Nightmare client ruined a bit of my day

tomzilla1 · ‎09-17-2019

whatever.

madison-russell · ‎09-17-2019

If you completed the job according to the job requirements listed in the contract, there should be no need for you to refund her any part of the money. You did the work according to the agreement and you should be paid for that work.

tomzilla1 · ‎09-17-2019

-

robin_hyman · ‎09-17-2019

Tom Z wrote:
Took on a project for cheap,

This was your first mistake.

Note, explaining, or coaching, was not part of the job description, otherwise it would've been more than just $325.

Without knowing the details of the project, I always assume I'll need to answer questions the client has and build that into the price - mistake #2.

She then said "I am not confident in your skill set"

Did you discuss why? Were you not able to explain it properly so the client understood what she spent $325 for 5 hours of your time for?

I am refunding her the whole thing,

Why would you do that? You did the work, you gave her an explaination (of sorts). No refund! You were doomed from the beginning...

Sorry this happened but learn from these mistakes.

tlsanders · ‎09-17-2019

Why on earth are you refunding?

Side note: Who is "we"?

tomzilla1 · ‎09-17-2019

I use we for me. I was taught that was the professional way than "I".

richard_wein · ‎09-18-2019

Tom Z wrote:
I use we for me. I was taught that was the professional way than "I".

That's only for professional monarchs.

tlsanders · ‎09-18-2019

Tom Z wrote:
I use we for me. I was taught that was the professional way than "I".

Interesting and unusual that you use "I" in your profile, which is your professional showcase, and "we" only in response to a review.

kat303 · ‎09-17-2019

Tom - Thank you. Thank you for rewarding this client. Thank you for giving her free work, Thank you for reinforcing the notion that all she had to do was to ask for a refund and without a blink of an eye, she'll get one. Thank you for giving her the power to control you and your business.

~~Oh, and the client thanks you for the work you gave her and she didn't have to spend a penny for it.~~

By refunding the money, this job counts as a job with no money earned, and in addition to the bad review (private) you will now receive a hit on your JSS. That's because a job with no money earned affects your JSS.

~~I repost this comment from another freelancer (with her permission)~~

~~Janean L wrote:~~

~~Here is a tough-truth reality:~~

~~You ask: "Should i really work for him for free to avoid a bad review if I ended the job?"~~

~~The answer is : YES. "Yes... if..."~~

That is, If you are prepared to allow your freelancing endeavors to be controlled by a perpetual fear of an unpredictable and often dyspeptic client leaving you a bad review, then, by all means, YES, do allow such a client (and the many like-minded clients who will follow) to tyrannize your life. Give in to their unreasonable demands.

You will be miserable. You will be a worm-like supplicant. You will live in constant fear and uncertainty. Your talents will be at the mercy of those who neither appreciate them nor remunerate you properly for their application.

~~You won't make as much money as you could do if you worked with a better class of clients and if you valued your skills appropriately.~~

However, if you are ruled by your fear of the possibility -- even of the near-certainty -- of a bad review from a bilious and perhaps vindictive client... Well, then, by all means do the work for free.

ETA: This is not meant to be a slam to you. It is truly meant as helpful advice -- as a way of looking at this situation that will make you re-think this client and your freelancer/client relationship. Give yourself some power and control!

~~Don't let your JSS dictate what you do. nor let your JSS be used as a hostage or bargaining piece.~~

I have striked through and recanted my reply above. It goes to show, that there are always 2 sides to every story. And when one side misrepresents a situation, wording it as if the client did something so totally wrong then we focus on that.

Tom. - this client may very well be a scammer who knows how to work the system. But you are as much fault as she is. Whether to enter time in manually or not is totally up to the freelancers, but if they know about Tracker, and the protection it provides and they decide to enter manual time, then they don't come on here and complain about what happened and word it so it looks like it all fell on the client.

And when you are finally caught you get so defensive telling everyone to go away etc. You know the consequences that happen with manual time, You've used it before with good results, that's great, but now you know it can have horrible results too. Knowing that, whatever happens in the future will be Totally on you.

petra_r · ‎09-17-2019

Kathy T wrote:

By refunding the money, this job counts as a job with no money earned, and in addition to the bad review (private) you will now receive a hit on your JSS. That's because a job with no money earned affects your JSS.

The poor (public and private) feedback is what turns this into a poor outcome and what has the negative effect on the JSS.

Refunding and turning it into a "nothing paid" contract will not make the (already poor) impact on the JSS any more significant.

