Is this refund justified?

[meestw]

Hi all. First time posting here.

A client of mine approached me with a project he needed my help with. The project lasted 3 hours. One hour was me on my own, the other two hours were me and him on a screen sharing session. During this screen sharing session, I walked him through how to correct the mistakes he made with his own project. Before ending our call, he was extremely delighted and thanked and told me how helpful I have been.

Now, about a week and a half later, he tells me he looked over the project again himself, and says that a lot of the changes I made with him on that call were incorrect. I asked him for proof and he sent me a screenshot of his project, that looked similar to what I did with him, but just worded differently. Furthermore, clients on Upwork have a five-day window to review work diaries. He has not reached out to in those five days after our call. 

Yesterday he messaged me saying a lot of my work was incorrect, and he'd like a full refund. 

Does he have a case here? 

Thanks everyone

[yofazza]

There are cases where I'll refund a completely legitimate earning as a 'courtesy'. But, being 'exploited' is something entirely different.

It's up to you, you're the one who know the client.

Does he have a case here?

If both of you insist, it will go into dispute. In a dispute, basically both of you will be told to separate the money, or enter arbitration. Dispute mediators are Upwork freelancers skilled in 'customer service' or similar. They work by scripts and SOPs. They don't look into the project, at least not deeply.

In arbitration, the arbitrator might look closer into the project and make a decision. Both of you pay before going into arbitration.

You might also want to consider review and JSS, if you think they are important (I don't, we can at least respond to the review). Also, the possibility of the client filing a chargeback with their bank (which is a client's ultimate/unbeatable weapon in getting their money back).

[meestw]

Appreciate it, Radia. Thanks.

[williamtcooper]

Did he pay for the work and did you do a great job?

If so, I would ignore and let the client file a dispute.

[meestw]

I did my very best and at the end of our project (during a call) he happily thanked me and said how very helpful I was. Only a week and a half later he returns to me saying that upon closer inspection, nothing makes sense and my work was 'problematic'. Why it took him that long to get back to me, I'm not sure. Furthermore, this project, without going into too much detail, was about cleaning up his project management software, ClickUp, and fixing OKRs that his boss did not agree with. We worked on this together during a two-hour screen share session and as I said before, he ended the call extremely satisfied (implying I did a great job). 

I felt like I did a great job as this is stuff I've done before. It just seems the client changed his mind and claims he had to hire another freelancer to 'fix the mess I made', but I looked at his profile and I'm seeing he has no current/recent contracts with freelancers for this project... The whole things seems sketchy to me.

Thanks for the advice, William!