Bad Review + Unpaid Invoice: Using a Demand Letter When an Upwork Client Holds You Hostage
A very specific kind of nightmare keeps showing up in the inbox of freelancers and agencies who work on Upwork:
You completed the project.
You sent the files.
The client is dragging their feet on payment.
Then the message arrives:
“If you don’t refund [or discount] I’ll leave a bad review and destroy your profile.”
That is the hostage scenario this article is about. Not a simple unhappy client; not an honest disagreement about quality; but someone trying to trade your reputation for a discount or a refund. In a marketplace where your profile, Job Success Score, and feedback history are your CV and your business card rolled into one, that kind of threat can feel existential.
This article walks through how Upwork’s system actually works, what “feedback blackmail” looks like under Upwork’s rules, why a lawyer-drafted demand letter is often the right tool when platform remedies are exhausted, and how to use that letter without stumbling into your own risk. There is a free template and a detailed FAQ at the end.
How the hostage situation usually unfolds
The pattern is remarkably consistent across industries and project sizes.
The contract closes, or you deliver the main milestone. The client either refuses to release payment, threatens a dispute, or demands a discount that was never part of the deal. They then tie that demand directly to your Upwork feedback. Sometimes the threat is explicit. Sometimes it shows up as something more veiled, such as “I really hope we can agree on a refund so I don’t have to reflect this experience in my review.”
They know you care about your Job Success Score and your public feedback. Upwork uses both public reviews and private feedback to power its marketplace scores and quality controls; repeat negative feedback can lead to reduced visibility or even account restrictions. A single harsh review that calls you “a scam,” “fraudulent,” or “never delivered anything” can tank months of careful work.
At the same time, Upwork’s Terms of Service make clear that Upwork is not a party to your underlying service contract. Clients and freelancers contract with each other; Upwork is the marketplace and escrow provider, not your employer. That means that when a client refuses to pay, your legal claim is primarily against the client, not Upwork itself.
The hostage situation sits at the intersection of those two realities: Upwork controls the feedback system; the client controls the payment; you are stuck in the middle.
How Upwork feedback and payment actually work
Before you decide whether a demand letter makes sense, it helps to understand the pressure points inside the Upwork system.
For feedback, Upwork uses a double-blind system. When a contract ends, each party has fourteen days to leave feedback. During that window, neither side can see what the other wrote until both have submitted or the fourteen days run out. There is public feedback that appears on your profile and private feedback that only Upwork sees but that counts heavily toward your Job Success Score. Private feedback cannot be edited; even if a client later changes or removes public feedback, their private rating may keep affecting your score.
On the payment side, the mechanics differ depending on whether the contract is fixed-price or hourly.
On fixed-price contracts, the client funds a milestone into escrow. When you submit work through the “Submit work for payment” function, the client can approve, request changes, or do nothing. If they do nothing, the funds are automatically released to you after fourteen days. If they refuse, or ask for a full refund of the escrowed amount, you can open a dispute. Upwork’s dispute assistance is mediation only; the outcome is a recommendation, not a binding judgment, and if the parties do not agree, they can choose to go to third-party arbitration for fixed-price jobs.
On hourly contracts, payment protection is available only when you meet specific conditions: use of the Upwork time tracker, clearly related work shown in the Work Diary screenshots, adequate activity levels, and compliance with weekly hour limits. If those conditions are met and the client disputes your hours, Upwork will review the diary and usually still pay for qualifying hours. If those conditions are not met, or if a large portion of your work was manual time or outside the weekly cap, Upwork may decline protection and you are exposed to non-payment.
All of that matters because one of the first questions in any “bad review plus non-payment” scenario is whether internal remedies still exist. If there is funded escrow and you are still within the dispute and arbitration windows, or if your hours are clearly protected, Upwork’s dispute mechanisms may be your first stop. Once those are exhausted—or if they were never available because the client never funded the milestone, forced you off-platform, or initiated a chargeback—the leverage shifts and a direct demand to the client becomes much more relevant.
When client conduct crosses from “hard negotiation” into feedback blackmail
Not every unpleasant negotiation is feedback blackmail. Clients can be demanding. They can push for additional work or a discount. They can even threaten to leave an honest negative review if they feel the work was genuinely poor. The law and Upwork policy both leave space for honest opinion.
