How do you Deal with Refunds?
No matter how much success you have had as a freelance writer, there is a good chance that you have been asked for a refund at least once. This is usually not the case with magazines, but more so with web based clients. The question is: how do you deal with refunds? Is this something that you believe in, or do you tell the client no way? I know some freelance writers who are willing to give full refunds, others who will only give a partial refund, and some who feel that they do not owe anything if they completed the work as detailed. As you can imagine, this is a touchy subject and can be difficult to deal with.
Personally, I will give a refund to a client if they have a good reason. For instance, if we are not seeing eye to eye on a project, I will give a refund to get out from under the situation. That being said, it all depends on how much time I have put into the project when things begin to go downhill. In other words, if I am almost done with the job I am not going to give a full refund just because the client decides that they no longer want to move forward. Instead, I try to explain my situation and work something out that is mutually beneficial. After all, you never want to get into a confrontation with a client; even if they are offending you.
Since most web clients pay via PayPal, you need to watch what you are doing when it comes to refunds. The nice thing about PayPal is that you can easily refund an entire payment with one click of the mouse. That being said, if you refuse to send a refund a client may open a dispute. This has happened to me one time, and since it was only for $200 or so, I simply sent the money back. I felt that this was better than dealing with PayPal’s dispute resolution system and risking my account being frozen.
My best advice is this: deal with refunds on a case by case basis. It is easy to say that you do not offer any sort of refund, but there may come a time when you should. If you address each situation separately, you can always ensure that you do the right thing.Â
July 14th, 2008 at 10:46 am
Chris,
I normally request 50% upfront. My contract states that this is non-refundable. If it turns out that something isn’t going right, a project is unexpectedly cancelled or that we just aren’t on the same page, etc. I will not charge the client for the remaining balance. I have no qualms over my 50% non-refundable deposit policy because I feel that my time is valuable and I should be compensated in some way for making the time and effort to handle each project.
I personally fund that the few time I have run into a refund situation, it’s because I did not understand the project as well as I thought. I now present clients with a detailed scope of the project to sign off on beforehand. This is to show them that I understand the project completely, , and that they agree with my understanding before we get started. But you are right – you should prepare yourself for anything in this business.
July 14th, 2008 at 2:10 pm
I havent dealt with refunds, but I did have a similar situation earlier this year. I was writing for a client’s blog – and I was paid after I completed each blog post … with no issues – in fact, I received compliments on these blog posts. A few months into the ‘gig’, the owner of the site decided that he didnt like a post of mine – called it rubbish and refused to pay for the post – and essentially fired me and all the other writers at the same time. Luckily, these types of situations are rare.