Freelancer claims Indian client sent ₹10 lakh notice despite completing project: ‘Your goodwill becomes their weapon’

A freelancer recently opened up about receiving a ₹10 lakh legal notice for “non-compliance”, even though he claims he completed the entire project and delivered additional work beyond the agreed scope.Tomar alleged that the client kept adding new features during the project. (@Hartdrawss/X)The X post has sparked conversation online about the challenges freelancers sometimes face in the Indian market.The founder of Dream Launch Studio, Harshil Tomar, who is also a freelancer, said he had signed a contract for an ERP project worth several lakhs.Freelancer calls industry toxic:According to him, the scope of the project was clearly defined in the agreement. He added that he delivered 100 percent of the work that was originally promised.“This is the TOXIC Indian freelance industry,” the caption of the post reads.However, Tomar alleged that the client kept adding new features during the project. Each time a new request came up, the client reportedly said that the feature had already been discussed on the first day.Instead of refusing the requests, Tomar said he continued working and decided to complete the additional tasks in good faith. Over time, he claimed he ended up building nearly 40 percent more features than what had originally been agreed.The project lasted around six months. During this time, he said he consently over-delivered in an effort to keep the client satisfied and ensure the project moved forward smoothly.Despite this, he said he later received a legal notice demanding a ₹10 lakh penalty for “non-compliance”.Shares legal notice:In his post, Tomar described the situation as an example of what he called the “toxic” side of the Indian freelance industry. He claimed that some clients sign a project scope but ignore it once the work begins, adding new demands and insing that those requests were always part of the original deal.“They sign a scope, ignore it the moment work starts, gaslight you into believing their new demands were ‘always part of the deal,’ and then threaten you when you can’t keep up. Your goodwill becomes their weapon,” the post adds.In his post, Tomar also shared a screenshot of the legal notice he received. The notice stated: “Due to the prolonged delay in delivering the agreed project, a penalty of ₹10,00,000 has already been imposed on you for non-compliance with the agreed timeline.”HT.com has reached out to the user for more details. This report will be updated when he responds.Check out the post here:Here’s how people reacted to the post:X users reacted strongly to the post, with many freelancers sharing similar experiences from the industry.One of the users commented, “Really sad to see this happening. Hope there’s something you can still do to make things right.”A second user commented, “You are also part of the problem. Why would you agree to adding more features when they were outside the scope?”“Clearly a challenge faced many freelance developers, very important to follow a full-proof process around scope documentation, change mgt, acceptance criteria, it’s all about the details,” another user commented.