My old client always create milestone after I submit a work.

[ecstasy816]

Hello everyone,

I've worked with a client who is a translation agency for a long time. At first, they followed the rule to create milestone before start working. However, when we did fourth or fifth job. They negotiated to create milestone afterward, because their boss who can create milestone can't do it now, and the work was rush, so we start to work before milestone had been created. The first time we did that they create milestone after I submitted the work quite fast.

However, they delay to created milestone more and more we work. We have worked together around a year or more, so I’ve tried to trust them for a long time because they were late, but they paid. In addition, finding job is hard. However, our current projects are big, and they seem not to response about my milestone. They said indirectly that their customer doesn't satisfy with my work but they don't provide any detail or which part our client doesn't satisfiy with. I start to fear, if anything happen, I might not do anything because I don't have milestone.

I would like to ask that, if I won't get a paid. How should I do? Can I contact upwork to help me about this problem? I know that half of it is my fault, but they are not little client, they hire a lot of freelance, and I think they do it to all freelance they hire. If I won't get my paid, is it possible for me to report blacklist that agency?

Thank you for advance,
Phongmanus

[g_vasilevski · Accepted solution]

Hi Phongmanus,

Feel free to send me a PM with the client details and our team will investigate this further.
Just to confirm that our Fixed-Price Protection for Freelancers does not cover promised funds and unfunded milestones. To learn more on how to protect yourself check out our guide above.

If you have any additional questions feel free to post them here, thank you!

[jr-translation]

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@Phongmanus B wrote:

Hello everyone,

I've worked with a client who is a translation agency for a long time. At first, they followed the rule to create milestone before start working.However, when we did fourth or fifth job. They negotiated to create milestone afterward, because their boss who can create milestone can't do it now, and the work was rush, so we start to work before milestone had been created. The first time we did that they create milestone after I submitted the work quite fast.

However, they delay to created milestone more and more we work. We have worked together around a year or more, so I’ve tried to trust them for a long time because they were late, but they paid. In addition, finding job is hard. However, our current projects are big, and they seem not to response about my milestone. They said indirectly that their customer doesn't satisfy with my work but they don't provide any detail or which part our client doesn't satisfiy with. I start to fear, if anything happen, I might not do anything because I don't have milestone.

I would like to ask that, if I won't get a paid. How should I do? Can I contact upwork to help me about this problem? I know that half of it is my fault, but they are not little client, they hire a lot of freelance, and I think they do it to all freelance they hire. If I won't get my paid, is it possible for me to report blacklist that agency?

Thank you for advance,
Phongmanus

You worked as you would in the world outside Upwork: Agree on a contract, deliver the work, hope for the client to pay. Upwork is here to guarantee you get paid if you follow the rule. As you pointed out yourself, you did not.

By working without a milestone in place you always for free. If the client pays you afterwards, it is because he wants no, not because he must. You might feel betrait but it is your own fault in this case.

If you work for a translation agency you always have to bare in mind that they need to get the money from their clients as well. By making you work (voluntarily) for their client, they just forward the risk of not getting paid to you. If you want to take the risk you might as well save the Upwork fee and work on your own responsibility.

Maybe UW will consider your clients practice as "asking for free work". In this case you will not get your money but the client might get suspended. Maybe they have a history we are not aware of.

[ecstasy816]

I accept that it's my fault, if I can't get paid, it weill be my own big lesson. However, I would like to know that Upwork has any ban or blacklist the client who always do something like this? 

This isn't my first agency client who do something like this, but I stopped working with other for a while because they tried to paid outside upwork. So I assumed that it's quite normal problem if you want to work with agency (at least they pay via upwork). 

After this case, I won't do something like this anymore, my action seems support agency to take advantage of freelancer 😞