Extremely Unreasonable, Irate Buyer -- Help!

[traxie2001]

Hi, Friends:



I seem to have had two bad eggs in a row. I received an order for me to review a CV on behalf of someone else (so I’m working through an intermediary). She asked me to revise a gentleman’s CV who is not a native English speaker so that he can use it to apply for academic positions. I went through the document, fixed grammatical mistakes, smoothed out wording, improved the document’s formatting and sent it back to her. This is the first message I got after she rejected my delivery:



"I don’t see any language changes or anything. What have you done. I thought you were going to re-write the CV!!!"



That immediately frustrated me, but I kept my cool and responded with this along with a document that highlighted all the changes I made:



"I made many modification to his CV. I highlighted the areas I revised so you can how much I fixed his CV. His CV did not need substantial reworking, but as I said in my earlier message there were several English problems that I fixed and I smoothed out his wording in many areas.



I also changed the spacing of his CV so that it looks better to prospective employers/institutions.



Was there something more specific you were looking for me to do? Please advise. Thanks!"



A few minutes later, the buyer says this:

"Hi - The English is useless and full of mistakes. The idea was that you would re-do the CV. The English is not contextual nor is the layout appropriate. I can see exactly the changes you have made."



I’m mad at this point, but I still have kept my cool and asked for more detail regarding what in the world this buyer wants. Do I have any recourse? She is clearly contradicting herself by first saying I made no changes then saying she can see the changes I made but they’re not good enough, etc. I’m at a loss as to how to proceed, but I definitely don’t want to get a ding on my gig since I’m so new to the game and have gone above and beyond to serve my clients.



Please help!!!



Thank you!

[traxie2001]

I am such a newb, so I’m not sure if I did the right thing, but I contacted customer service to discuss the problem and I also send a mutual cancellation request to the buyer. I basically gave her free work, but I’d rather get rid of her than risk getting a ding on my feedback (which I suppose may happen anyway). If anyone can offer any help or advice with this situation, I would be extremely grateful!

[alb8475]

Hey Traxie2001. You did the only thing you really can do in this situation and offer a mutual cancellation. If I were you, I would also tweak my gig description because when I read it, it does sound like you will redo the resume. It is very important to be very clear on what you will and will not do. Just friendly advice from a fellow resume writer. 🙂

[traxie2001]

Thank you so much for your input. I would have gladly done the rewrite, but it is longer than 2 pages, which is the limit for a basic gig.



I did the mutual cancellation but the buyer rejected it. The clock is still counting down and I have no idea what to do next. I re-requested the mutual cancellation, but I don’t know where to go from here. Would appreciate your help with this!



Thank you!

[adeelqures]

Reply to @traxie2001: you do not need to worry. C.S will cancel this for you

[traxie2001]

Hi, Bachas85:



Yes, I was definitely more than happy to rewrite the CV. My gig does specify that only two pages will be rewritten, and the buyer wanted a 4-page document done. Since she originally asked for a review not a rewrite, I worked through the document anyway even though it was longer than what I would’ve normally accepted without an extra gig. But, after I delivered, she changed her tune and decided she wanted the entire thing redone. I explained that it would be an extra gig for me to do such a large document, but she insisted that I should just do it anyways.



So, long story short, I am more than happy to go above and beyond my buyer’s wishes, but she was totally changed her tune after I had delivered the product.



Thanks you for your help–I want to make sure I’m as clear as possible in my gig descriptions to ensure this doesn’t happen again! :-/

[traxie2001]

Reply to @adeelqures: Thank you for your input–I am hopeful now that this will be resolved well. 🙂

[traxie2001]

If she rejects my second mutual cancellation request, what should I do? The timer has like 20 minutes left on it and I’m afraid I’ll get dinged for delivering “late” even though I did originally well before the allotted time.

[alb8475]

If she rejects the mutual cancellation again, then send a ticket to support to have them cancel the order because she is asking for extra work for free. This should get it taken care of. Take screenshots if you need too.

[ryangillam]

Why do you not just re-write the first 2 pages and send that in? She gets what she ‘paid’ for and she has no complaint.

[traxie2001]

She didn’t initially ask for the rewrite, she asked me to do this

"hi; could you help me with cv of someone that I have been given to review as a favour? Mostly it’s academic so not a lot to do. Could you turn it around ASAP?"



Which I did and delivered well before the allotted 24-hour time limit.



I did rewrite the portions that need to be rewritten and turned it back to her. That’s when I got the response that she wanted the entire thing rewritten and she sent me a four page CV that she wanted it to match. That is really way outside the scope of the rewrite especially since she didn’t ask me to rewrite until after I had already delivered what she specifically ordered in the first place.



I haven’t heard back from her after sending in the second mutual cancellation. Hoping she goes away! 🙂



Thanks again for everyone’s help!

[Guest refundhost]

In business, only a small percentage of your ability to do the work is what gets you the profit. The profit comes from knowing how to manage your time and knowing what is, and what is not, worth your time. We all hate to do work we did not get paid for, but…



Sometimes the customer is incompetent and cannot express exactly what they want - so you have zero chance of providing it. If you don’t know what they want - ask them. If they can’t be specific . THEN you have ammunition to push back to them as grounds to cancel ( can’t do what they want if they can’t tell you what they want. )



But if what she wants was already communicated to you, in the time you’ve spent worrying and seeking help, writing about, this problem, do you feel you could have provided what the customer wanted ?(regardless of whether or not you got paid what it’s worth? ) Only you know the answer.