So if, for example, the contract (with the money paid) will tank his JSS by 2% or 4%, refunding will still see the JSS drop by 2% or 4%, not by 3% or 6% or whatever.

Tom, it was an hourly job.

If you tracked the time correctly with the Upwork tracker (complete with the necessary memos etc) I would strongly advise you NOT to refund.

If it was manual time or any of the other critria for hourly proection were not met, you might as well refund as you can't win the dispute anyway.

The JSS impact is the same, and you can use your top-rated perk if you have it available.

prestonhunter · ‎09-17-2019

Tom:

Thank you for sharing your story.

This is a VERY IMPORTANT topic!

This kind of situation has been discussed a lot lately. I think many of us are frustrated by what we see clients doing with regards to asking for refunds when freelancers have completed the work.

When I saw your post I knew that Forum participants would want to comment. You might feel like your actions are being picked apart and critiqued. This is done only as a way to offer helpful advice - to you and to everybody who reads this thread. You seem to be a person with a positive attitude. I feel like you won't take this personally, and that you will accept such criticism in the helpful spirit in which it is intended.

tomzilla1 · ‎09-17-2019

-

petra_r · ‎09-17-2019

Tom Z wrote:

*She did not specify anything about explaining in the job post
*Job post tasks were completed
*She made up excuses to end contract
*She promised to pay the 5 hours as agreed on phone
*5 minutes later she filed dispute for the 5 hours

All the above is irrelevant. It was an hourly contract.

Did you track the 5 hours correctly with the tracker or did you not? That is *ALL* that matters.

If you tracked the time correctly you can use your perk (if available) to remove the feedback and would have won the dispute.

If you didn't use the tracker you can not win the dispute anyway.

Tom Z wrote:
Yea not at all, it was $325, whatever, after Upwork, I'm taking home maybe $120 of that.

How do you figure that?

mtngigi · ‎09-17-2019

"I shared this story to learn for myself and also maybe this can benefit fellow freelancers".

What you did benefits no one. It simply reinforces to clients how easy it's become to get free work on this site. It reinforces her bad behavior - because you can bet that now that she knows how easy it is to get away with the goods without spending a dime, she'll pull it on another freelancer(s).

I cannot fathom why you bowed down to this client. The sheer number of clients pulling this c__p this year is appalling. There was no need to refund. People can tell when feedback comments are pure spite. You're top-rated, have made tons of money and have lots of good feedback. I don't believe clients are swayed when they read feedback like hers ... it is so obviously coming from a place of meanness.

~~The word is out - "how to get your job done for free in one easy step".~~

Apparently, the whole story was not shared. I stand corrected. Going off to find my tiny violin.

tomzilla1 · ‎09-18-2019

Good point. But I think more importantly Upwork should really tackle this problem. It shouldn't be on my burden to shoulder a bad review because the client changed their mind or had ill intentions to begin with. I should've done a better job at screening, but I am only human.

Let's bring more awareness to this issue, I'm happy to pay the $325 if this gets Upwork's attention, and more importantly, awareness to fellow freelancers - bow or not to bow, that's up to you.

petra_r · ‎09-18-2019

Tom Z wrote:
bow or not to bow, that's up to you.

Tom, once again: Did you track your time correctly with the tracker or did you not?

That is the crux here.

If you did not, it does not matter because you'd have lost the dispute anyway on this *HOURLY* contract.

Virginia F wrote:

I cannot fathom why you bowed down to this client.

Guys, you are all missing the point that this was an hourly contract, and the fact that Tom is flatly refusing to answer the question whether he used the tracker or not makes me think he probably did not.

In that case, whether he refunded voluntarily is a moot point because he'd have lost the dispute anyway, with absolute 100% certainty. Manual time = no protection = client wins dispute by default.

mtngigi · ‎09-18-2019

Petra R wrote:
Tom Z wrote:
bow or not to bow, that's up to you.
Tom, once again: Did you track your time correctly with the tracker or did you not?
That is the crux here.
If you did not, it does not matter because you'd have lost the dispute anyway on this *HOURLY* contract.

Virginia F wrote:

I cannot fathom why you bowed down to this client.
Guys, you are all missing the point that this was an hourly contract, and the fact that Tom is flatly refusing to answer the question whether he used the tracker or not makes me think he probably did not.
In that case, whether he refunded voluntarily is a moot point because he'd have lost the dispute anyway, with absolute 100% certainty. Manual time = no protection = client wins dispute by default.

