Payment refund cancelation as the milestone was canceled

[irfanuddin56]

Hi, I am Irfan.

Recently I have worked on the project and Due to some personal issue, I and my client mutually closed the contract. And we had a good conversation. But he mistakenly asked for a refund which I didn't get paid. The milestone was open and he closed it as we will not be working. And I didn't get paid for that milestone. Now, what should my next step? should I ignore it or anything else?

[petra_r · Accepted solution]

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Irfan U wrote:

 But he mistakenly asked for a refund which I didn't get paid. 

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He did not "mistakenly" ask for a refund. When he closed the contract, he had to choose to either pay you or ask for the escrow funds back. He chose to ask for the escrow funds back, which is correct.

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Irfan U wrote:

Now, what should my next step?

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Obviously you should approve the return of the Escrow funds, as you didn't do the work. So you shouldn't hold the client's money hostage.

[sbilu131521]

Hi Irfan, 
As I see, the client has funded $40, which means this amount is in Escrow now. If you ended the contract officially, it will be refunded t your client's account automatically within 14 days.

And if you already submitted the request for the payment before your conversation with the client, then you need to refund the amount. In that case, the amount should be in your Report's "In Review" section.

In short, if you didn't submit the payment request and ended the contract, then you don't have to do anything, the money will be refunded automatically to your client.
You can just inform your client.

That's it.
Hope it will help.
Thanks

Sagar

[petra_r]

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Sagar S wrote:

 If you ended the contract officially,

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No. The client ended the contract. Otherwise no "return of Escrow funds" request would have been triggered

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Sagar S wrote:

 If you ended the contract officially, it will be refunded t your client's account automatically within 14 days.

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No. It's 7 days if the client ended the contract and immediate if the freelancer ended the contract.

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Sagar S wrote:

And if you already submitted the request for the payment before your conversation with the client, then you need to refund the amount.

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Absolutely not! 1. He didn't request for payment and 2. If he had requested for paymeent, he would still have the exact same request for return of excrow funds and would absolutely not have to issue a refund!

[irfanuddin56]

Hi, 

The last milestone was open, I haven't got paid for that. I have attached an image of it. Before closing the job, if he has paid, the payment would have been at pending payment. But it wasn't.  Because the other milestone he had paid, was completed10/15 days ago and also approved by him. This was active but I was busy and discussed with him, and he closed the job.

see the below attachment, I didn't get paid for that milestone.

[irfanuddin56]

Here Please, have a look at the attachment. He actually closed the contract without payment. And I am ok with it. But Why the refund issue comes, a bit confused.

[petra_r]

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Irfan U wrote:

Here Please, have a look at the attachment. He actually closed the contract without payment. And I am ok with it. But Why the refund issue comes, a bit confused.

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As I explained, at the moment the funds are trapped in Escrow. When the client set up the milestone, he paid the funds into escrow. The client wants a refund of the ESCROW funds. All you have to do is approve so the client gets the escrow funds (NOT what has been released to you) back. It's the client's money. Let it go back to the client, you didn't do the work. 

[irfanuddin56]

Thank you, I thought it will be cut from my actual balance. Now it's clear, I have refunded.