Another nightmare week. How did my client do this?

[#1]

Hi Everyone,

I hope everyone is having a great day, unlike the one I am having "sigh..."

I know that the lesson here is basically to always end the contract when you finish the tasks at hand(believe me I tried!) but this client promised me that he still got another website for me to work on so he wants to keep the contract open.

(Basically he was happy with the work and I also fixed issues on his other websites pretty fast as well, according to him, as another developer tried fixing it for weeks and didn't get anywhere, again according to him.)

So basically what happened is that I finished the tasks on the websites that we were working on and he paused the contract last August and it remained paused since then. I tried asking him to end the contract but he keeps on insisting that he still want me to work on his another glass ecommerce website.

Then last week April already, so after 8 months he suddenly messaged me that he wants me to work on the website again as he updated a plugin on one of his websites and the website broke.

The problem is I am so busy then that I am working 7am to 9pm already so I cannot accomodate him. I told him that I cannot look into it yet and if he is in a hurry he can contact another developer to help him for now.

Radio silence after that and then after a week BAM, he ended the contract and gave me a lousy review and full of lies as well. He said he paid me 10k when the project is 6k total only. He also made lies about the quality when if you read our convo you will see a lot of "Thank you!"

This client also asked a lot of questions about plugins and stuff and I always reply to him and give him suggestions. He even told me that he would love to have me and my family visit them in Australia in the future. This just proves how happy he was with my work isn't it.

Back to the lousy review, fortunately I am able to remove it using my top rated perk but for some odd reason this morning I received an email from "Attention: Upwork Marketplace Standards".

Reading through it, I literally got chills, especially on the part where it reads "...we may temporarily pause your ability to take on new projects."

How is he able to do this? So he was able to give me a bad private feedback and bad public feedback and now this?

I feel like I got comboed really hard when I do not really deserve it.

Is it my problem that the client didn't want to end the contract 8 months ago? Is it my problem that he updated his website and something broke and since his go-to guy was not available he have all these power over me?

I feel like this client doesn't deserve this much power. And I wanted to do the same to him. Is there a way for me to report what he did to me?

Kind Regards,
Daniel

[#2]

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[#3]

Thank you Luz, yes maybe in a couple of days this will be out of my mind.

[#4]

No options. Remove feedback and forgot.

Any client able to blackmail you in such way. Upwork dont care about that.

[#5]

Thank you Mykola, it seems like the case indeed. I tried looking at our contract and our chat and there is nothing I could use to report him. I do not want to open a ticket though.

Yes, seems like it is best to move on.

[#6]

Oh wait wait that attention mail by Upwork might possible AI automated they are writing like 1% got this type of review and till now I meet many how it's possible? Means it's not 1% 

And when I talk to with my client about private negative feedback indirect they never give me that much of worse because they have few other projects for me to and their talk well with me too!

Someone else also created a topic in community for this mail 

[#7]

I got a lot of great clients here in Upwork and they provide great feedbacks without me even asking.

Then there are these few who even though they like your work very much can still do this. I really hope that Upwork remove this email and flagging accounts. I think the negative private and public feedback is enough. We've got enough to handle already.

Maybe Upwork can auto-close contracts which are inactive in 6-months or something.

[#8]

Hi, guys.

I received the same email from Upwork 2 days ago; the email reads "We received feedback from one of your clients that a recent project may not have gone as expected..."

This got me confused because I only currently have one client whom I actively interact with for work updates and the contract is active.

My past clients were from a year ago, so I didn't think they could still leave a review several months after the contract ended.

But after 3 hours, I received another email from Upwork stating "This week we mistakenly sent you an email with the subject line “Attention: Upwork Marketplace Standards”, stating that a job may not have gone as expected. The email was sent in error."

It’s a big sigh of relief after reading I received the warning email in error. You could check if they sent you the same follow-up apology email.

I think Upwork Support just encountered an issue with their automated emails.

[#9 · Accepted solution]

Apparently, those emails are automatically generated when you get a bad review, but - as it says in the email - they only take action against 1% of freelancers. If you've just got the one bad review, it's nothing to worry about. 

If it was bothering you to leave the contract open, why didn't you just close it yourself? And as for "reporting" the client, have you left him a feedback review? Apart from that, there's nothing to report. 

[#10]

Wow! I see now, yes this is the first time I get a bad review so that's why this is the first time I get it! Thank you, I thought he contacted someone in Upwork directly to flag my account or something.

Thank you Christine! That clears things out. I feel like a torn is now pulled from my throat! 🙂

I was probably too afraid to do something he doesn't want to do as that might change his mood towards me. Also excited on the prospect of getting to work on another project soon which didn't come.

EDIT: Yes, I always leave my client 5 star reviews specially the ones that are very likeable because I want a chance to work with them again. I do not burn bridges whenever I can. But those who try to scam me, I burn immediately.

[#11]

---

 wrote:

Wow! I see now, yes this is the first time I get a bad review so that's why this is the first time I get it! Thank you, I thought he contacted someone in Upwork directly to flag my account or something.

Thank you Christine! That clears things out. I feel like a torn is now pulled from my throat! 🙂

I was probably too afraid to do something he doesn't want to do as that might change his mood towards me. Also excited on the prospect of getting to work on another project soon which didn't come.

---

Yes, I can understand that, but since the contract is closed and he already left you a bad review, there's nothing more that he can do. If the project finished last August, it's too late for him to dispute the payment or even to file a chargeback. Just leave a brief, honest review and stick to the facts.

It's risky to leave contracts like that open, because the client could come back at any time and say that something isn't working and that you need to fix it, which is exactly what happened. It sounds like he left you hanging on purpose so that you'd have to troubleshoot indefinitely. Next time, if a couple of months go by and the second project doesn't happen, just tell the client that you're going to close the contract but that he can rehire you whenever he's ready. 

[#12]

Hi Christine, what are the criteria for a bad review or negative feedback ? 2 stars ? 3 stars ?