What's the longest review you've seen by a client to a freelancer?

[roberty1y]

I've just seen one that's 750 words, and it isn't complimentary, to put it mildly. He uses the word garbage twice. 

[martina_plaschka]

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Robert Y wrote:

I've just seen one that's 750 words, and it isn't complimentary, to put it mildly. He uses the word garbage twice. 

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LOL that doesn't sound good. Could you please paraphrase what was said?

[roberty1y]

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Martina P wrote:

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Robert Y wrote:

I've just seen one that's 750 words, and it isn't complimentary, to put it mildly. He uses the word garbage twice. 

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LOL that doesn't sound good. Could you please paraphrase what was said?

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It's mostly just boring, where he goes into the details of the poor coding job the freelancer did and the tortuous communication difficulties he had. If I ever have to write a scathing review, I hope to make it more interesting.

[prestonhunter]

re: "It's mostly just boring, where he goes into the details of the poor coding job the freelancer did and the tortuous communication difficulties he had. If I ever have to write a scathing review, I hope to make it more interesting."

So it is basically a list of the things that the client did wrong: mainly being his failure to hire the right people and fire the wrong people.

[prestonhunter]

re: "I've just seen one that's 750 words, and it isn't complimentary, to put it mildly. He uses the word garbage twice."

It sounds like this client doesn't understand the beauty of freelancing.

If I hire a freelancer who doesn't work out, I can simply fire him and move on.

I don't need to dwell on it for 750 words.

I assume that some of the freelancers I hire will do a horrible job. This is what I expect. I find this uninteresting. Certainly not worth spending a lot of time on composing a screed.

Pro Tip for clients:

It is not a freelancer's responsibility to make sure that your project succeeds.

That is the project manager's responsibility.

If you haven't hired a project manager, then you are the project manager.

[kinector]

Preston, that's absolutely right.

Those few ridiculously long reviews that I've seen tend to come from Shoppers whose primal concern is to get stuff done as cheap as possible. I mean "done." Because they don't have a good financial position to do anything really well anyway... even on their own side of the table. Or mostly on that side. So, the "brilliant" part of their genius business idea is: "hey, get a freelancer to do it!!" 🤣

To these folks, managing the budget means almost the same as not spending a dime, so the chance of success correlates with that approach. 😬

Then, when they cannot find cheap and good, they totally loose it: "I paid $50 for this!!!" 🤪

I tend to think it is a personality thing... 🤔 Some people are just disaster guys. I know a few (not here, though).

Could it be anything else?

[prestonhunter]

Wouldn't it be cool if Upwork was like a magic wishing well?

I could toss a few coins into the well and out pops a fully developed website that generates money for me without any effort on my part.

That would be awesome.

But in real life, it doesn't work that way.

[kinector]

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Preston H wrote:

Wouldn't it be cool if Upwork was like a magic wishing well?

I could toss a few coins into the well and out pops a fully developed website that generates money for me without any effort on my part.

That would be awesome.

But in real life, it doesn't work that way.

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Yeah, this is a great metaphor!

Sometimes, you know, I feel like being that wishing well. Except that it's a pretty big pile of coins the clients need to throw at me to get me to do anything but press the Decline Invitation button. 😜

That's the closest thing to a real-world wishing well, I'm afraid. 🙄

And the chance of success probably correlates with the size of the coin pile... 😇

[astepanov83]

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Mikko R wrote:
Preston, that's absolutely right.

Those few ridiculously long reviews that I've seen tend to come from Shoppers whose primal concern is to get stuff done as cheap as possible. I mean "done." Because they don't have a good financial position to do anything really well anyway... even on their own side of the table. Or mostly on that side. So, the "brilliant" part of their genius business idea is: "hey, get a freelancer to do it!!" 🤣

To these folks, managing the budget means almost the same as not spending a dime, so the chance of success correlates with that approach. 😬

Then, when they cannot find cheap and good, they totally loose it: "I paid $50 for this!!!" 🤪

I tend to think it is a personality thing... 🤔 Some people are just disaster guys. I know a few (not here, though).

Could it be anything else?

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I think it also can be emotional regardless of budgets. A client is so pissed off by a freelancer, so he's writing an angry feedback. And it feels better with every word. That's why it can be so long.

[kinector]

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Aleksandr S wrote:
I think it also can be emotional regardless of budgets. A client is so pissed off by a freelancer, so he's writing an angry feedback. And it feels better with every word. That's why it can be so long.

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Yeah, absolutely it is emotional. It doesn't make sense to waste time on writing an essay like that, as mentioned earlier.

Some folks just completely lose it when their precious $50 is gone with the wind. 🤪

[2a05aa63]

I've had one of my bad clients write a bad review about me on another freelancer's profile after I removed his on mine. It was pretty big too.

[kinector]

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Viacheslav K wrote:

I've had one of my bad clients write a bad review about me on another freelancer's profile after I removed his on mine. It was pretty big too.

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OMG Viacheslav, how does that even work TECHNICALLY?!?!? 🤣

[2a05aa63]

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Mikko R wrote:

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Viacheslav K wrote:

I've had one of my bad clients write a bad review about me on another freelancer's profile after I removed his on mine. It was pretty big too.

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OMG Viacheslav, how does that even work TECHNICALLY?!?!? 🤣

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He was like "This freelancer did this right WHILE previous freelancer did it very wrong!!"  Basically combining two feedbacks into one.

[moonraker]

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Viacheslav K wrote:

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Mikko R wrote:

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Viacheslav K wrote:

I've had one of my bad clients write a bad review about me on another freelancer's profile after I removed his on mine. It was pretty big too.

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OMG Viacheslav, how does that even work TECHNICALLY?!?!? 🤣

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He was like "This freelancer did this right WHILE previous freelancer did it very wrong!!"  Basically combining two feedbacks into one.

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Oh man, that's bad for that freelancer.**Edited for Community Guidelines** was the client thinking?