I missed that point, because I did not read the whole thread - all I saw was yet another freelancer's arm being twisted. Regardless, the client still sounds like a nasty bit of work.

tlsanders · ‎09-18-2019

Petra R wrote:
Tom Z wrote:
bow or not to bow, that's up to you.
Tom, once again: Did you track your time correctly with the tracker or did you not?
That is the crux here.
If you did not, it does not matter because you'd have lost the dispute anyway on this *HOURLY* contract.

Virginia F wrote:

I cannot fathom why you bowed down to this client.
Guys, you are all missing the point that this was an hourly contract, and the fact that Tom is flatly refusing to answer the question whether he used the tracker or not makes me think he probably did not.

Possibly "one" can't use the tracker when one has been transformed into a royal plural.

tlbp · ‎09-18-2019

Why would you refund money for work you completed?

petra_r · ‎09-18-2019

Tonya P wrote:
Why would you refund money for work you completed?

If it was manual time he might as well.

hourly dispute + manual time = client wins by default and he might as well refund.

Tom's been pointedly ignoring the repeated question whether the tracker was used correctly. I believe that indicates that it was not.

In that case refunding was the sensible thing as there is no point arguing over manual time which is always found in favour of the client and Tom knows that as well as we do.

versailles · ‎09-18-2019

I'm not gonna to comment on Tom's situation about which I know squat, but from a recent experience I had with a freelancer, one thing I know for sure is that what freelancers or clients write in the forums means nothing. As long as you don't know what happened or what the other party has to say, these posts are totally irrelevant.

Not saying that Tom is not telling the truth by the way. I'm just saying that the only side I would address is the technical side of it. Like what Pertra did. Period. Anything else doesn't matter at all.

-----------
"Where darkness shines like dazzling light" —William Ashbless

tomzilla1 · ‎09-18-2019

Petra, if I don't answer you the first time then it means you have nothing I want to respond to. - nobody in my line of work uses the tracker. All my projects are manual time. I understand the consequence of not using the tracker with an hourly contract - it is very clear in the TOS. I am not disputing what the result may be - I refunded the full amount to avoid a negative review that was not based on the work I provided. If this was truly a low quality work, I would've accepted that - the low review was created by the client in part to create the illusion of low quality work/etc. What I am emphasizing here is there is a loophole here as some of you noticed, and a few of you are still wildly lost or pretending to be lost.

And Rene, the point of this post is not to discuss the "technical" - we already know the technical. The point of this post is to discuss the loopholes and improve for freelancers - if you're a client or non-freelancer then you should not join this discussion.

petra_r · ‎09-18-2019

Tom Z wrote:
All my projects are manual time. I understand the consequence of not using the tracker with an hourly contract - it is very clear in the TOS.

Right.

Then everything else is moot. You would have refunded either way when the client disputed.

tomzilla1 · ‎09-18-2019

Petra yes, thank you for keep reminding me that. You have no empathy, do you?

petra_r · ‎09-18-2019

Tom Z wrote:
Petra yes, thank you for keep reminding me that. You have no empathy, do you?

Oh, I do, but you really led everyone a merry dance in this thread by presenting the whole thing in a different light. That is disingenuous. My empathy goes out of the window when people are being deliberately misled.

Everyone wasted their time (and empathy) responding to a situation that did not exist in reality, because of the way you told the story to look completely different from how it played out.

Ultimately you had a dispute for manual time which you knew perfectly well you could not win, so you refunded.

Everything else was fluff.

tomzilla1 · ‎09-18-2019

Petra, you have no idea what you're talking about. Do me a favor, keep your judgments to yourself.

feed_my_eyes · ‎09-18-2019

Tom Z wrote:
Petra, if I don't answer you the first time then it means you have nothing I want to respond to. - nobody in my line of work uses the tracker. All my projects are manual time. I understand the consequence of not using the tracker with an hourly contract - it is very clear in the TOS.

You say that you're fine with the consequences of not using the tracker, yet here you are, complaining about the consequences. Sorry, but if a client wants you to use the tracker, then I don't see how you can breezily ignore their request and charge manual time instead. A client might want to see your screen captures in order to ensure that you're actually working on their project - if this wasn't important, then they may as well have posted a fixed-price project in the first place.

tomzilla1 · ‎09-18-2019

Yes, Christine, because your clients don't trust you obviously.

versailles · ‎09-18-2019

Tom Z wrote:
Yes, Christine, because your clients don't trust you obviously.

Christine an I hired a freelancer recently and I forgot to make the use of tracker mandatory. We got scammed.