The red line is crossed when the client uses Upwork’s feedback system explicitly as a weapon to force you to give up money you are otherwise entitled to. Upwork’s guidance to users emphasizes that feedback must be genuine, based on real work, and free from manipulation; attempts to obtain or change feedback through incentives or threats violate marketplace rules. When a client says “Refund me or I will leave a bad review,” they are not just being rude. They are attempting to leverage the feedback tool in a way Upwork expressly disallows.
From a civil law perspective, the situation often contains several overlapping theories:
The first is breach of contract: you have a service contract (through Upwork plus any supplemental SOW or messages); you performed your obligations; the client owes payment and is withholding it.
The second is defamation or trade libel if they have already posted, or are threatening to post, false statements of fact about your work or your honesty. Under California law, written defamation (libel) requires a false statement of fact about you, published to a third party, with at least negligence as to its falsity, that tends to injure your reputation. Trade libel or business disparagement targets false statements about the quality of your services that cause specific financial loss. Calling you “a scammer,” “a thief,” or claiming you “never delivered anything” when the Work Diary and submission history show the opposite is very different from saying “I did not like the design” or “the code had bugs.”
The third is the extortion flavor of the threat. In many jurisdictions, including California, extortion is defined as obtaining money or property through force or fear, including threats to harm someone’s reputation. You do not need to accuse the client of a felony to point out that their attempt to trade reputational harm for money is improper. Framing their messages as an “attempt to leverage false or misleading feedback to obtain a financial concession” fairly captures the problem without blustering.
A well-drafted demand letter can weave those threads together without overreaching, and without itself becoming defamatory or threatening.
First steps inside Upwork before you even think about a demand letter
Even if you are leaning toward a demand letter, you almost always start by locking down your evidence and using the tools Upwork has built.
That means documenting everything. Save screenshots of the message thread where the client ties payment to feedback. Save the job post, the offer, the SOW, the milestone descriptions, your submissions, and any approvals. If you delivered outside Upwork because the client insisted on email or another channel, pull those messages and attachments as well. The goal is to be able to tell a clean timeline: what was agreed, what was delivered, how the client responded, and where they first linked payment with the threat of a bad review.
If there is funded escrow on a fixed-price job and the client refuses to release it after you submit work, use the dispute process. Upwork’s dispute assistance is not always satisfying, but ignoring it entirely can undercut your later argument that you acted reasonably. For hourly jobs with protected hours, lean on Hourly Payment Protection and make sure your Work Diary is clean.
If the client’s messages clearly show feedback blackmail—an explicit “refund me or I leave a one-star” exchange—report it to Upwork Support or Trust & Safety. Link your report to Upwork’s own prohibition on feedback manipulation and building, where they warn users against trying to influence feedback with incentives or threats and reserve the right to remove abusive or fraudulent reviews. In some cases Upwork will remove feedback that was obtained in this way or at least flag the client’s account.
Finally, if the client already posted a review, you have the ability to post a public reply beneath it on your profile. That reply is not the place for a rant. It is a place for a short, calm statement that signals to future clients that there is more to the story. Something along the lines of “Client demanded a refund after delivery and threatened negative feedback when I declined; project was completed as scoped and milestones were submitted on time” can be enough.
Those actions do not replace a demand letter, but they can strengthen your later position by showing that you acted reasonably and used the marketplace mechanisms before escalating.
When an external demand letter starts to make sense
There is no single bright line, but several recurring signs that it is time to step outside the platform.
One sign is that internal remedies are structurally over. You missed the dispute window and escrow was automatically refunded. The dispute was processed and the recommendation went against you, and both parties declined arbitration. The work was done largely off-platform, or the key portion was never escrow-funded. The job was closed long ago, the client left or was banned, and you now know who they are and where they operate.
Another sign is the combination of high stakes and clear facts. For a few hundred dollars, a long, cross-border fight is rarely sensible. Once the amounts climb into four or five figures, and your documentation is clean, the calculus changes. If you can show a straightforward service contract, clear performance, and a refusal to pay with feedback blackmail layered on top, a formal demand is often the most cost-effective way to test how serious the client really is.
A third sign is the nature of the review itself. If the client’s public comments are just harsh opinions, a demand letter may do more harm than good. If the review includes specific factual allegations that are demonstrably false—accusing you of fraud, theft, non-delivery, or unethical conduct that your records disprove—then the trade-libel and defamation angle deserves a serious look.
At that point, the question is not whether to ignore the problem or rage about it in a forum. The question is how to present a concise, credible threat of legal consequences that will actually move the needle without creating new risks.
