Toxic client. Ended my contract on my own will. Will I still get my pending payments?

[4b38221a]

Hello Everyone,

Me and my colleague ended our hourly-based contracts on our own for this specific client. The client kinda runs a web development agency that makes web stores for his customers. The client was toxic beyond words and over demanding. He just suddenly wanted us to sign a certain NDA and wants all of hour PST hours to be blocked for him even if it's clear that we signed up for a freelancing work. He said that not signing the NDA will be subject to termination. I ultimately resigned because of this as it's not part of our original contract, and it is really out of my will to sign the NDA because no further explanation were given to us as to why he suddenly demanded the said matter. I asked him to terminate the contract if he's really disappointed with our decision but he keeps refusing and wants us to sign the NDA for us to keep the job. Of course, we had no choice but to end our contract on our own even if he threatened us that he will leave bad reviews if we end it. It's like he did not give us a proper option.

First question is, will we still get our payments even if we ended our contract and reports us to Upwork? There is one pending payment and another one under review.

Second question is, will we get banned from Upwork if he reports us and tells lies about us?

Due to us not agreeing to sign his NDA, he really got upset, told us things, and there was a heated argument between us. I admit I got upset too because he got too personal. He told us during our last meeting that he will report us to Upwork for misconduct and for poor performance, which we didn't understand because we were able to make a three to six-month worth of project live in just two months. If he finds us faulty and substandard, he should have ended our contracts long ago. The project was rushed without any rush fee, and even he was understaffed and only had us as his NoAm developers (we live in Philippines). He also keeps track of our LinkedIn accounts and other social media platform to see if we have any connections to other agencies. He recently questioned all my time offs and wants me to tell him specific details of my personal engagements like what will I do, where will I go, why is the timing so off and weird, etc. As a freelancer, I think he is severely invading our privacy and even if it's included in our contract that we should be available during PST time. I think it will never be a mortal sin to have some time off for personal engagements and I always make sure that he's notified about it.  Even with some time offs, I still work 40 hours a week (agreed maximum time) or more to finish all the tasks even without rush fee (my bad, newbie freelancer here, my other colleagues told me that I should have raised my fee if he's this demanding). 

We really worked hard specially my other colleague, who also conducts lots of trainings for his customers while doing hardcore development work in between. We don't want to lose our earnings because of his manipulations and lies. I am quite sad that I didn't even get the chance to record the conversation or compile proofs as I was too carried away during our last encounter. But no worries, my screenshots say it all and his customer is aware that we were really active in developing and assisting him to make the project successful. 

Thank you!

[colettelewis]

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Luchelle Bianca Ca P wrote:

Hello Everyone,

Me and my colleague  ... Of course, we had no choice but to end our contract on our own even if he threatened us that he will leave bad reviews if we end it. It's like he did not give us a proper option.]

_____________________

Wow! I

I think you did the right thing. If you were being paid on an hourly tracked basis, then you will get some payment (your post is not quite clear as to the type of hourly payment). 

Yes, you will probably get a slamming review, by a client who, IMO, should not even be on Upwork. But freelancers have survived JSS drops and terrible reviews. You will too.

It is highly unlikely that your account will be terminated because of this client's blackmail. However, what is a bit worrying, is that you talk about you and your colleague. Unless your client agreed to this sort of collaboration, you could be on shaky ground. I hope you and your colleague had two totally separate contracts or that you are part of an Upwork agency.  

Whatever the issue, you should stop providing a service to this person, who clearly does not understand what freelancing is. 

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[g_marte]

Hi Nichola,

Thank you for the response. I am the colleague working with the said client.

I can confirm all the things said in the original post. It really was a toxic environment and is one of the worst experience in my professional career life.

We've been thinking of ending it for a few weeks now but today was the breaking point and we are very glad we did it.

[BojanS]

Hi Gian and  Luchelle,

I'm sorry to hear about your experience with your contracts. Your client is automatically invoiced and billed for the hours you log according to the weekly billing cycle. The client review period runs from Monday following the close of the billing period until Friday. This is the time for clients to review the Work Diary and file a dispute if there is a problem. If a client files an hourly dispute you can choose to reject or accept the dispute, but it is important that you respond. 

[4b38221a]

Thanks Bojan!

[4b38221a]

Thanks Nichola,

I agree, he should not be on Upwork as he is requiring us to sign the NDA not included in our Upwork contract. I am not sure but it seems that he is bypassing Upwork policies and wants to process the NDA under the table. If we sign it, we are no longer allowed to treat our work as our own, and work for other clients while still being paid hourly. If he doesn't have any customers and projects, we will not receive anything while being locked to him.

[lysis10]

Seems shady you wouldn't just sign an nda.

[a_lipsey]

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Jennifer M wrote:

Seems shady you wouldn't just sign an nda.

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Except it seems like the NDA had an exclusivity clause that the freelancers were not amenable to. 

[rverang]

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Luchelle Bianca Ca P wrote:

Thanks Nichola,

If he doesn't have any customers and projects, we will not receive anything while being locked to him.

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If this is part of the NDA, I wouldn't sign it too.

[petra_r · Accepted solution]

Getting back to the matter of getting paid: 

It's an hourly contract. The dispute will be decided purely on your work diaries. If the hours were tracked with the tracker, with reasonable activity levels and meaningful work memos, you will get paid.

In any other case, (manual time for example) you will not.

[9b660019]

For reference, below is Upwork's support article regarding payment for hourly contracts.

https://support.upwork.com/hc/en-us/articles/211063668-Get-Paid-for-Hourly-Contracts

Today is the last day for the client to review last week's time sheet, so the client could attempt to dispute it. If you logged your time using the Upwork time tracker and not manually, that limits how effectively the client can dispute your logged time. The client could also ask for a refund request even after payment is made.

Neither a disputed time sheet nor a refund request means that you won't get paid - all that will do is trigger Upwork's internal mediation process. If the client doesn't attempt to fight it at all, you will simply get paid as usual.

Unless you said something very abusive or threatening to the client, it's extremely unlikely you will get banned from Upwork over one contract that ended badly.

However, the client could leave very negative feedback. Should that happen, you can post a response to their public feedback to clarify the situation somewhat for future clients.

[4b38221a]

Thanks everyone!

To be clear, he asked us to sign an NDA, which we was supposed to be sent to us (we haven't read it yet), as he seems to be having some conflicts with his competitors and accused us of leaking confidential information without any proofs since we're connected to them in LinkedIn (like long before we met him). If we really violated him in a legal manner and guilty of it, then what's the point of keeping us working for him and having us sign the NDAs? Weird, right. He should have ended our contract immediately and report us to Upwork.

The client indeed disputed the hours that we worked on last week and highlighted the heated argument during our meeting today about the NDA that we haven't received, but required to be signed, which was clearly not related to the work hours that we spent last week. He received payments from clients for our development works but is now refusing to pay us. You really helped us all. I hope no other freelancers will experience the same.

Have a great weekend!

[petra_r]

Just to be quite clear: Asking for an NDA is not a policy violation, it's standard business practice.

[4b38221a]

Hello Petra,

Thanks for the feedback.

Yes, we understand, we signed NDAs too on our previous employments. We initially agreed for him to send it so we can read the terms, but the client wants us to agree to it on the spot or else we will be terminated.