How to handle clients who demand refunds and bully you
Aggressive clients use fake competence claims, guilt trips, and endless revision demands to bully freelancers into giving refunds and discounts. This constant pressure leaves creators feeling humiliated and forces them to surrender hard-earned pay just to escape the toxic interaction.
What people tried
Every workaround mentioned in the threads below. We haven’t tested any of them — and nobody here is claiming they worked.
- 1Refusing to issue refunds if the work was completed according to contract
- 2Selling work hours in advance exclusively and vetting clients in stages
- 3Taking classes and improving communication about skills and deliverables
- 4Establishing strict workflows and clear project scoping
- 5Cancel the custom listing and ignore or block the buyer
- 6Report messages to customer support and document interactions
- 7Prepare for a potential 1-star review and move on
- 8Firing or dropping demanding clients
- 9Raising prices significantly to deter low-value clients
- 10Refusing to do end-of-year cleanups and requiring strict monthly or quarterly maintenance
- 11Building exactly what the client asks for, documenting objections, and billing extra to fix issues later
- 12Switching strictly to free plugins with little or no upgrade versions that do simple tasks
- 13Reducing overall plugin counts and investing in caching and CDN solutions
- 14Send scope and preference questions in writing a few days before the kickoff
- 15Save all granular questions or fine-tuning for after the presentation or handle them in a separate discovery period
- 16Reiterate the signed contract and SOW strictly without probing for new operational details live
- 17Pretending not to see the email or ignoring the slight to keep the peace
- 18Setting strict boundaries and refusing to do free work
- 19Sending an invoice for the uncompensated work with a courtesy discount to show its value
- 20Firing the client or dropping them
- 21Doubling or tripling prices
- 22Threatening to withdraw in the middle of a job
- 23Cull cheapest clients and keep the best ones
- 24Developing thick skin
- 25Firing or dropping the client
- 26Establishing clear professional boundaries and calling out behavior
- 27Ghosting the client after finishing the job
- 28Vetting clients better beforehand
- 29Pivoting to institutional giving or grants
- 30Switching careers to sales
- 31Trying not to let it get under skin
- 32Asking for tips on dealing with rude people
- 33issuing a full refund immediately
- 34reporting the buyer to the platform support
In their words
Unedited, most upvoted first, each linked to the thread it came from.
“I have been in an all morning argument about this and I am just about at my wit's end with it.”source ↗
“I recently had a gig go really bad, as I had completed my end and got paid, only to have the client call me this morning demanding a refund because the files were not right.”source ↗
“She literally had another graphic designer with her claiming I had no idea what I was doing and that I was nowhere close to what they needed. I gave them a full refund, but I feel like crap.”source ↗
“REPORTED YOU TO ETSY. GARBAGE SHOULD NOT SELL ON ETSY. WHERE THE FUCK DID YOU ISSUE A REFUND I NEVER RECEIVED???????????”source ↗
“WHAT ACCOUNT BITCH !!”source ↗
“She has a few clients who just ask way too much of her and she can't seem to say no.”source ↗
“I feel like these donor demands are breaking me.”source ↗
“Why am I tolerating grown men throwing temper tantrums and sulking?”source ↗
“I’m exhausted and scared and I can’t do anything else it feels like because, sadly, this is where the money’s at for me.”source ↗
“We have a client who insisted that we install Elementor and Beaver Builder on a site that was built with Gutenberg. Yes. Three page builders.”source ↗
“Eventually gave up and did it. We’ll bill to fix it when it all goes to shit.”source ↗
“I (stupidly) did free work helping a client onboard some employees, but she doesn't want to pay me to process her payroll... but then she emailed me multiple times asking if everything was set up correctly.”source ↗
“When I saw this email it really upset me. I went out of my way to do free work for her... and then sends an email to her employee like that?”source ↗
“One time I got an email of someone calling me a fucking idiot for their mistake.”source ↗
“Unfortunately, they weren't happy with me asking questions during the presentation.”source ↗
“So I was a bit surprised when they said they don't want me asking any questions at all.”source ↗
“I’ve been dealing with some very, very rude clients recently, and honestly, it’s getting exhausting.”source ↗
“he’ll say things like “You don’t seem sincere” or compare me to other people and tell me to “work harder.””source ↗
“And the frustrating part is that if we try to avoid talking to him or limit interactions, he notices every little thing we do.”source ↗
“How do you guys deal with clients like this without letting them get to you?”source ↗
“Anyone else get days where customers are so rude?”source ↗
“not only is it slow but the rudest fucking customers.”source ↗
“days like today just make me question why the hell am I doing this to myself and where the hell I went wrong in life.”source ↗
“Logged in and saw it was a Divi based theme, with Elementor and Beaver Builder in there. I stopped taking on 'fix it' projects like that.”source ↗
“I have 2 (prob 4 if I am truly honest) clients who I want to fire.”source ↗
“One plugin used to do things very nicely for a simple task, but each iteration adds features (that I don't want or need) or duplicates another plugin in part.”source ↗
“She sent her company’s graphic designer guilt tripping me ("I’ve been doing this for 27 years! The moment you said xx I KNEW you were overcharging!!" "There’s no way you didn’t get this off the internet!! (...I literally sent the SVG file wth lol)").”source ↗
“I am frequently declining contracts. I decline more contracts than I accept because they are often from returning clients who believe that their contracts should take priority over anything else.”source ↗
“returning clients will often continue to make demands on my services even after I’ve declined to offer them.”source ↗
“If I am presented with multiple contracts at the same time, much of my time is spent deciding among them.”source ↗
“I had a client, she was fkin delusional. She didnt know what she wanted at first, I gave her suggestions, ideas, quick sketches, she kept repeating the same question over and over again, even when I gave her full explanations, she still didnt seem to grasp it.”source ↗
“She gave feedback nonstop, and yet she wasnt happy, she wanted a discount, she felt she was cheated, bla bla bla.”source ↗
“I have 2 clients I want to let go but tell myself just hang on.”source ↗
Where this came up
People with this problem also raised
- 6How to respond when a client says your rates are too high
- 6How to tell a client their bookkeeper is incompetent
- 3Retainer client pays on time but never responds
- 4Why do old clients expect the same discount for new projects?
- 5How to follow up with a client who picked a cheaper vendor
- 7How do you keep track of clients, projects, deadlines, and follow-ups?