Upwork Chargeback Notification

adeleke-adeniji · ‎01-30-2021

Hello everyone,

Recently I had a contract with a client to build an e-commerce website for them, this project started Nov 24, 2020, and was completed Dec 21, 2020 as agreed upon (this was a fixed contract), with all delieverables (more than she asked for, I equally provided some services outside of our agreement, from the stream of my generosity), my payment was held for the 5 days regular review period, and was released on the 26th of December 2020.

My client was back Jan 8, asking if we could migrate the WooCommerce store to Shopify (before going ahead with the former project, I gave her both options and she chose Woo), I told her, it's not as easy as migrating, that I will build another store for her on Shopify, and migrate the DNS, and transfer her products, and users to Shopify, she was happy and said, yes she was ready to build a new store on Shopify, I told her, I will be charging per hour, she asked how long will the process last, I responded, 3 weeks, I sent her a proposal for $25/hour and 40 hours/week, she reviewed and accepted. The second week of our contract, Upwork suspended the contract due to non-payment of the previous week, I spoke to her, she said she did not added her card to Upwork, and complained the money was a bit much, I explained to her and asked to her check the work diary, after 2 days, she agreed to pay so I can finish up the contract, I was done with the contract last week, today I got a mail from Upwork about a chargeback of our initial contract, that was completed with good client review in over a month, and Upwork said I have to pay them the money.

I'm confused, as to the reason why a contract of over a month with good review can be chargeback, and the freelancer has to bear the lose, does this mean all my fixed contract could be chargedback by the client anytime, and I will have to be in debt of the job I did, and the money I already spent?

Thank you.

AleksandarD · ‎01-31-2021

Hi Adeleke,

I'm sorry to hear about what happened. I checked and it seems that you are already in correspondence with our team on this support ticket. The team will continue assisting you on the same ticket.

Thank you.

~ Aleksandar

adeleke-adeniji · ‎01-31-2021

Thank you Aleksander.

lysis10 · ‎01-31-2021

No payment protection with escrow. Upwork fights the chargeback but if they lose, bye bye money.

adeleke-adeniji · ‎01-31-2021

Jennifer M wrote:
No payment protection with escrow. Upwork fights the chargeback but if they lose, bye bye money.

If I understand you well Jennifer, any client could file a chargeback (on fixed contracts), and no matter how long the project has been completed successfully, they'd be given the money by their bank, right?

tlbp · ‎01-31-2021

Adeleke A wrote:
Jennifer M wrote:
No payment protection with escrow. Upwork fights the chargeback but if they lose, bye bye money.
If I understand you well Jennifer, any client could file a chargeback (on fixed contracts), and no matter how long the project has been completed successfully, they'd be given the money by their bank, right?

If they tell their credit card company they didn't authorize the payment, and cc company believes them, you are out of luck.

adeleke-adeniji · ‎01-31-2021

Tonya P wrote:
Adeleke A wrote:
Jennifer M wrote:
No payment protection with escrow. Upwork fights the chargeback but if they lose, bye bye money.
If I understand you well Jennifer, any client could file a chargeback (on fixed contracts), and no matter how long the project has been completed successfully, they'd be given the money by their bank, right?
If they tell their credit card company they didn't authorize the payment, and cc company believes them, you are out of luck.

Wow, that's heartless, well, thanks for the insight, I really appreciate all the help from everyone, I believe hourly contract is the way to go from now, at least, I will do my best to avoid fixed contracts.

Thanks again.