Odd question for a client

[jokerette]

I have a cool client who is brand new to Upwork. I've spoken with them at length, and they just told me a tale that I'm sure is not new, but it's new to us.

They are contracting me for a project; I sent my usual 4 or 5 samples. While discussing samples, they admitted they'd brought on a contractor for a much shorter gig. The samples that contractor sent to them were exemplary. Yesterday was submit day, and to their dismay, the work was, uh, sub-par. They shared it with me (to rewrite) and I had to admit I have no idea if clients have any recourse in such situations (aside from that dreadful 1 star and a warning to others.) I feel awful for them; told them I'd do it gratis if I wasn't poverty-stricken as many of us are. 

So, what advice should I give them? Thank you so much for any help.

[spectralua · Accepted solution]

Accept lesson and move forward.

Job done so it is paid. You can like and use job or recycle it... but it is done. Free works not allowed there.

Next time pay for one little sample first.

[jokerette]

That's the conclusion we came up with - but I didn't think of the paid sample first thing! You're good. Thank you so much.

[prestonhunter]

So here's the thing:

When a client is asking about "recourse," he is probably thinking about a refund.

But refund thinking hurts clients.

So it is theoretically POSSIBLE to try to think of ways to seek "recourse," but such thinking is self-defeating.

It would mean that the client is putting the freelancer ahead of his own needs.

A client is better off moving forward rather than dwelling on what one underperforming freelancer did in the past.

My advice to clients is to proactively decide to NEVER try to get money from a freelancer. Because doing so is a gamble. Usually it won't work. It is better to monitor a freelancer's work, especially early on, and STOP PAYING the freelancer if you don't love their work.

Thinking that you can pay a bunch of money to a freelancer and then get that money back if everything isn't perfect is very unwise. Because usually there will be no way to get that money back.

The client you are talking about made a mistake.

What he SHOULD have done was this: He should have had the freelancer work on just one module. Instead of waiting for "Submit Day" when the freelancer submits all 20 modiules. If he had done that, then the client would have seen early on that this freelancer's work was not good enough for the project. Then the client would have been able to hire the freelancer and assign the work to somebody else, and would only have paid a small amount of money.

[jokerette]

They paid - they just didn't want to continue.