Is This Against Upwork Terms and Conditions?

[rahulbangar786]

Recently, I had two experiences on which I would like to ask you guys if this is acceptable on Upwork or not?

1) A client offered me $15 per hour and wanted to hire me but I rejected his offer because he wanted to pay me $300 per month for an ad budget of $30,000/month (5 hours per week per project).

I rejected hourly wage because as a marketer I usually charge clients according to their ad budget and if I feel like the client has a high ad budget and I should charge him according to the ad budget and not by the hour.

Is this acceptable on Upwork?

2) I had a client on Upwork. She had very unrealistic expectations. She wanted to sell a $1500 product for $0.10 and had a very low monthly ad budget of $1000 for testing.

She even was not willing to tell me the profit margin on the products which as a marketer I wanted to know for the scope of the project as well as for creating a marketing strategy and for gauging whether I would be able to bring results or not.

When I told her that this is very unrealistic and as a business owner you should know some basics like how much to spend and how much to expect in sales.

I told her that I would not like to work with her because she does not have enough budget for testing as well as she has no idea about how it works and have highly unrealistic expectations.

She told me that she is offended by this and will report to Upwork and get my profile banned.

What should I do? 

I didn't use any bad words as well as I told her that I didn't mean to be rude and I told her that I am sorry if she got offended.

Someone told me that Upwork doesn't listen to freelancers and only listens to the client if a client files a camplaint. Is it true?

[mwiggenhorn · Accepted solution]

1. You can refuse a contract for any reason. You sound perfectly reasonable.
2. Did this crazy woman hire you or just interview you?  If an interview, see #1 above.  She can't report you because, again, you were reasonable. She can't get your profile banned.  If she hasn't hired you, block her messages and move on.

[rahulbangar786]

I saw her pictures on Instagram and she really looks mentally upset but I am no one to comment on anyone's mental health. However, I never make personal comments about people.

I have a checklist that I made from my years of experience to pick only the best clients and avoid any clients which I feel I can't work with them or won't be able to make them happy.

This way I have achieved a client satisfaction ratio above 95 percent.

[richardrader]

1) For the first client you mentioned I see no reason why you couldn't negotiate the price to be a percentage of ad spend. Just set it up as a fixed priced contract. 

2) For the second client you won't get into trouble, and I don't think you did anything wrong. There are many unreasonable clients both on and off UpWork.

UpWork is not your boss. The only time reporting to UpWork can get you into trobule is if you broke something in their terms like asking for payment outside of Upwork. Otherwise complaining to UpWork is just a waste of their time. 

"Someone told me that Upwork doesn't listen to freelancers and only listens to the client if a client files a camplaint. Is it true?" 

No this is not true. Most complaints are useless unless its a complaint about someone breaking terms and conditions. Complaining about anything else is going to do absolutely nothing. You work for yourself and not UpWork. 

[rahulbangar786]

1) The first client had clients with huge ad budgets but he wanted to pay me peanuts and he knew I can provide great value this is why he was eager to hire me.

I tried to negotiate but he wanted to hire me on hourly wage and do micromanaging. I don't like clients who micromanage.

2) Yeah, I just told her that she doesn't have enough basic knowledge as a business owner/client so I would not like to work with her. I didn't make any personal comments or tried to offend her.