Hi everyone. Writing this in the Support forum as I am seeking clarity regarding Upwork's standpoint on this, but views from people other than Upwork staff are welcome as well.
Upwork has fairly detailed documentation with regard to payment protection for hourly and fixed-priced contracts, but there is no specific description of the process for recurring weekly payments (of a fixed value) set up as part of hourly contracts. My question is: Are recurring weekly payments covered by the same payment protection terms and process as general hourly payments?
To describe the situation in more specific terms: Let's say a client and a freelancer enter into an contract under which the client sets up a weekly payment of X USD/week. The contracts states that weekly payments are the primary way of payment for services rendered by the freelancer (maximum weekly hours might be set to zero to further cement this as suggested by Upwork documentation), and that the client is setting up this method of payment because the client and the freelancer have agreed upon a fixed volume of work (as measured by an agreed and contractually documented metric other than time spent working on the project) to be turned around by the freelancer every week.
In this case, if the client requests a refund within the stipulated five days of the end of the relevant week, the freelancer rejects the request, and the client files a dispute that the freelancer contests, how will the appointed dispute specialist go about making their determination, as there are no screenshots or activity levels to be inspected, but as per the contract weekly payments are the designated mode of consideration paid in exchange the work done?
Additionally, how much would it matter if the contract includes a term explicitly stating that the client is entering into this form of contract based on confidence gained from prior work with the freelancer, and hereby agrees not to dispute or ask for a refund of weekly payments invoiced at the end of the week (they can of course end the contract if they stop liking the quality of work submitted and don't want to continue)? In a way this is also a question about whether (and in what situations) dispute specialists take into account the agreed contract terms when making a determination in general.
Thanks.
