I left a Negative Review for a freelancer that was horrific. My review & rating are magically gone!

[b33f2159]

I had a horrific and expensive experience with an Upwork freelancer.  So I left a cordial, yet negative review w/ 1.5 stars. I spent an hour and a half carefully crafting a professional review which never posted.  Instead, it reads "No feedback given" and my 1.5 star rating is not showing.

I've been w/ Upwork since 2014 and have hired over 50 freelancers (99% given 5 stars).  And I use freelancer feedback when reviewing applicants... but if these reviews can't be trusted, Upwork can't be trusted.

Explain to me how my coridial review w/ 1.5 star feedback is replaced with "no feedback given" and no star rating.  

**edited for Community Guidelines**

[PradeepH · Accepted solution]

Hi Kevin,

Thank you for your message. I am sorry to hear about your experience with a freelancer. I checked and I see that the contract was ended just a few hours ago. That said, the feedback will not post until both parties have left their feedback or the 14-day Feedback Period has expired. You can refer to this help page for more information. 

Thank you

Pradeep

[martina_plaschka]

No reason to get all worked up. It has always been that way. The rating system is double blind. If the freelancer doesn't provide feedback for you within 14 days, your feedback will appear on his profile, but you will not have one on your account. 

The freelancer is probably not eager to give you feedback, so you will have to wait 14 days. If he is top-rated, he can remove feedback occasionally. If he isn't, the feedback will stay unless he decides to refund the full amount, then the job will disappear from his profile completely. 

If you have done this many jobs, you should know how this works by now. 

[b33f2159]

Thanks for the explaination Pradeep!  And as for the snarky comment Martina... I've never had to give anything less than a 5 star review... and I've got a perfect 5 star feedback / great reviews on my end.  So this issue has never arisen.

[b33f2159]

Here we are again...  The review I left for the terrible freelancer WAS posted... but again, it's mysteriously missing from her profile.

I call shenanigans UpWork!    WTF is the point of giving someone a review if UpWork is just going to remove it because they are "top-rated".   That is NOT how an HONEST review system works!

[ArjayM]

Hi Kevin, 

We certainly understand your concern and please allow us to explain the process further. As a Top Rated or Top Rated Plus freelancer, their hard work has earned them the benefit of more control over their profile. This means that they can occasionally request the removal of client feedback. 

However, there are certain Rules and Restrictions along with requirements that they need to meet before applying for feedback removal. There's a due process for this type of request. You may want to check this help article for you to be more acquainted with how the procedures work for freelancers requesting feedback removal.

[tlsanders]

It's been almost  year and a half. Do you really think continuing to obsess over this one bit of feedback is the best thing for your business? Spending an hour and a half writing feedback alone seems counterproductive.

[fe9b8d82]

You had a bad experience with a freelancer.  By your own admission you spent 90 minutes leaving said feedback, and then got up in arms when the freelancer had it removed.

Now you're back over a year later to resurrect this thread with essentially the same issue over what sounds like the same person?

It's just a feedback, top rated and top rated plus freelancers can have it removed under certain circumstances.  Move on, this isn't worth another moment of your time.

[b33f2159]

I haven't been on the forum for a year... and I was just reviewing my old posts.

But as a person that hires freelancers, I don't think negative reviews should be removed...  That's what freelancer reviews are for.  I'll be honest - after the review was removed, my trust in UpWork went down substantially. 

[5c5b0ec6]

All of you people that are giving Kevin grief are, dare I say, most likely freelancers and not hiring clients.  As somebody that depends on reviews as a main factor when choosing whom to hire, the integrity of the review system is absolutely critical.  I've spent far too much time and money starting and growing my business to risk it on a system that is not as transparent as it claims.  The mere fact that a "Top-Rated" or "Top-Rated Plus" freelancer can have bad reviews removed means that once he/she achieves such status, they can then compromise the quality of their work without worry.  This doesn't motivate a freelancer to maintain the same level of work that got them there and it's clearly gaming the system.  Youtube is loaded with videos describing "How to Remove a Bad Review on Upwork."  This needs to be fixed.  Do better Upwork.  You guys need to protect the hiring side and remain neutral.

[6e24cd4c]

I agree. This is a real problem. I have spent hundreds of thousands of $ on Upwork freelancers and the customer feedback is the most important thing when selecting a freelancer. I know freelancers can remove the odd negative message but as someone who runs a review website; I think this is totally unacceptable and should not be allowed. If the freelancer can control the reviews, then the feedback system is flawed and cannot be trusted. Kevin, I am with you. You should be annoyed. A year ago, now and a year in the future.

[motoyen]

Freelancers can remove 1 review every 3 months. I was scammed by a freelancer and left a negative review which he removed. I contacted Upwork but they didn't care. 

[yofazza]

this is totally unacceptable and should not be allowed

There are cases where I think the removal of feedback is acceptable, such as when an unsuspecting normal freelancer is hired by ignorant, or even a mentally-ill client.

But, as I've also said a couple times here, in the end, shady freelancers who are familiar with the site seem to be the ones who benefit most from this feature.

It should be removed. Having a perfect star, on other gig review systems, are actually/usually means that the provider is new, where they haven't met any ignorant/mentally-ill customers, yet. For example, Uber driver with 5 stars but less than 10 drives is more worrying than someone with 4.8 stars on 100 drives (and it's usually correct. Their 'noobness' usually makes a couple things awkward, at least).

So, good freelancers with less than 5 stars from meeting with bad clients, should be more acceptable than lots of shady freelancers having good ratings from periodically removing the bad ones.

ps: sorry, clicked the wrong reply button