Client keeps accusing me of their own mistakes

[Newname42]

WWYD? I freelance for a company and work with different clients. I work incredibly hard for all of them, and they as well as my boss appreciate my work. One client, although they keep saying how much they appreciate all my work for them, blames me for all their mistakes, but followed by ‘no worries, we all make mistakes, I nonetheless want to continue working with you’ and moves on. Eg I remind them numerous times to send X, they don’t, and then say ‘you never told me that I have to send you X’. Or they call me and tell me that they’ll do X themselves, then they don’t do it and say that I should have done it. I started to put everything in writing and then politely forward them the email thread, but this is just met with a ‘no worries, I’m not mad, we all make mistakes, just make sure that you’re more on the ball moving forward’.

So far I’ve tried to be professional and didn’t protest (too much), but it really starts to annoy me. Shall I say to the client ‘Look, this is not what happened and I will not take baseless accusations anymore’? Or shall I inform my boss about this situation? Shall I say to the boss that I don’t want to work with this client anymore?

Tell your boss. That company will end up getting you in trouble at work.

You need to get this nipped in the bud, I guess what you do depends on how much authority you have and how supportive your boss is. I think I would speak to my boss and take all the evidence of times I had been accused of making a mistake with the proof it was them not me and see where you go from there. Maybe I am just over cautious but I would be worried about this client stitching me up good and proper. I would get in there first

Maybe I should…my boss knows that this client is difficult and said they appreciate how well I handle them. I don’t want to come across as unprofessional or not resilient, but frankly I had enough of them

Can someone else deal with them?

If you have time, catalogue the emails you sent them and their comments about not receiving them. They sound like right patronising bastards, tbh!

You say you work freelance which means you can simply choose to no longer to work with that client.

Then you say you work for a company and refer to a boss which means you don't work freelance.

That’s the case though? I have a freelance contract with a company, this company assigns clients to work with me, and at the end of the month I invoice the company for the total hours I did and I’m responsible to pay my own tax. If I’m busy one month, I just don’t accept any work they offer me. So yes, I could just say that I don’t want this particular client anymore but I guess this comes with the risk of not getting other work from them anymore because they are not obliged to give me any work

Does this affect your income? Do you spend disproportionate amount of time (unpaid) on this client? Does it effect your self confidence?
if yes is the answer to those questions, then ditch that client.
if no, then that’s ok and keep going

OK so basically the company is your client in which case as you say you can just refuse to work for that person with the possible risk they don't have other work. However they clearly know that this client of theirs is a handful and I guess it is because others have already refused to deal with them. How many other of their clients do you do assignments for?

I’d tell my boss and then I’d ditch the client ie tell your boss your concerns.

Before you know it that client will be badmouthing you to all his friends and your reputation and therefore income may suffer, if not now in the future if you need more work.

Omg I could not deal with someone like that i got angry reading it well done for not launching her out a window yet. You're a better person then me

This one person is about 30%-40% of my workload and a longer-term one, most other clients are short-term. So it might affect my income. But I think I’ll sooner or later snap at the client because they start to get my blood to boil.