Have you ever been scammed as a freelancer?

To the best of my knowledge, the reason why most freelancers are scammed online after working for their clients is because they accept jobs, complete and deliver them without getting any payment upfront.

Do you prefer to be paid in advance for your online gigs?

Nope, never been scammed. I used to be a freelance artist. I drafted up an art agreement contract stating my rights as the artist and their rights as the commissioner. Their legal name was required, along with their preferred name if applicable, as well as an e-mail they could be contacted by. If they refused, then I simply wouldn't work with them.

This protected me from exploitative or verbally abusive behaviours, because I included that if they behaved inappropriately towards me that I had the right to cancel their order with no refund or only a small percentage of what they already paid. I avoided most issues thanks to this.

And yes, I did require payment up front, though what I typically did was require a downpayment (a percentage of the total cost up front), and then work up to that point. After reaching that point, they'd have to pay me the rest for me to finish the piece and send them their files. Oh, and every screenshot I gave them, I spammed watermarks all over it.

I've only ever had one person who never continued with their commission but I still got paid for the first half of it.

The closest I was ever "scammed" was when one of clients apparently ruffled her ex partner's feathers somehow, and he tried threatening me and demanding that I needed to tell him how much she spent on commissions lest he drag my reputation through the mud. (Since this is very vague, I can say she paid nothing. She was one of my pro bono clients.) But per my contract, I couldn't relinquish any private info about any of my clients and their commissions unless it was required by court order. I went to explain this to him, but he ended up using a burner e-mail so I could never tell him.

So, be careful about instances like that, too, when someone tries to coerce information about a client of yours. The only thing that will actually hurt your reputation is releasing private information about your clients.

Yes, I have!! It's why I'm all for written contracts to make it legal and binding so that if the client is in the USA, I can take them to small claims court and get my money. The contract is pure gold.

Yes, someone paid $200+ upfront, and they did a PayPal chargeback to get all of their money back. This was like my first freelance gig, and I never even heard about PayPal chargebacks at the time.

No, I have never been scammed.

In terms of payment, I give my clients 2 or 3 options:

• Pay 100% upfront if I never did any business with them before;

• Pay in 2, 3 or 5 instalments (depending on the total amount), of which the first instalment is always upfront;

• Pay 100% afterwards if I did do business with them a few times before (given that earlier invoices have always been paid in time, the other party is a healthy business and it is not an overly big/complex project).

Regardless of the option they choose, there is always a contract that protects both myself and the client during any projects. Early termination of this contract is possible, but the amount of money that is refunded is determined by the amount of work done.

For smaller tasks, I generally do not use contracts as it is usually not worth the time. However, I do provide a discount on retainers (e.g. 20 hours of work), which is what clients usually purchase as it saves money and administrative work. This type of work can only be requested by companies I'm already doing business with, so even if they do not buy a retainer, it is less prone to scams.

Upfront payment is never a pride again, it's survival. I designed a logo for a client and after three revisions, that man vanished. Since then, I don't start any serious job without at least 50% upfront payment.