Dear reader,
I'm going to say I was right and Richard was wrong as opinions are subjective and we are both biased in this case. I will simple lay out my account of events and let you make a decision for yourself.
Things to keep in mind:
I have never been banned off Facebook, but I did have an account banned 5 years ago! Ad account bans are very common and happen to the most reputable agencies.
I worked with Richard via Upwork where at the time of this review I have billed over $60k, I'm rated top 1% on the platform, Expert Vetted, Top Rated Plus, have a 100% job success score, and amazing feedback from my clients.
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My account of events:
I was helping Richard implement a CRM and email/SMS marketing automation system for this business because he felt he was missing revenue opportunities.
Everything was setup and working fine. Just at the tail end of the build Richard left to go on holiday which mean't connecting certain tech was challenging. but despite this I used some of my own resources to connect his systems to get things working for him while he was away in the interest of expediency and ensuring his problem was solved.
During his time away he raised a concern that his automation software was flagging that his SMS was not going to be delivered and he needed to upgrade. He checked with me and I confirmed that his SMS sending would not be hampered because they would simply bill him for SMS overages above this current plan, and he didn't need to increase his plan tier. The message he was seeing was simply a prompt from his provider to Upgrade as part of their ascension model.
This all happened after I had built the system, stopped working on the account and ceased billing Richard for any work. We had not agreed any form of maintenance plan for the new setup. He continued to ask me questions which I happily and freely obliged him on.
Richard returned from holiday and spoke with me frustrated that the SMS message were not being sent. He claimed that I had lied to him and mislead him into thinking everything would work normally and nothing was to be done. He claimed that I had cost his business revenue and that I had mislead him by claiming to be an expert, but had not told him the truth.
Upon investigation it transpires that the billing DID work the way I told Richard it did, which is supported in writing in his email/SMS platforms UI and official documentation. Upon reviewing his billing history, it appeared that they had suspended sending SMS messages because they were unable to bill his card. It's unclear to me at this point whether Richard had a hold put on this card while he was away that he knew about but did not inform me off.
Despite this, he still claims I this was my fault because I should have been monitoring the account and notified him of an issue, and that If I had been counting the number of contacts being created in the accounts and number of SMS messages being sent I should have noticed a mis-match in the numbers, despite having had no discussion about doing that, or any maintenance agreement in place.
Richard simply jumped to the conclusion that I was at fault, attacked my professionalism and questioned my character. If he had simply raised the concern about what had happened and asked me to look into it, this could have been avoided and this would still be a positive and productive relationship.
Instead he chose to assume before asking any reasonable and fair question that I was at fault and blamed me for something that was clearly and obviously not within my control.
Failing to get me to admit to mistakes I did not cause, Richard then proceeded to suggest that If I did not give him a refund he would leave a negative review.
Richard was not able to article a fair, reasonable & objective case for a refund. Despite this I suggested I could honour a refund if I undid some an equivalent portion of the project, however he was unhappy with this as he continues to benefit from the system I build for him (which worked successfully since the day I implemented it). He simply wanted his money back and was willing to coerce me to get it.
When I offered this option he abruptly shut down the conversion and left this review.