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paucass
Community Member

Should I be responsible for educating the client about contracts or is he/she just playing me?

This is for illustration. I'll admit I'm new here and I'm still getting the hang of how upwork works. I made the rookie mistake of doing the work first without the contract (still under "proposals") but I took precautionary measures and submitted low res samples and watermarking it. I keep waiting for the client to hire me and have an official contract and milestone set up but the cleint doesn't seem be the type to initiate first and everytime I bring up the topic of payment, he seems to deflect it with suggestions/changes on the artwork or just says "sure,of course we can discuss it. 🙂 ". Client has five star reviews, payment verified, and has spent money, so I don't think he is just plain ignorant or also new with upwork.

I'm not sure what to make of this. He seems to still wants to work with me but I am suspecting a "dangling carrot". should I just walk away from this, take it as a loss or do I just need to be the first to initiate and be the one to take charge of the process?

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kirnazdogan
Community Member

As a freelancer, you cannot start a contract. You just send your proposal, make an interview (if the client has chosen you), and then the client offers you a contract and you accept or decline. Never work before the contract started. Just tell them properly how you can work and what you will do, and you can also show them your portfolio (previous works). But never do their work if there is no contract. You cannot get your money then. You're not responsible for teaching the client how a contract starts and ends. But, if they don't know really, it will be a nice help to come them with Upwork articles as reference.

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kirnazdogan
Community Member

As a freelancer, you cannot start a contract. You just send your proposal, make an interview (if the client has chosen you), and then the client offers you a contract and you accept or decline. Never work before the contract started. Just tell them properly how you can work and what you will do, and you can also show them your portfolio (previous works). But never do their work if there is no contract. You cannot get your money then. You're not responsible for teaching the client how a contract starts and ends. But, if they don't know really, it will be a nice help to come them with Upwork articles as reference.

Thank you, this has been informative and helpful. I appreciate the reply.

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