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ebb9f1d9
Community Member

The client is not making payment.

Hi, I just got my first project as a content editor. Client asks me just to edit for one article of 500 words. I submit it. But client wants to work more and gave me 16 more articles to edit. I sent him a request to pay for a milestone, but he did not accept it and said my manager would release the payment today, but still there was no response. Now what should I do?

ACCEPTED SOLUTION

No. You politely tell the client that you need to be paid for the first project, before doing any more work, and that  the second  milestone must be paid into escrow for the next project, before you continue. 

The client is playing on your lack of experience and knowledge of Upwork. He wants free work and you are not protected at all as far as payment is concerned.  Also if he suddenly closes the contract for whatever reason, you are likely to start off with bad feedback.

 

I think this is about my third time trying, but here we go again - a little stronger this time:  You are heading for a disastrous freelancing career, unless you  learn how to use the platform correctly before accepting or applying for any jobs, and unless you learn how to treat freelancing as a business.  You have  also been given many tips and a lot of good advice by other freelancers here; you should try taking some of it. 

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5 REPLIES 5
hannah422
Community Member

Hello Asifa,

You can politely let him know that you will be happy to work on these additional articles once he approves the first milestone and sets up another milestone. If I were you, I absolutely will not do anything until he approves the first milestone.

 

colettelewis
Community Member

Asifa, has your client sent you an official Upwork contract and funded a milestone for the first project?  If not, then you are not likely to get paid.  

Nichola My client hired me on the Upwork platform. Now his manager is saying, "Just continue to edit articles; we will pay all editors and writers." But I told the client that you hired me for only one article, and then the client said we would make a milestone. After the submission of one article, I asked him for a milestone, but still he gave no answer. My question is, "Should I still continue to edit work?"

No. You politely tell the client that you need to be paid for the first project, before doing any more work, and that  the second  milestone must be paid into escrow for the next project, before you continue. 

The client is playing on your lack of experience and knowledge of Upwork. He wants free work and you are not protected at all as far as payment is concerned.  Also if he suddenly closes the contract for whatever reason, you are likely to start off with bad feedback.

 

I think this is about my third time trying, but here we go again - a little stronger this time:  You are heading for a disastrous freelancing career, unless you  learn how to use the platform correctly before accepting or applying for any jobs, and unless you learn how to treat freelancing as a business.  You have  also been given many tips and a lot of good advice by other freelancers here; you should try taking some of it. 

prestonhunter
Community Member

re: "I just got my first project as a content editor. Client asks me just to edit for one article of 500 words. I submit it. But client wants to work more and gave me 16 more articles to edit. I sent him a request to pay for a milestone, but he did not accept it and said my manager would release the payment today, but still there was no response. Now what should I do?"

 

This definitely sounds like monkey business. Failing to pay you for editing one 500-word article, and now asking you to edit 16 more articles without setting up a new milestone or contract? It is difficult to believe that a client is so out-of-touch or incompetent that they don't know they need to pay you for your work before asking you to do more work.

 

re: "The client is not making payment"

 

You are using the Upwork user interface and system incorrectly.

 

When used correctly, a freelancer does not have clients who do "not make payment."

 

re: "Now what should I do?"

You need to learn more about how to use fixed-price contracts effectively, or only work with hourly contracts.

You need to think proactively about what to do is a client asks for "out of scope" work.

As freelancers, we should NEVER do ANY work that is out of scope, or work that was NOT specifically described in the original written agreement.

 

You need to read about how other freelancers handle such requests, and you need to plan ahead what you will do if a client asks for out of scope work.

 

As freelancers, we should always be polite, but we should NOT agree to doing free work. We need to make sure clients understand that they need to release payments to us and pay us as expected before they will get any more work.

 

If a client hired me to edit one 500-word article, and then asked for anything else, I would definitely NOT DO ANYTHING ELSE until the client released payment for the originall agreed-upon work. And then I would require the client to close the current contract and open a new hourly contract before proceeding to provide the client with any more help.

 

I simply don't put with fixed-price monkey business, and nor should you.

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