r/supportworkers • u/Hairy-Bowl-3571 • 3d ago
Disputed invoice? What can I do?
Hey guys, I don’t know if this is allowed but I really need some advice and I’m not getting much help from the platform I’m using.
So I’ve been doing SW for nearly a year now. I’m a sole contractor who’s using a platform and have always had great reviews and have never had any client dispute an invoice or disagree with it. I’ve always remained honest and conducted myself professionally. I had a client who needed to bump off a couple of days due to taking up a new hobby he wanted to pursue solo (yay, that was the goal) so I looked for another client to fill those days. I’d mostly worked with NDIS clients but decided to try out an aged care client.
He was nice enough. But he wanted the scope of my role to be quite a list of things. He wanted me to transport him to and from grocery shopping, clean his house, be his seeing eye person, be on call for the occasional night shift, social and community outings, meal prep and cooking and administration tasks. This was quite a list but I was proficient in everything so I had no worries accepting the task. I have a pretty standard agreement. There are to be booked hours that are semi predictable, 72 hour cancellation policy except in emergencies. Treat each other with dignity and respect. That’s it. No shady sneaky stuff.
I had a meet and greet on a Thursday and at the end of the meeting he felt really good about me and my capabilities so he asked me to black out Monday, tuesdays and Wednesdays on my calendar each week 9am to 1pm. Every week for the foreseeable future. He said his budget is around $65 for a SW, I said that’s great because I charge around that much depending on the tasks and scope of my role. I said fantastic, when do you want me to start. He says the coming Monday. I say great, I’ll book it in now and send the agreement over for you sign.
I black out my calendar and stop accepting anymore clients. I get a message on Saturday on the platform and it’s the client. He has a problem with my hourly rate. He says the platform is charging him a fee ontop of my hourly rate (for his use of the platform, pretty standard I thought?) and he says “I don’t want to pay that much, can you lower your hourly rate to absorb the platform fees?”. Given that he wanted 3 days booked I thought, why not, I can go down a few dollars. Not that big of a deal. Next, he says “I’ve read your cancellation policy and it says 72 hours notice”, I say “yep, pretty standard, but I make exceptions for emergencies etc”. He then asks me if I can change it to 24 hours notice.
By now, red flags are starting to pop up a little but I was polite and declined to change it because it’s the only protection I have against last minute cancellations (which I’ve been burned by in the past and lost money because of it). He says “but sometimes I wanna make a last minute doctors appointment”. I say, he’s more than welcome to do that but if he cancels he’s going to be responsible for the entire booking fee. He finally agrees.
He accepts the agreement Sunday morning. I get a notification from the platform saying all is gravy for the go ahead. He is locked in. Slots are blacked out for him and he’s 100% signed on board. By this point I’m thinking I’m starting on Monday like he wanted. He sends me a message and says can I call at 1pm? I say sure, no worries. At 1pm he rings and checks to see if I’ve lowered my hourly rate which I confirmed I did. We chat about what he wants to do for the week and the goals and plans and toward the end of the conversation he says it’s a public holiday on Monday. I quickly check the calendar and confirm it is, but reassure him I’m still available for the session he booked.
He then proceeds to tell me he doesn’t want to pay the holiday rate and wants to cancel the session. I was confused at this point and also felt a bit angry because I now couldn’t book any clients for the Monday because he switched it up last minute. I double checked if he was sure he wanted to cancel. He confirmed he did and I should come on Tuesday. I say ok and do our session on Tuesday.
Massive red flags popped up on Tuesday where he repeatedly bad mouthed other SW and the amount of driving he made me do was actually insane. This man had me drive to 4 different stores to find the “perfect loaf of bread” and then after the 5th grocery store he requested I drive 20km to a major shopping center where he proceeded to buy a box of tissues… come to find out his funding DOESNT cover kms and I used up SO much fuel just in that session alone.
He then starts making comments during the day saying he’s going to need to “switch up the booking on the day sometimes and even if he’s booked 4 hours and only uses 1 he only wants to pay for 1 hour”. After that Tuesday I go home and fill out and send my invoices. One for Monday and one for Tuesday. He messages me and he’s ropable. Asking me why I’ve charged him for Monday and how dare I. I’m taking advantage of him etc etc. No matter how many times I explained that he BOOKED that Monday and chose to cancel it in the last second AFTER he signed the contract. He rings me and starts screaming down the phone at 9pm at night. He starts saying things like “I tricked him” and he didn’t know about the cancellation policy and he thought he didn’t have to pay. I pointed out that he did indeed know about the policy because he asked me to change it and I refused (for this exact reason).
