.

Regards.

[wlyonsatl]

Hi, Furqan A.,

I'm sorry to see how this project turned out for you, but it's a common story on this message board.

Clients you don't know may "allow" you to book your work time manually, but what this also "allows" is for you to do work and never get paid.. A client may or may not accept and agree to pay for manually booked time; there is no assurance of payment and Upwork's excellent hourly payment protection policy does not cover any manually-entered work time.

Never use manual hours with a client you don't already know well and trust completely. No matter how "nice" they appear to be.

Good luck with your future projects!

[petra_r]

---

Furqan A wrote:

A client hired me on a $38/hr contract and he allowed me to log manually

I delivered the project and the total was $228 (6 hrs*38)

---

Manual time is enabled by default. And did it not make you wonder why a client would want to pay you almost twice your profile rate and more than 4 times the rate of your last completed contract?

Basically, what happened is that the client never paid for your hours, their payment method rrepeatedly declined, so Upwork never got the money for your hours and because it was manual time, you are not covered by the protection.

Unless the client comes back and pays, you won't see that money.

[wlyonsatl]

Petra,

How many times does Upwork try to bill a client's payment method before Upwork stops trying because the attempt doesn't result in payment to Upwork?

[petra_r]

---

Will L wrote:

How many times does Upwork try to bill a client's payment method before Upwork stops trying because the attempt doesn't result in payment to Upwork?

---

The contract (and the client) are always suspended on Friday morning UTC after the last automatic attempt to charge the client. After that the client has to proactively pay for the payment to be made. (I have a conntract that goes on hold once or twice a month lol).

[wlyonsatl]

That is good to know.

I recently had a client who was worried that his transfer of funds to his payment method would not occur in time for timely payment to Upwork's weekly activity for hourly project charges.

It turned out not to be a problem, but I will now know to tell a client with this problem that the final deadline for availability of payments on hourly projects is Thursday evening London time.