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marimind
Community Member

Received refund request on phone, but cannot find when signed-in?

Hi.

Wow, I hardly ever ask you experts for help and recently did twice, sorry. This is an odd one. I received an email from UpWork on my phone that one of my clients from June, a while ago, is asking for a $17.50 refund. So I came to my desktop and signed-in and cannot find anything in my messages about this. Nothing in my messages, nothing in my Contracts tab, nothing in my Jobs tab...there is nothing mentioned anywhere that I could find. If there is, indeed, a refund request, can someone point me in the right direction? I am wondering if this refund request is a SPAM, since I can't find it anywhere? I scary thing is that I clicked on the UpWork link so if a SPAM, someone has my sign-in information.

 

Thanks,

Marilyn

ACCEPTED SOLUTION


Nichola L wrote:


_______________________________

Report it. I have also flagged your post so that a mod can help you. IMO it was definitely not Upwork, and it wasn't spam but a scam. 


I am with Nichola, doesn't sound legit to me.  

 

Is there a link on there to respond back or anything?

View solution in original post

19 REPLIES 19
prestonhunter
Community Member

A refund request on your phone??

 

I never heard of that before.

 

For work you did in June? Over 3 months ago?

 

You can't find anything in your Upwork interface?

I don't blame you for being curious.

 

Obviously no client should be asking for a refund for work done over 3 months ago. That's just silly.

 

I don't know what this is, but two possibilities come to mind:

- This is some kind of spam or phishing attempt that was NOT generated by Upwork.

- This is the result of the client clicking some sort of "Request Refund" button that they found (clicking it for no particular reason - just out of curiosity)... and this generated a request that was sent to you via SMS (or app notification?), but otherwise didn't register in any way on your Upwork account.

I think you are correct, as I just reached-out to my client and she says she did not request a thing back. I guess that I will ignore for now, although the UpWork emails tells me I must respond within 7 days.

 

Thanks,

Marilyn

hoyle_editing
Community Member

look at the message on your phone and click the senders name (pressumably upwork) so it displays the actual email address that sent it.

 

is it an actual upwork email address?

 

If you are in any doubt and you have attempted to log in from the email (especially if it was an unsuccesful attempt) then change your passwords etc and infrom upwork, only they can confirm if this was them or not 🙂

HI. The sender is donotreply@upwork.com

 

This is so odd because my client left me 5 stars rating and great feedback saying she'd like to work with me again, although she left this feedback today and not three months ago when I completed the job. It is just so odd, the refund that is. I just changed my UpWork password, just in case.

 

Thanks,

Sounds like a legit email.

 

have you tried clicking the little bell icon on the desktop? sometimes notifications can be hidden under that. 

 

if nothing there or in your contracts or disputes areas then i would drop upwork a message to carify (a new message - not a reply to this didgy sounding one)

I just asked my client and she said she did not request a refund or asking any money from this job ack or anything. Oh my, this is spam then. If this is a legit email for UpWork, then somehow it was hacked? I mean, my client is saying she did not and will not ask for a refund of any kind. Not sure what to do now, but did change my password.

If you have reason to think its spam/phishing attempt, then the first thing you need to do is change your upwork password just in case - then submit a support ticket through the help system to get some clarification on the matter

 

Thank you, had no idea what to do next.

Thanks. Marilyn

lysis10
Community Member


Marilyn M wrote:

I just asked my client and she said she did not request a refund or asking any money from this job ack or anything. Oh my, this is spam then. If this is a legit email for UpWork, then somehow it was hacked? I mean, my client is saying she did not and will not ask for a refund of any kind. Not sure what to do now, but did change my password.


90 days is when escrow goes back if there is no activity. Was there $17 left in escrow?

 

eta: shoulda read ahead. Sounds like there was $17 left in escrow.

Hi, yes. I tried clicking on every I could click on my desktop.

Thank you,

Marilyn

re: "This is so odd because my client left me 5 stars rating and great feedback..."

 

I see no reason to believe this is an actual refund request from an actual client.

 

So the last thing you should be thinking of is trying to send a former client refund money.

 

Even if the client clicked a button somewhere that generated this message, it was probably just random/curious button-clicking.

 

The possibility of this being a phishing attempt is the more worrisome possibility.

 

In either case, I would not personally send a message to a client asking them about it. No reason to confuse a former (and possible future) client unnecessarily about something that like this.

colettelewis
Community Member


Marilyn M wrote:

Hi.

Wow, I hardly ever ask you experts for help and recently did twice, sorry. This is an odd one. I received an email from UpWork on my phone that one of my clients from June, a while ago, is asking for a $17.50 refund. So I came to my desktop and signed-in and cannot find anything in my messages about this. Nothing in my messages, nothing in my Contracts tab, nothing in my Jobs tab...there is nothing mentioned anywhere that I could find. If there is, indeed, a refund request, can someone point me in the right direction? I am wondering if this refund request is a SPAM, since I can't find it anywhere? I scary thing is that I clicked on the UpWork link so if a SPAM, someone has my sign-in information.

 

Thanks,

Marilyn


_______________________________

Report it. I have also flagged your post so that a mod can help you. IMO it was definitely not Upwork, and it wasn't spam but a scam. 


Nichola L wrote:


_______________________________

Report it. I have also flagged your post so that a mod can help you. IMO it was definitely not Upwork, and it wasn't spam but a scam. 


I am with Nichola, doesn't sound legit to me.  

 

Is there a link on there to respond back or anything?

Yes and link, and I signed in with all my credentials, including username. Goodness. 

the email "donotreply@upwork.com" that she has confirmed it is sent from (assuming that cant be masked?) is the same as upwork notifications i have had pertaining to things such as milestones awarded etc.

Okay, my client just checked on her end and she made a mistake and short-payed me and still owes me $17.90. The odd thing is that she owes me that and yet I get an email from UpWork that I need to pay her. This is just getting so confusing, but she is now handling.

 

Thank you all so very much, you are all amazing!!!! Thank you and glad it's not a scam.

 

Marilyn

Thank you, you can now "unflag" the post because the client just told me she made a mistake and underpaid me. She is taking care of everything on her end. Odd thing is if she owes me money, why I got an email saying I have to pay her. Nevertheless, I feel better now that this is not a scam. Whew!

Thanks so much.

Marilyn

Hi Marilyn,

 

I checked and confirmed that the email you received isn't spam or phishing attempt. It's a notification sent when a client closes a fixed-price contract with money in Escrow and requests for the escrowed funds to be refunded. You can see that request in your contract room:

Screenshot_1.png

 

It sounds like the client didn't mean to request a refund from Escrow when closing the contract and has already issued a bonus for the same amount. Please, confirm with them if that's what the bonus is for and if so, you can approve the refund request. Then the money in Escrow will return to the client and the bonus will cover it.

~ Valeria
Upwork

Valeria,

 

Wow, 

1. Thank you so much for looking in on this indepth

2. Thank you for the detailed explanation & easy to follow action plan for me to execute

3. Thank you for the opportunity for me to send the extra money back to the client.

 

Thank you so much!!!!!!!!!!

Marilyn

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