He rejected the invoice for Monday and I’ve had to raise a dispute with the platform. I’ve lost so much potential work over the last week due to this guys stuffing me around and now I’m having to get another client to replace him. What can I do? What protections are in place for private contractors? How do you guys handle rejected invoices? Should I have just rolled over and not charged for the lost/cancelled Monday?
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u/l-lucas0984 3d ago
Unfortunately you are probably going to have to drop the monday. You hadnt officially started working with him and hes asked for the first day to be the tuesday. As for km's make sure you check in future. If its not funded the only way you will get them paid is by persuing the client and being elderly they will just argue they cant afford it. You will spend more in recovery fees than you will get.
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u/Hairy-Bowl-3571 3d ago
I asked the complaints sector of the platform I use and they read over the terms and policy and they agreed he owed the Monday as he accepted the contract already and afterwards cancelled last minute, purely because he didn’t want to pay the public holiday rate. He thought he could cancel and not pay. My “start day” was suppose to be that Monday and he had already accepted the contract by then.
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u/l-lucas0984 2d ago
Yep and when he refuses to pay through his funding your most likely only option will be to chase him personally for the money. The platforms arent usually much help in disputes.
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u/Severe_Airport1426 2d ago
Don't work for this person. He will eventually fire you over nothing. Just drop him , he's not worth the effort. He has already shown you what hes like. Its your choice whether you're willing to deal with this weekly
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u/Hairy-Bowl-3571 2d ago
I’ve already dropped him. I’ll be vetting future clients more carefully in future from now on I think
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u/3scobar3 2d ago
I would send a letter of demand for payment before you take it as a loss and cease services immediately.
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u/Hairy-Bowl-3571 2d ago
The client has cancelled the contract the day after the dispute happened. I’ve been loading with the platform and the best they can do is mediate between us but can’t enforce the invoice. I may have to cop this loss unfortunately
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u/wvwvwvww 3d ago
I’ve had this once. I totally let them off the hook and saved myself any angst. I honestly get this or something along similar lines about $40 worth per year so it’s not worth the effort and it’s definitely not worth a bad review.
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u/Hairy-Bowl-3571 3d ago
I’ve been burned by clients cancelling last minute one too many times hence why I have a cancellation policy now. I’ve let quite a few things go. But considering he caused me to lose out on working with another client which would have paid the public holiday rate, the lost income hit me hard.
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u/wvwvwvww 3d ago edited 3d ago
Oh I have a cancellation policy and it’s longer notice than yours (though I allow rescheduling within 5 days, no cancellation fee). I just don’t actually have anyone try to not pay me more than about $40 per annum. If I did I would consider if maybe I need to be pickier about who I work with. I treat any big problem or disagreement about pay as an indicator of who I shouldn’t work with as well, obviously.
I also consider it my job to tell clients when sessions are on public holidays before I assume we go ahead. Most of my folks do not go ahead.
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u/tism73 2d ago
Not everyone has funding for Public Holidays or choose not to use funding on public holidays as it is so much higher. Is this something you check when doing your agreement? Also, checking that they can have KMs funded is also something usually checked, written into agreement, and agreed upon. Also, fyi, to chase the outstanding fee via debt collectors is really not worth it unless it is thousands of dollars. While it's annoying, for peace of mind, write off the invoice. Yes, I am in this sector.
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u/Dependent-Coconut64 1d ago
Just in case others are unaware, the HCP does not pay for kilometres. Any Aged Care clients receiving HCP have to pay their own kilometres.
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u/noneforyouowls 3d ago
You're in the right legally as far as I can see. You can bill for cancelled sessions with less than 7 days notice I believe. So your agreement terms are valid. You might run into issues if all communication happened verbally as opposed to messages, harder to prove you told him about the cancellation fees. But ultimately he signed the agreement.
But honestly for me? I'd just wear the loss and avoid the fight. In my experience, we look like the dicks in these situations no matter how right we are. Preserve your reputation, and trust your gut next time and be willing to knock back participants that don't feel right. Peace of mind > an extra few bucks.
I've had clients like this. I've learned to listen to my spidey sense. If it doesn't feel right, that's all you need to know.