Legal theories that often underpin a “bad review plus non-payment” demand letter
A good demand letter is not just emotional outrage on letterhead. It is a summary of facts, legal theories, and requested outcomes that reads as if it could be dropped into a complaint tomorrow.
For these cases, several theories tend to show up repeatedly.
The core is breach of contract. That can be as simple as pointing to the Upwork offer, the scope in the messages, and the milestones that you completed. The contract was to perform certain services in exchange for payment. You performed; the client did not pay. If your jurisdiction supports account stated or open-book-account theories, those can be layered in when there is a history of invoices and partial payments.
On top of that sits defamation and trade libel. Where the client has published statements that are not just critical opinions but verifiable falsehoods about your performance or character, you can describe those as defamatory. Under California’s pattern instructions, trade libel focuses on false statements that disparage the quality of services and cause specific economic harm. Negative Upwork reviews that invent facts—asserting you never sent deliverables, that you duplicated someone else’s code without permission, that you committed fraud—are textbook candidates.
Then there is the interference layer. When a client uses false statements in a public marketplace to scare away future contracts, that behavior can be characterized as interference with prospective economic advantage. It is not just your feelings that are hurt; your ability to earn future income is damaged.
Finally, there is the extortion flavor. Without threatening criminal charges, you can accurately describe their conduct as an improper attempt to leverage reputational harm to obtain an unearned refund or discount, and note that similar conduct is treated as extortion in many jurisdictions. That framing tends to catch a business client’s attention in a way pure civil jargon sometimes does not.
Risks you need to watch while drafting and using the letter
The fact that the client is behaving badly does not mean you are free to do anything you like in response.
On Upwork, the first structural risk is non-circumvention. Upwork’s Terms of Service prohibit users from redirecting payments or moving the relationship off-platform for a defined period after first contact, unless they pay a conversion fee. The rules are aimed at cutting Upwork out of the middle of an ongoing relationship. When you send a demand letter about work that has already completed, especially if the client has left the platform or taken the relationship off-Upwork in violation of those rules, your leverage is in enforcing the underlying service contract, not in renegotiating how future work will be paid. You do not want your letter to look like you are soliciting off-platform payments for future services in violation of those rules.
The second risk is over-threatening. Most professional conduct rules bar lawyers from threatening criminal prosecution solely to gain advantage in a civil dispute. You do not need to wave penal code sections around. It is enough to describe the conduct and reserve all rights; you are writing for a sophisticated reader who can infer the implications.
Third, if you or your client are in a jurisdiction with a strong anti-SLAPP statute, you need to be aware of how easily a defamation suit over online reviews can trigger fee-shifting. California’s Code of Civil Procedure section 425.16, for example, allows defendants to file a special motion to strike causes of action arising from statements made in a public forum about matters of public interest, with mandatory fee awards if the motion is granted. Many freelancer–client disputes will not qualify as matters of public interest, but you do not want to draft a complaint lightly. By comparison, a pre-litigation demand that focuses heavily on the payment dispute and only secondarily on the false statements can deliver pressure without committing you to a risky defamation case.
Fourth, there is collectability and cross-border enforcement. A glorious legal theory against a thinly capitalized foreign shell company in a difficult jurisdiction may not be worth much. The letter should be calibrated not just to the law but also to the reality of who is on the other side.
Free demand letter template for “bad review plus unpaid invoice”
What follows is a generic template you can adapt. It is written from the perspective of counsel to the freelancer, but it can be modified for self-representation. Replace bracketed language with your own facts and adjust tone based on whether you want something closer to a firm nudge or a true last-chance warning.
[Your Law Firm or Name]
[Address]
[City, State, ZIP]
[Email]
[Phone]
[Date]
[VIA EMAIL]
[Client Name]
[Client Company]
[Client Email]
[Client Address, if known]
Re: Payment and False Feedback Regarding [Upwork Contract Title]
[Client Name]:
I represent [Freelancer Name], a professional [describe field, for example “software developer,” “graphic designer,” “marketing consultant”] who performed services for you under a contract arranged through the Upwork platform titled “[exact job title]” (the “Contract”).
This letter concerns two issues arising from that engagement: your failure to pay amounts owed, and your use and threatened use of negative Upwork feedback to pressure [Freelancer Name] into granting a refund or discount to which you are not entitled.
