I Was Ripped Off by a Freelance Client, So I Took Matters Into My Own Hands

I had done my research. I liked to think I’m sensible, savvy, and not easily taken advantage of. Moreover, I’m pretty paranoid, and like to rigorously investigate the pros and cons of any action I might be considering. So in 2019, when I took my first tentative steps into freelance copywriting by joining Freelancer.com, I was confident that I had taken all the necessary precautions and was well-informed and clued up about how to protect myself.

I began bidding for copywriting jobs immediately, and even went in with a bargain-basement price to lure potential clients to take a chance on a newbie. Within a couple of hours of registering on the site, I was in contact with someone about a job. I checked their credentials; they were marked with a green tick for “Verified”. The project was a little out of my field of knowledge but, I figured, that’s what Google is for. I agreed to the job — an article on the topic of Artificial Intelligence Technology in e-Commerce — and the article was completed and submitted by the end of the day.

When it came time to pay the invoice, however, the client had a convenient though legitimate-sounding excuse involving a misunderstanding we’d had over the “Milestone Payment System” versus Automatic Billing. He said he was in touch with Freelancer.com about getting the issue rectified, and payment should be with me within 48 hours. In the meantime, he said, he really liked my work and had another, bigger job for me; 5 x 1,000 word articles on the Five Phases of Project Management.

I negotiated my rate for the project, though he was a little argumentative about money, and bartered me down. As I was wary of taking on another, much larger job when I hadn’t yet been paid for the first, I got in touch with Freelancer.com to investigate and check the lay of the land.

Having explained the situation to the customer service agent, they took a look at the client’s profile.

“Yes, they are a verified client, they have set up their Automatic Billing, and from what I can see here, it looks like they have every intention of paying the invoice.”

“So, it’s safe for me to agree to this new project, even though I haven’t yet received the money for the first?”

The confident and reassuring reply came; “Yes.”

It was, as we say in the UK, a load of bollocks.

Show Me the Money!

Two days later, I submitted all five articles, and the client was happy. He immediately approved payment of the invoice and, in accordance with the end-of-week payment system on Freelancer.com, I would receive the payment automatically around midnight that Sunday. It was currently Thursday afternoon.

The client told me that he would have some more work for me the following week, and asked me to come up with some potential titles and topics for more articles on e-commerce, advertising, and digital marketing. I came up with ten potential articles, and was patting myself on the back, slightly amazed at how easy this “freelancing” lark was turning out to be!

Oh, pride, thy name is JG.

Needless to say, midnight came and went, and my bank account remained empty. I tried to keep calm, reasoning that perhaps as this was my first payment on this system, maybe there was just some minor technical glitch that could be sorted out in a jiffy. I resolved to “sleep on it”, and get in touch with Freelancer.com on Monday.

Upon contacting the company and advising them that I hadn’t received the scheduled payment, they seemed pretty disinterested, advising me to contact the client directly.

Gee, I thought, sarcastically, if only I’d thought of that.

I messaged the “client” yet again, and received no reply. By the Tuesday morning, he had shut down his account and vanished into thin air. It would appear that he had duped me all long, and had done a runner with my work having had his automatic payment rejected. Six articles and nearly $1200 (USD) worth of work in total — and nothing to show for it but wasted time, a badly bruised ego, and a lesson in hubris.

There then followed another week of liaising with Freelancer.com, and each interaction with them made my blood boil hotter and hotter. The agency were completely useless and seemed entirely relaxed and unbothered about the fact that they were aiding and abetting intellectual property theft. Every day, I wasted hours trying to get someone at the site to help me, but when it became more and more apparent that they didn’t give a damn, I resolved to take matters into my own hands, and get at least some small semblance of justice.

Ratting Out the Con Artist and Claiming My Byline

I had documentary evidence in the form of countless screenshots of messages, a copy of the “client” approved invoice, and the working drafts of each article, but unfortunately I didn’t know who had been the intended recipient of my Project Management articles, by far the most lucrative cache of work. However, I did know the name of the AI Technology company for whom the initial article had been intended.

A quick Google search for their company contact details, and shortly thereafter, they and their parent company received an email informing them of the situation, attaching a copy of the as-yet-unpublished article along with some screenshots of my interaction with the “client” and with Freelancer.com, and advising them not to accept any articles from con artist concerned or on the same or similar subject matter of my copy. Moreover, I advised them that as long as they published the article acknowledging me as the author, they could have the article gratis.

In hindsight, I probably should have negotiated at least a small amount of remuneration as well, but I was so damned tired of the whole disaster by that stage. I really just wanted my byline and for the conniving weasel to have his scam rumbled.

I heard back from the tech company’s representative by the end of the day. She informed me that they had recently hired the individual through UPWORK, another well-known freelancing site. I later learned that this was a fairly familiar scam — the individual poses and a writer on one site and bids for a job, then poses as a client on another freelancing site to hire someone to complete the work, thus making themselves money for nothing and building their own (fraudulent) reputation as a decent and reliable freelance copywriter.

The representative asked my permission to share my email and evidence with UPWORK, and they reported the user there. I, of course, was happy to oblige, my vindictive streak a mile wide and glowing red hot as I thought about putting this nasty charlatan out of business, even if only temporarily.

The company representative then informed me that they liked my article, and they agreed to attribute the article to me on their website/blog. Moreover, she said they would keep me in mind for any future copywriting projects. I’m still waiting to hear from them, but nearly two years down the line, I’m no longer holding my breath ;)

Learning the Hard Way

I haven’t ever returned to Freelancer.com. Having been left out to dry by them in the past, I have no confidence that they have any interest in protecting the freelancers registered on their site. I considered joining UPWORK, but when it comes to freelancer recruitment sites, I’m afraid it’s a case of once bitten, twice shy for me.

Unfortunately, the disaster with the con artist “client” and the disinterested recruitment site would not be my last encounter with a fraudulent rip-off merchant. I am still owed USD$300 for an audiobook I narrated and produced over a year ago. As long as the bill remains outstanding, Amazon will not clear the audiobook for sale, so the person concerned isn’t earning any royalties from my work, but I was nevertheless duped into putting time and effort into a piece of work only to have the client do a runner when it came time to pay up. (Not to mention the time and effort spent on legal assistance to chase the recalcitrant client and follow up on the Letter Before Action, but that’s another story for another time!)

Being ripped off was a hard and cruel lesson. I accept that part of it was my own fault for being so gullible and trusting someone who turned out to be a fraud. It hurt like hell, and the whole experience shook my confidence and saw my mental health take a huge downturn — I stayed in bed for about two weeks, feeling like a failure and a fool, and convinced that I would never make it as a freelancer.

It has taken a long time to regain that lost confidence, and I now insist upon certain safety nets whenever I take on any work for a new client, whether it be a writing project or an audiobook production. For that reason, and because I found a way to fight back and reassert myself, the whole experience was, ultimately, a valuable one.

That said, it is one that I hope never to go through again.

©️ Jupiter Grant, 2021

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Jupiter Grant is a self-published author, blogger, narrator, and audiobook producer. Buy me a coffee here: https://ko-fi.com/jupitergrant

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