-----------
"Where darkness shines like dazzling light" —William Ashbless

tomzilla1 · ‎09-18-2019

Rene, I'm sorry you got scammed. But that has nothing to do with this thread. You and Christine both can go start another thread.

florydev · ‎09-18-2019

Tom Z wrote:
Rene, I'm sorry you got scammed. But that has nothing to do with this thread. You and Christine both can go start another thread.

Rene and Christine, I agree with Tom only in that I want to hear the story and empathize with you. Maybe you already posted it and I missed it.

feed_my_eyes · ‎09-18-2019

Tom Z wrote:
Yes, Christine, because your clients don't trust you obviously.

LOL! I'm not the one who's having problems with my clients.

tomzilla1 · ‎09-18-2019

Christine, client. Not clients. And if you're just going to troll, then go away... Same goes for Petra.

feed_my_eyes · ‎09-18-2019

Tom Z wrote:
Christine, client. Not clients. And if you're just going to troll, then go away... Same goes for Petra.

Okey dokey.

gilbert-phyllis · ‎09-18-2019

It's really not clear what your point is. You accepted a contract with a client who seems (based on what you've said) to lack experience hiring FLs. You dropped the ball when it came to clarifying specifics about the scope of work. You chose not to invest unpaid time explaining what you did in order to keep the client satisfied--which I find odd, given your claim that $325 was too trifling to argue about. Why not spend 25% of that in unpaid time making her happy? You've been doing this for a while, successfully, so it can't be the first time you've been called on to go above and beyond in order to keep a client from turning sour. It happens.

I do a mix of hourly and fixed-rate projects, like you do, and I also never use the time tracker because it's not feasible for 95% of the work I do. So, I've learned to make sure everything is crystal-clear at the beginning of every contract (of either type) with regard to what activities are billable and how we'll handle eventualities if the project becomes bigger and/or more complex than anticipated. You must know to do that, too, judging by your track record here. All of that is Freelancing 101 -- it's neither appropriate nor feasible for UW to try intervening.

alphazomgy · ‎09-18-2019

Lol don't get too caught up in forum replies!

I learned a lot from your story. I guess you'll be sure to call every client from now on before calling them lol.

On a side note, it kind of sucks that if we use manual time, we can be screwed over until about 3 months after we've been paid? (I think it's technically 3 months, I remember Petra mentioning it somewhere.)

I suppose the answer to the liability of being screwed over for using manual time is to have all clients sign a contract, agreeing not to do that. Are you already using contracts or just Upwork's "contract" ?

tlsanders · ‎09-18-2019

Alexander B wrote:

I suppose the answer to the liability of being screwed over for using manual time is to have all clients sign a contract, agreeing not to do that. Are you already using contracts or just Upwork's "contract" ?

And then what? Do you think that if you create a contract that says the client won't dispute manual time, Upwork will enforce that for you and charge the client's credit card while the client is telling them that you didn't do the work?

gilbert-phyllis · ‎09-19-2019

Alexander B wrote:
Lol don't get too caught up in forum replies!

I learned a lot from your story. I guess you'll be sure to call every client from now on before calling them lol.

On a side note, it kind of sucks that if we use manual time, we can be screwed over until about 3 months after we've been paid? (I think it's technically 3 months, I remember Petra mentioning it somewhere.)

I suppose the answer to the liability of being screwed over for using manual time is to have all clients sign a contract, agreeing not to do that. Are you already using contracts or just Upwork's "contract" ?

The answer to "being screwed over for using manual time" is to vet each client carefully; establish crystal-clear project parameters at the outset, including schedule, billable activities, and contingency plans for scope creep; have explicit agreement on max hrs/week allowed on the contract; start out slow--a few hours the first week, while you get to know each other; manage the client as well as the project and be proactive at any sign of unhappiness or other suggestion that something is not unfolding as expected. If things do go sideways, be prepared to discuss frankly and professionally, and reach a compromise that both can live with.

This is not rocket science, and it's not UW-specific, either. It's Freelancing 101. Even on time-tracker projects and fixed-price contracts, you need to do these things. Anybody who can't be bothered, has no business trying to freelance.

mtngigi · ‎09-18-2019

Christine A wrote:
Tom Z wrote:
Yes, Christine, because your clients don't trust you obviously.
LOL! I'm not the one who's having problems with my clients.

Are you sure you're having no problems, Christine? Are you sure your clients trust you? After all, you have only a 100% JSS and a top-rated badge on your profile. And you've only made $100K ... a pittance. You must have loads of clients who don't trust you. How awful for you.