Under the Contract, you engaged [Freelancer Name] to provide [brief description of scope, for example “design and implementation of a landing page and associated email template,” “configuration of your CRM instance,” or “production and editing of a three-minute product video”] in exchange for payment of [state total contract amount or milestone amounts]. The scope of work and milestones are reflected in the Upwork offer dated [date] and the message thread between you and [Freelancer Name] on [dates].
[Freelancer Name] performed the agreed services and delivered the work product on [dates]. By way of example, on [date] [he/she/they] submitted [describe main deliverables briefly], and on [date] [he/she/they] provided [describe any revisions or follow-up work]. Your messages on [dates] acknowledged receipt of the work, continued to request refinements, and did not assert that the deliverables were missing or non-existent.
Notwithstanding that performance, you have failed to pay [state amount], which remains outstanding. On [date], instead of addressing any specific, good-faith concerns about the work, you demanded a [full refund / partial refund / substantial discount] and tied that demand directly to the feedback you would leave on Upwork. For example, on [date], you wrote: “[quote the relevant message],” and on [date], “[quote another].” Those statements make clear that you were using the threat of a damaging review on Upwork to pressure [Freelancer Name] into relinquishing payment already earned.
As you know, Upwork’s marketplace is built on genuine, unmanipulated feedback. The company’s policies prohibit attempts to influence feedback through threats or incentives and reserve the right to remove feedback that is abusive, fraudulent, or otherwise violates its terms. Your messages, which condition your review on receipt of a refund or discount, are inconsistent with those rules and with ordinary standards of fair dealing.
If that were not enough, you have also [already posted / threatened to post] statements on Upwork that are not just negative opinions, but assertions of fact that are false. In particular, your feedback claiming that [for example, “no work was delivered,” “the freelancer stole our code,” “the freelancer misrepresented their experience and scammed us”] is contradicted by the Upwork Work Diary, the file submissions, and your own prior acknowledgements. Those false statements are defamatory and disparage [Freelancer Name]’s professional services. They are likely to mislead future clients and to cause concrete economic harm.
Between your refusal to pay for completed work, your threats to use the Upwork feedback system as leverage to obtain an unwarranted refund or discount, and your false statements about [Freelancer Name] and [his/her/their] work, you have exposed yourself to liability for breach of contract and related payment theories, as well as for defamation, trade libel, and interference with [Freelancer Name]’s prospective business relationships.
At this point, [Freelancer Name] seeks to resolve this dispute without litigation, provided that you promptly do all of the following:
Pay the outstanding amount of [exact figure] in full through Upwork or, if Upwork will not accept the payment for this Contract, by another mutually acceptable, documented method; and
Remove or retract any false or misleading statements you have posted about [Freelancer Name] in connection with this Contract, including but not limited to the feedback on Upwork dated [date], or work with Upwork to correct the record to the extent the platform allows; and
Confirm in writing that you will not publish any further false or misleading statements about [Freelancer Name] or the services delivered under this Contract.
If we receive your written confirmation by [ten] calendar days from the date of this letter and the payment clears within that timeframe, [Freelancer Name] is prepared to consider this matter resolved. If we do not, [Freelancer Name] reserves all rights and remedies. Those include, without limitation, initiating legal proceedings to recover all amounts owed, seeking damages for reputational harm and lost business caused by your false statements, and recovering costs and fees where permitted by contract or applicable law.
Nothing in this letter constitutes an exhaustive statement of [Freelancer Name]’s claims or a waiver of any rights, all of which are expressly reserved.
Sincerely,
[Signature block]
[Name]
[Title, if any]
Attorney for [Freelancer Name]
You can harden or soften this template depending on your goals. For a more conciliatory version, you might acknowledge the possibility of misunderstandings, emphasize an interest in avoiding litigation, or offer to discuss reasonable, specific revisions. For a more aggressive version, you might spell out particular causes of action and cite contractual fee-shifting provisions or small-claims options.
Practical tips for adapting the template to real Upwork scenarios
The fact patterns vary, but three scenarios recur so often that it is worth thinking about how the template might be adjusted for each.
The first is the “threatened review, no review yet” situation. In that case, the letter should lean more heavily on the feedback-blackmail aspect and less on defamation. You can keep the paragraph describing their threats to use the Upwork review system to coerce a refund, while trimming or omitting references to already-published false statements. The focus is on stopping the extortion attempt and getting paid before real reputational damage occurs.
