Hourly Contract Paused and Client was refunded?

[desanta-peyton]

So I had a client that wanted some ASMR vocals. I did the work and recorded everything through the desktop tracker. It only amounted to about an hour and a half. I should have known something was fishy when he kept saying not to record hourly and he would just send "bonuses" as payments. I declined and recorded my hours through the tracker as I saw no reason to not do that for a job that was in fact hourly. 

Then after recording the ASMR he got a bit weird. His english was bad so I didn't always understand what he was saying but I soon realized he might not really be using the ASMR for ASMR if you know what I mean. ASMR is for relaxation purposes but involves a lot of soft speaking mouth sounds and such. He was sort of asking for an ear eating thing? Which again is normal in the ASMR world but he kept pushing for weirder sounds. I had submitted the work but I decided to end the contract shortly after instead of carrying on since he was making me uncomfortable by really just pushing me to make pretty much moaning sounds into the mic abandoning the ASMR ruse altogether. So after that intial recording I decided to end the contract.

The client 100% recieved the work I did do and I recorded the hours through the time tracker. Yet today I was notified that "i refunded him" which I didn't do. Then after I investigated Upwork says they paused the contract due to his payment not working and that they're "investigating it". Which is odd. if they're investigating then why was the money refunded? It seems like thats a decision. Plus shouldn't I be protected under the hourly payment protection? Clearly thats why he didn't want me to use it now. I had no idea that "payment verified" didn't actually mean that at all. 

The whole experiance has been uncomfortable for me but I'd still like to be paid for the work I did do especially if I'm supposed to be protected by upwork. 

Also this is a rookie mistake on my part. But I threw him 5 stars at the end of the contract hoping he wouldn't leave me bad stars in return. For me so far it feels like you can't actually rate anyone for fear of retaliation. However now that I see he was clearly scamming me and being creepy I would like to AT LEAST change my rating so others aren't duped. (Since I can't report him???) 

I'm just super frustrated with myself for being fooled and with Upwork for seeming to just leave me in the dirt. 

[ArjayM]

Hi Peyton,

We understand your frustration, and I'm sorry to learn about this uncomfortable and disappointing experience you had with a client. Please know that when the client fails to pay for hours logged by the freelancer, any hours Upwork Hourly Protection doesn't cover may be reversed. 

However, as you mentioned, the team has reached out with more information and further instructions on resolving the issue. Please don't hesitate to update your ticket here or email; the team will assist you accordingly.