That one time a paralegal told me they'd "handle the research" and didn't do ANYTHING for 3 weeks

I was helping a small business owner in Phoenix with a trademark filing and hired a freelance paralegal off a job board. She said she'd handle the conflict search and submit the documents. After 2 weeks I asked for an update and she kept saying "almost done." Finally on week 3 I called the USPTO myself and found out NOTHING had been filed. She'd been taking other paying gigs instead of doing my work. I lost the client $350 in late fees and had to pay a rush service to fix it. Has anyone else run into freelancers who just ghost your project while keeping the deposit?

3 comments

3 Comments

garcia.wren9d ago

Yeah "almost done" for 3 weeks is pretty much the universal signal they've stopped caring. I had a similar thing happen with a bookkeeper I hired off a freelance site. She kept saying she was "cleaning up the books" for a month. When I finally checked QuickBooks myself, nothing had been touched since the day I hired her. She'd just been pocketing the weekly payments and stringing me along. Really makes you wonder how many people get away with that before their rating finally catches up to them.

the_john9d agoTop Commenter

Give the freelancer the benefit of the doubt, sometimes people really do run into problems that slow them down. A week overdue is one thing, but a month of excuses with no work done is pretty hard to explain away. You might have just gotten unlucky with one bad apple, not proof that every freelancer on those sites is a scammer.

corap6110d ago

LOL "almost done" for 3 weeks is basically freelancer code for "I forgot you exist." Classic move taking your deposit and running.