My client didn't paid me work my work

[jagdishkumar487]

Hello All,

I have recently got interview invitation form client name **Edited for Community Guidelines** and we have discussed the project which is related to Mobile app UI. We agreed on $400 price but he said that he is not able to veify his payment method so i am going to hire you through another acccount which is his friend Account. We have discussed on skype related to this and start the project on Date 8 march 2018. I have completed this project with 5days. After that he said that sent me all files on upwork. As he asked i sent the all psd files of work on Upwork Account **Edited for Community Guidelines** . But after few min he closed the project without any info and asked for refund which he added in Escrow $5.

I was shocked that what's going on. After that i have asked **Edited for Community Guidelines** regarding this then he said that he paid to **Edited for Community Guidelines** to Pay me. But**Edited for Community Guidelines** saying that he didn't got any payment form **Edited for Community Guidelines**

After completing the project **Edited for Community Guidelines** was saying that **Edited for Community Guidelines** was his Developer. Now **Edited for Community Guidelines** is saying that he is client and **Edited for Community Guidelines** was his devloper.

Team, can u please help me in this what's going on and what i have to do.

[nkocendova]

Hi Jagdish,

I'm sorry to hear this happened to you first of all. We definitely strongly suggest that freelancers do not begin working on a contract until a 1st project milestone is funded or the entire project is funded in Escrow. The amount that is funded in Escrow should be agreed upon between yourself and a client, and that amount is covered by Upwork's Fixed-Price Payment Protection. Since the client only funded $5 in Escrow, that is the maximum amount that would be protected under the Payment Protection. If you agreed on a budget of $400, then that amount should be funded before you begin working on the project unless you and the client have agreed to break this amount down into multiple milestones which would be released for multiple work deliverables submitted by you to the client. For example they can choose to break the project into two parts and fund $200 of the $400 budget which they'll release when you submit the first part of the project, and then they can fund the next $200 and release that upon your completion of the last phase of the project. This is just an example.

With regard to the client and account sharing, it is strictly prohibited to share accounts and our team is reviewing both users that you have communicated with. Rest assured that action will be taken on violations of our ToS. Please also check out this thread which has many useful tips and information for working successfully on Upwork.

[emiguelina]

First, you should never have agreed to help client to circumvent Upwork ToS, by being hired thru another account, at this point you should have said: "No, thanks but no", and move on.  This should have raised a very, very, very red flag, if I were you, I'd still be running away from this client, like hell itself.

No wonder, the client friend's account (you don't know this for sure, maybe is the same client from another account) funded a lesser amount, and on top of that asked for a refund.

Cut your losses, lesson learned and move on.