On Hold,Refund,Closed Contract

[baydaevgeniy]

Hello I had hourly contract,

From 04/29/2019-05/05/2019 - 8:30 hrs, then 05/06/2019-05/12/2019 - 8:00 hrs, on may 9 I send file which I done, after client wrote to me (10 may) OK I'm double checking the file, I answered(same day): Ok,please let me know if any corrections needed.Thank You!

On May 24 I got this massage from Upwork:

**Edited for community guidelines**

Today I got request for refund for this both working weeks 2 times from this client whith reason:

I*ve been billed work not completed. Poor communicated would like my money back please.

I asked: Hello, I do not understand the reason why you are asking for a refund. I did all the work, there were no requirements for corrections from you. What are the reasons?

He just closed contract,and put 1 star feedback.

And now I have questions,could you please let me know should I do any actions with this requests, and will I see how these feedback will efect my JSS during two weeks, or I need to delete it immediately?

[kat303]

Was this an hourly job or a fixed rate job? For hourly jobs. you get paid for the Hours you worked, not for the work produced. To be paid for the hours you worked you must use tracker to get paid. 

For fixed rate jobs, you are paid for the work you produced. I'm a firm believer that if you completed the work to the scope of the job, they you should get paid for the work.

If you have proof that you've done professional, high quality work, then you should dispute this clients refund request. It's becoming more and more prevalent for clients to just ask for a refund and give the same excuses and the freelancer gladly complies with that request. 

As for using your perk to remove feedback from this client, you might want to wait and see what comes of the dispute and what feedback you receive before you do anything. 

[baydaevgeniy]

It was hourly, I get money already, even spend them. But I dont understand why he ask for refund, even do I need to do any action if he closed contract after I aksed why.I didnt get any emails from Upwork, just in massages today I got to 2 requests for every week twice during 3 minutes...

[kat303 · Accepted solution]

The client probably used this tactic on jobs in the past. Just ask for a refund, threaten a negative review and freelancers will gladly respond to that request. More and more clients see how easy it is to get their money back.

As long as you tracked your time using Tracker,

annotated notes on the screen shots tracker took

and had reasonable keystroke activity 

Then the client can't dispute anything. 

They can only dispute manual hours, screen shots showing you were doing something else (playing games, surfing the internet etc) or extremely high or unusual low keystroke activity. 

I guess the client thought that tactic would also work on hourly jobs.