Scammers on Upwork

[f1fae741]

Hi! I've been on Upwork for like a year now so relatively I'm new to the platform, I've been encountering an issue lately that has happened to me with two clients, here it is:

-I work as a Marketing Strategist and the product is a 4 Phases file including Audit, Research, Brand Development, Marketing Strategy and Action Plan

-To be honest I've never been too organized about the payment structure since I've never had any issues before but with these two last clients (I always have a catch up meeting on week 2 and then on week 4) they never said anything about not liking the work.

-I presented the full startegy yesterday even though he had not paid me the 2 milestone which is the Phase 3 and 4.

-When I reminded him this he started complaining about how my work had not value and that his brand new goal was to achieve 1M in revenue out of a 84k marketing budget, including retainers (lmao), said that i didn't create the product (which we never talked about) like I said i would and that the research had no value...

I must say I feel awful, because NONE of these things were said until yesterday and i feel he just doesn't wanna pay for the job, after this I designed a very strict payment structure because I feel scammed..

The funny thing is that they both have said the same thing, that they don't see the value after everything is done, when I show exactly the phases (STEP BY STEP) and they always find it great until the last day.. but then they keep asking for free stuff like I'm supposed to make up for it, which of course I never send.

I've never had this issue before until now, has anyone gone through this?

[f1fae741]

I would like to receive some thoughts from the community because honestly I'm just flabbergasted.

[wlyonsatl · Accepted solution]

With new clients, hope for the best and plan for the worst.

Don't trust all new clients to do the right thing. Precisely define what you are going to do for the client, get milestones set up to pay you as you achieve mutually-agreed goals, don't work on any milestone where the client has not fully funded the milestone and don't work on any milestone until payment on all previous milestones has been released to you according to Upwork's system (not just the client's assurances).

Most good drivers drive defensively. All freelancers should freelance defensively if they want to be successful.

[bobafett999]

"-I presented the full startegy yesterday even though he had not paid me the 2 milestone which is the Phase 3 and 4."

You worked for FREE.

[tlsanders]

So...you generally get paid on a milestone BEFORE you submit the work? That's not really how the system is designed to work.

[6bfcdaf8]

You're delaying confrontation. Do this early in the project. Ask your client clearly what they are expecting, double-triple-quadruple state what's reasonable to expect here. Get paid on time (don't continue to work when unpaid). State a realistic budget. Otherwise you're just delaying whats about to come and working for free in between

[westearth]

Yeah, I have. My best advice for you would be to work on hourly contracts only and use the Upwork time counter in order to avoid scammers not wanting to pay you at the end or that you have to go through a dispute for a fixed-price contract due to this. 

Once I had a client who at the beginning hired me at my usual rate but didn't give me any work, two weeks passed and the contract was dead, no work, so I decided to end it.  When I ended it he became crazy and started begging me to not leave his project because my quality of work looked superb and he definitely wanted me to work with him. He was so gutted that he offered me twice the pay only to accept working for him again.  I accepted and then he gave me work to do immediately.  When I finished the work he told me that "he was going to review it with his colleagues and get back to me".  When getting back to me he said that the quality wasn't up to their standards and that they were not going to use the work I did but anyway offered me to pay half the agreed price because of this! Haha, and they also said that they'd give excellent feedback if I took that offer.  

Of course, I didn't accept I knew he was just doing this to get out of the way of paying me twice the price for the job as he had agreed. So because the client had his payment method verified and I used the Upwork time counter, when the payment didn't go through on his end, Upwork reviewed my worksheet and paid me the week after without any hassles or disputes. The client got his account suspended, later he reactivated it but had to pay Upwork what he was owing. So he sent me a refund request which I completely ignored and blocked him afterward. 

It's really a shame that there are scammers out there who in order to not pay or get a discount have to go through all of this. 

But that's why I tell you, only work on hourly contracts with clients that have verified payment methods and use the Upwork time counter every time. In that way, in the case, the client "did not like the quality of your work" and you know that he's just faking it to not pay, then you will anyway be securing the agreed payment for the time worked, because if not the client then Upwork will definitely pay you. 

[wlyonsatl]

Hi, Magdalena G.,

Your story is a good one; more freelancers should stand up to such clients.

Was that client able to leave feedback for you on the job he didn't pay you for?

Will

[westearth]

Oh yeah he did, and of course not a good one so I had to use my perk of Top-Rated Freelancer to remove his feedback from my wall, and it's in fact the only feedback I have removed so far.