Bad review from a client that ghosted me for months

[#1]

Last year I opened two contracts with a client that was looking for a Marketing Strategy and implementation of certain campaigns, at first he was being reasonable but then turned into a terrible client.  He wanted results immediately, decreased weekly hours to 1 while he was expecting me to do all the work, would not answer my calls or messages and just disappeared after the campaigns were ready to be launched. This was December 2022.

I didn't close the contracts because I didn't want him to think or comment I didn't finish the work, but I just got the email that he closed the contracts and gave me a 2 star review with no comment. When I started working with him his profile was not bad but now I'm seeing he has terrible comments.

I don't know about the other contract but I'm guessing that's gonna hurt my JSS pretty bad. I decided to not respond to his review because I'm not gonna hurt my profile with a back and forth or waste my time.

I've gotten just another bad review (when I was starting my career on Upwork) and I know it's part of the ride but any advice on how I could've avoided this situation? Just looking for opinions..

Thanks! 

[#2 · Accepted solution]

So, he gave you 2-star reviews for both contracts? I would say use your Top-Rated perk to remove one of them, but you or your agency may have a used it for another job, and it doesn't look like you have completed at least 10 jobs since the perk was last used.

It's easy for us to sit back and say "You should have done this." or "You should have done that." And if the client had bad reviews before you started the contract, most believe bad reviews are a sign to stay away from the client. I believe that too. This strategy obviously doesn't work if a client is new and has no reviews.

But no one can predict when or if a reasonable client will become terrible, and there could be multiple reasons why his demeanor changed and he became nonsensical. People can be complicated.

For me, I would have kindly and professionally walked away as soon as the client reached the "terrible" status.

[#3]

You're totally right, it may sound funny but I was trying to avoid a bad end of the contract with this clients, he even reached out to me saying that me leaving him a bad review (me actually explaining what happened) will open a ''Pandora box''

[#4]

Did you earn a lot on the contract? 
Mostly, when I see a client is unhappy, I offer a refund and close the contract.

Did you use your top rate perk to remove a feedback? You can use it for the biggest contract