The second is the “false review is already live” situation. Here the evidence you have about what was delivered becomes crucial. The more you can point to specific files, links, Work Diary entries, and contemporaneous acknowledgements, the more credible your assertion that the review is false becomes. Your letter may need a paragraph that dissects one or two of the most damaging statements and explains in plain language why they are untrue. You can also mention that you have asked Upwork to review the feedback under its own policies and are simultaneously seeking correction directly from the client.
The third is the “partial-work, partial-fault” scenario. Sometimes the truth is messier. Perhaps the scope changed, the client was disorganized, you agreed to informal milestones, and the documentation is not as clean as you would like. In those cases, an all-or-nothing demand can be counterproductive. The template can be adapted to a more nuanced position, for example by acknowledging specific issues that fell short, proposing a partial reduction in the invoice that still leaves a meaningful payment, and focusing your strongest language on the threats and false statements rather than on the dollar amount. Many disputes in this category settle not because one side is totally right but because one side finally offers a clear, concrete path to closure.
In all three scenarios, the key is coherence. The letter should read like a short, confident story: who you are, what you were hired to do, what you did, how the client responded, how they tied payment to feedback, what harm their behavior is causing now, what you are asking for, and what happens next if they refuse.
Twenty common questions about bad reviews, unpaid invoices, and demand letters on Upwork
What if the client’s review is harsh but basically true?
In that case, your leverage is payment-focused, not defamation-focused. If the review reflects a genuine disagreement about quality or expectations and the core factual statements are accurate, attacking it as defamatory will ring hollow. You may still send a demand letter on the payment issue if you believe you earned the fee, but you should avoid implying that the client must retract an honest review to resolve the dispute.
Can I be banned from Upwork for sending a demand letter?
Upwork’s rules focus on what you do on the platform and how you handle relationships that originated there. A measured demand letter sent off-platform about a completed contract and legitimate payment dispute is very different from threatening the client inside Upwork’s messaging system or trying to divert future payments off-platform in violation of non-circumvention rules. Draft the letter as a standard business communication, not as an attack on Upwork itself, and avoid suggesting that you will stop using the platform’s payment systems for ongoing work.
Should I mention Upwork by name in the letter?
In most cases, yes. The context matters. The contract was made through Upwork; the threats relate to Upwork feedback; and Upwork’s own policies on feedback manipulation support your position. Referencing the platform by name, while also making clear that your claims are directly against the client, anchors the letter in reality and shows that you understand the ecosystem.
Do I have to wait until the Upwork dispute process is finished?
You do not have to wait in a formal sense, but it is usually wise to either run the dispute process or explicitly explain why it does not apply. If escrow was never funded, there may be no dispute mechanism to use. If the fixed-price dispute has been decided or arbitration declined, you can mention that history. Courts and arbitrators tend to look more favorably on parties who used available, low-friction processes before invoking legal remedies.
What if the client is in another country?
Cross-border disputes are harder to enforce but not impossible. The analysis typically turns on where the client’s assets are, where the work was performed, what law governs the contract, and whether there are treaties or local procedures that make foreign judgments enforceable. In many cases, a clear, credible letter from counsel in your jurisdiction is enough to bring a rational counterparty to the table without litigating to judgment.
Can I demand that the client delete the Upwork review completely?
You can certainly request that they work with Upwork to retract or revise their review, and in cases of clear falsity that is a reasonable ask. Whether they technically can delete or edit it will depend on timing and Upwork’s systems. Public feedback can sometimes be edited or removed; private feedback cannot. A demand letter can combine a request for correction with a reservation of rights if they refuse.
Is a demand letter enough to get the review removed by Upwork?
Upwork will not remove a review just because you or your lawyer do not like it, even if you attach a demand letter. They look for violations of policy: abusive language, fraud, off-topic content, or clear manipulation such as threats or quid-pro-quo messages. Your letter and underlying evidence may support a report to Trust & Safety, but the removal decision is ultimately Upwork’s.
Can I copy and paste this template and send it myself without a lawyer?
You can. Many freelancers do. The benefit of having counsel involved is not just letterhead; it is the ability to calibrate the content to your jurisdiction, your risk tolerance, and your long-term platform strategy. If you adapt the template yourself, keep the tone professional, stick closely to verifiable facts, and avoid legal jargon you would not be able to explain if challenged.
Will a demand letter hurt my chances of future work on Upwork?
Most of the time, no one except the client and possibly Upwork sees the letter. Other clients are not privy to your off-platform correspondence. What will hurt future work is allowing a false, damaging narrative about you to stand unchallenged, especially if it involves accusations of fraud or non-delivery. In that sense, a carefully used demand letter is a reputational defense, not a risk.
