Why is the Dispute mediation Team not able to provide their recommendation after a dispute?

[petra_r]

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Kudakwashe Z wrote:

If I initiate arbitration, I have to pay $291 which is more than the money that is in Escrow. I have decided to agree on the 50% offered by the client.

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Would I be correct to assume the amount in Escrow is $ 20?

[trixxmanaty]

Hi Petra,

That's correct. The work that I did was worth more than that. 

[petra_r]

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Kudakwashe Z wrote:

Hi Petra,

That's correct. The work that I did was worth more than that. 

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Right.

I am stunned that anyone would think it worthwhile to spend a month arguing over $ 10.

(Client offered half)

[wlyonsatl]

Kudkwashe Z:

Upwork and clients know that freelancers doing very low-cost projects will not be using arbitration due to its high cost relative to the value of those projects.

Unfortunately, no one outside Upwork knows how many times Upwork "mediation" has been unsuccessful in mediating low-cost disputes, but Upwork should at least provide more information to freelancers identifying clients who have had multiple disputes and gone to arbitration.

Disputes are inevitable across tens of thousands of projects per year, but when a client shows a clear pattern of using the dispute system to avoid full payment on multiple projects to get free work from multiple freelancers, all freelancers should be able to see that the client engages in that behavior.

[prestonhunter]

Petra is correct. Should NOT be wasting time arguing over ten dollars.

If you have a twenty dollar fixed-price contract and the client offers you only ten dollars, then you take the ten dollars and don't work for that client again. Because such a client is a cheapskate waste of my time.

Similarly, if I am a client and a freelancer does a terrible job on a ten or twenty dollar fixed-price contract, then I release the payment and don't hire the freelancer again. My time is more valuable to me than the freelancer's karma. I am not going to waste my time trying to make sure the freelancer gets what he deserves.

[petra_r]

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Preston H wrote:

Petra is correct. Should NOT be wasting time arguing over ten dollars.

If you have a twenty dollar fixed-price contract and the client offers you only ten dollars, then you take the ten dollars and don't work for that client again. Because such a client is a cheapskate waste of my time.

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It was a $ 60 contract, he was paid $ 40 and they're arguing over $ 10 as the client is willing to pay that... for a month. For $ 10

[prestonhunter]

Neither the client nor freelancer are being sensible. These things are definitely a waste of Upwork resources.

If clients and freelancers continue to tie up resources for such pettiness, I will not be surprised if Upwork places additional limits in the use of disputes and meditation.

[wlyonsatl]

Preston,

As Upwork continues to try to move its freelancer and client base upmarket, I would not be surprised to see Upwork eventually disallow projects below a certain dollar value in order to focus Upwork's own resources on higher-priced projects that consume relatively fewer corporate resources. 

It used to be a primary (and laudable) goal of Upwork's CEO to give employment opportunities to people and communities in low income parts of the world, but now that Upwork is no longer a private company Upwork finds it increasingly harder to be charitable in serving low- and no-profit client and freelancer groups.

We'll see.

[trixxmanaty]

I had to ask him to create additional milestones as the work was beyond what he had hired me to do. In the Dispute centre, he has been unresponsive. 

[researchediting · Accepted solution]

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Kudakwashe Z wrote:

My question is why is the Dispute mediation Team not able to provide their recommendation during a dispute despite having all the evidence on hand?

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Because that is not their job. As escrow agent, Upwork cannot, under penalty of law, enter into any judgments about the rightness or wrongness of the execution of client-freelancer contracts and whether the contracting parties acted in a way that was fair, just, or anything of the sort.

Upwork can and must release funds to the seller when the conditions of escrow have been met; it can and must return them to the buyer if escrow conditions have not been met. But escrow conditions being met is determined by the say-so of the contracting parties. When those parties disagree about the conditions being met, Upwork can encourage and execute a compromise distribution of funds. When it comes to deciding who is right or wrong, they can only refer the disputants to an outside arbitrator.

[VladimirG]

Hi Kudakwashe,

I'm sorry for the delay in following up on your question regarding the way your dispute on this contract was managed. I'm also sorry about the disagreement you had with your client and the frustration it has caused you.

I checked the conversation and can see that our dispute specialist followed the correct procedure in trying to facilitate an agreement between your client and you, before providing the option to proceed to arbitration. I won't share any specific here but can confirm that proposing a mutual, non-binding solution depends on the nature and complexity of a case, taking into account the conversation and possible solutions offered by any party during the conversation.