Terms of Use Violation

[mpedziwiatr]

Client posted a job. I applied for the job. We've had a conversation in which client was asking about specifics (essentially solving out his problem and teaching him quite a lot along), the conversation went for a few good hours. Then he told me he'd get back to his tasks. After a while a job posting was closed with no payment nor resolution. I can see that he posted similar jobs afterwards.

Can this be reported/resolved? The UpWork chatbot suggests contacting UpWork, but there is no direct channel except for the link to the community posts.

Any help would be much appreciated.

Thank you.

[prestonhunter · Accepted solution]

Terms of Use violation? What violation? There was no violation.

Can this be reported/resolved?

No.

What are you going to report? What are you going to resolve?

If you were very unwise and spent too much time talking to a prospective client without actually moving to the contract stage, that's all on you.

You can't report a client because you were wasting your own time.

Please don't do that again.

[mpedziwiatr]

Thank you for the advice.

[BojanS]

Hi Maciej,

I'm sorry to hear about your experience. Please do not work on any project until a client has sent you an offer, you have accepted it, it's showing on your My Jobs page as an active contract, and the client's payment method is verified.

Please, check this help article for more information on how to use the flag option found on each job post or message to report any suspicious or inappropriate content. Also, check out this post for more tips on how to avoid questionable jobs.

Thank you!

[kat303]

---

Maciej P wrote:

Client posted a job. I applied for the job. We've had a conversation in which client was asking about specifics (essentially solving out his problem and teaching him quite a lot along), the conversation went for a few good hours. Then he told me he'd get back to his tasks. After a while a job posting was closed with no payment nor resolution. I can see that he posted similar jobs afterwards.

Can this be reported/resolved? The UpWork chatbot suggests contacting UpWork, but there is no direct channel except for the link to the community posts.

Any help would be much appreciated.

Thank you.

---

When you submit a proposal, and when you are in the interview stage you don't talk for HOURS and give away information needed to solve a client's problem and in addition, Teach him - without getting paid for that work. And yes, it is work, It's a consultation. The client should have offered you a contract and paid you for all the teaching and detailed information you provided (for free) After you've been paid for the information it's fine if the client wants to take that info and do whatever he wants with it such as to do the work themselves, or to hire a cheaper freelancer to complete the job, as long as you got paid for giving hour long details. 

The client didn't go anything wrong, and there's nothing to report. In the future don't give away so much information and don't communicate with the client for hours unless you are hired. And that solves your problem.

[Anonymous-User]

Charging an hourly rate of $120 and then giving away all those hours talking, for free... that's a huge loss.

Huge lesson.

[florydev]

I agree with the others, the client did not violate the TOS.

When you are selling your knowledge there is a fine line between selling yourself and giving away the store and it sounds like you blew past it.  You have to learn to convince them you can solve the problem without actually solving the problem.

It looks like this would have been your first client on Upwork and I can guess your rate is among the top in what you do and that makes clients scarce.   I can very much sympathize with that situation but I think you should have faith that work will come and let this one go.  Look at what happened and ask yourself what you would do differently and let that guide you the next time.