What if the client responds by posting even more negative content?
Escalation is always possible. That is why tone and proportionality matter. If the client reacts by doubling down in writing with more false statements and threats, they are only creating more evidence that supports your potential claims. At a certain point, you will need to decide whether to ignore further noise, continue to press for a business resolution, or actually file.
Can I ask for money beyond the unpaid invoice, such as damages for reputational harm?
Legally, you may have claims for damages beyond contract amounts, especially in clear defamation or trade libel cases. In practice, demanding a large sum for “reputation damage” can derail settlement discussions if the client has limited resources or sees it as posturing. A common approach is to focus initially on recovering the unpaid fees and correcting the record, while reserving the right to seek broader damages if litigation becomes necessary.
What if the client claims my review of them is defamatory?
Clients also have reputations, and they can complain about your feedback. Upwork applies its policies to both sides. If your feedback is factual and measured, describing things like missed meetings, delays, scope creep, or non-payment, it is unlikely to be defamatory. If you accuse the client of crimes or dishonesty without evidence, you may face the same issues you are raising about them. The safest course is to keep both sides’ reviews grounded in accurate facts.
Does the amount in dispute matter?
It matters a great deal. Legal energy is precious. For a dispute over two hundred dollars, a long, lawyerly letter may not make economic sense unless you are doing it as a matter of principle or deterrence. As the amount grows, the relative cost of a demand letter shrinks, and clients become more likely to react rationally to legal pressure. Tailor your approach to the stakes.
How long should I give the client to respond to the letter?
Ten calendar days is a common choice. It is enough time for the client to read the letter, calm down, and obtain advice if they wish, without letting the matter drift indefinitely. For international clients or complicated disputes, a slightly longer period may be sensible. The key is to set a clear deadline and to be prepared to act in some way when it passes, even if the “action” is simply deciding to drop the matter.
Should I send the letter by email, physical mail, or through Upwork messages?
Email is usually the primary channel, especially if that is how you have communicated outside Upwork already. Physical mail adds formality and can be useful if you know the client’s business address and want a paper trail. Sending the full demand letter through Upwork messages is usually not ideal; it can look like platform abuse and invites moderation. A short, neutral note in Upwork saying “My attorney has sent you a letter by email regarding our payment dispute; please review and respond there” is often enough.
Can I threaten to report the client to Upwork in the letter?
You do not have to threaten; you can simply state what you have already done or intend to do. It is perfectly reasonable to say that you have reported their feedback-related threats to Upwork as a violation of its feedback policies and that you have asked Upwork to review any feedback for compliance. Framing this as a factual update rather than as a club tends to read more professionally.
What if the client offers to pay only if I agree never to “bad-mouth” them?
Mutual non-disparagement provisions are common in settlements. The issue is scope and reasonableness. Agreeing not to post reviews outside what you have already written and to keep the dispute confidential is often an acceptable price for closure. Agreeing never to cooperate with regulators or to conceal material facts from courts is not. If you reach this negotiation stage, it is usually worth putting the terms into a short written settlement that includes mutual releases and a clear payment timeline.
Can I use this same approach on Fiverr, Freelancer, or other platforms?
The core ideas travel well. Other freelance marketplaces also position themselves as intermediaries, run internal dispute systems, and rely on reviews to allocate trust. Each platform has its own rules, but the basic pattern of documenting the dispute, using internal remedies, and then addressing the counterparty directly through a formal demand when internal processes fail is widely applicable. You would simply adapt the policy references and procedural background to the platform in question.
Is a demand letter always the right move when a client behaves badly?
Not always. Sometimes the cheapest, sanest move is to walk away, especially when the money is small, the client is unstable, the facts are muddy, or your own documentation is thin. A demand letter is a tool, not a moral obligation. Its value comes from selective use in cases where your facts are strong, the stakes are meaningful, and the counterparty is rational enough to respond to legal risk. When those ingredients align, a clear, well-drafted letter can be one of the most powerful ways to reclaim both your money and your narrative.
Used thoughtfully, demand letters are not about bluster. They are about forcing a moment of clarity: here is what happened; here is why it violates both the contract and basic norms of honesty; here is what it will take to fix it. In a marketplace where your reputation is your livelihood, that moment can be the difference between swallowing an unjust loss in silence and re-establishing yourself as a professional who will not be quietly shaken down.