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e_nisioti
Community Member

Best practice to end an active contract with a bad client?

Hello everyone,

 

I am new to upwork and I need your advice on what steps I should take to end a contract that is not going well in the least harmful way. The contract is still open (fixed rate), I have submitted work and the client has requested changes.

 

The short story:  I explained to him that the changes he is asking for are unclear and contrasting and, although I am willing to improve my work, I have no idea how to do it. Therefore, I suggested to him to close the project and cut my payment in half and his answer was that he is not going to pay for the work at all.

 

The longer story is: The client needs a text for an academic, research paper and a table that summarizes it. So far, I have completed the table, I have done a review of 32 papers (quickly going through one takes about 20 minutes) and I have given him a text that exceeded his required 2500 words. I don't want to go into technical details, but the feedback of the client sounds similar to something like this: "Your text has a lot of irrelevant information, you must remove the description of the vacuum cleaner and the washing machine." and "Your work is of bad quality, you should describe all the electrical appliances in a house." My client does not have an understanding of the content and is only asking for information that is already provided.

 

Well, the project is bad in many additional ways. The client wants the document to be approved by his supervisor as well, so even if I knew how to make the wrong changes he is suggesting, the supervisor would probably be unsatisfied. The client is also very unprofessional, contacting me often and insisting if I don't reply within an hour, despite not having anything urgent to report.

 

It must be obvious by now that I want this contract to end. As I explained to the client, after so many hours of research I could provide him easily with any text, if he could explain what this text should look like. As he can't, I am not willing to go through a cycle of unending changes. Considering the amount of my work and the fact that this contract is failing because of his bad feedback, I proposed the half payment compromise. My motive for doing that was not the money, but ending the contract in a way that does not look like so much of a failure to third-parties and leads to mediocre (instead of very bad) reviews.

 

After going through many posts in the forum, I still have some questions. As I see it, my options are:

 

1) raise a dispute while the project is active.

 

2) raise a dispute after the client closes the project.

 

What is the difference between the two? I have concluded that it is better not to file a dispute, as I value my time more than my payment, the client is very hard to communicate with and upwork cannot enforce payment.  

 

 

3) wait for the client to close the contract.

 

4) close the contract myself.

 

Is it true that I can leave feedback in 4, but not 3? Also, will 4 have a better impact on my JSS than the other three? This is my first contract and I am a Rising Talent, any ideas how big the impact will be? I already have an other open contract that is going well so I am not (that much) worried, but this information would be very useful for future reference as well.

 

I am currently learning towards 4, let me know what you think and apologies for the long post 🙂

ACCEPTED SOLUTION

If you want no money from that contract, agree to the return-of-escrow-funds request, and issue a refund of the $ 50 (those are two different processes, so have to be treated and considered differently.)

 

This will create a "nothing paid" contract and the contract will not show / vanish from your profile completely.

 

It will, however, affect your metrics depending on the feedback the client left while closing the contract.

View solution in original post

22 REPLIES 22
booksist
Community Member

Eleni, 

I am not sure what I would do. In a similar situation two and a half years ago I just refunded the escrow money and forgot about it - until I got my first JSS 😕

I wish I could see your client's history but it seems to me that he is one of those scammers who know how to get free work from newbies.

If you close the contract now, the funds will go back to him automatically. Whoever closes the contract, both of you will have a chance to leave feedback. If no money exchanges hands, public feedback will not show, but the project will count as unsuccessful and will hurt your JSS eventually.

... ...

I've seen your profile. Your background is fantastic. You'll be successful here. You just need to be picky. No matter how excited you are about completing the first couple of contracts, don't accept everything that's offered.

prestonhunter
Community Member

If you don't want to do this project, then you can close the contract. Nobody can stop you from doing that.

 

One of the great things about Upwork is that a freelancer can end a contract at any time, for any reason, or for no reason at all.

 

If you close a contract without getting paid anything, then it wil be impossible for the contract to show up on your work history. No public feedback will appear.

 

The client will still be able to leave private feedback. Can that hurt your JSS? Yes?

Can having a zero-pay contract because you closed the contract without getting paid hurt your JSS? Yes.

 

But how much damage one contract can do to your JSS depends on how many contracts you have overall.

 

If you are new (as you are), this could be a significant problem.

 

But reading what you wrote... It sounds like you SHOULD just close the contract and take the hit. You won't have a JSS show up until you have a few other contracts completed. So do well on your other projects and you might have an inaugural JSS that isn't perfect, but which can be improved upon, and even reach 100%.

Hello Preston. I wanted also to consult about a recent client of mine. 
This client filed a dispute because I ended the contract and claimed that I scammed her. 

I did all the work, but are waiting for revisions. 
Client released payment on first milestone upon submission, although it wasn't even half of the agreed amount, which was fine at the time.

Then I still did all the revisions requested. Client was rude and talks down and is really a pain to work with, even sometimes comments negatively on work that i didnt do (it was for a coloring job and client was commenting on the linework and drawings). 

I closed the contract, submitted the revisions, but i didnt take the last milestone payment. 
THAT MILESTONE WASN'T EVEN FUNDED TO BEGIN WITH.

Now the client wants full refund for the work I already submitted / done. Left a bad review, and I am on dispute. 

I refused to give this client a refund since it was time and effort on my part, and I did more of the work than what was actually paid. I sent all documents proving i did the work for the client and I didn't take any of the last payment (since it wasn't even funded to begin with)

Quite nervous on how this dispute will end.
Any advice on this?

kat303
Community Member

 The client needs a text for an academic, research paper and a table that summarizes it

 

I first need to ask, why YOU are doing someone else's academic research paper? Why aren't they doing it themselves? Aren't they in school/college to learn and not to pay others to complete assignments for them? Besides jobs that involve academic assignments are against Upwork's TOS.

 

I am so against having students pay others to complete projects, You should be paid at least half of the agreed amount. If this client won't accept that, and asks for a refund, dispute that and take that all the way up to arbitration if you have to. Hopefully, in the future, you don't submit proposals for this kind of work, You should report this job instead. (closing a contract will automatically revert whatever funds that are in escrow.)

 

Is his "supervisor" his instructor? If you know the name of this "instructor" or the class and/or school. perhaps you should contact them and let them know what this student is doing. 

e_nisioti
Community Member

Thank you all for your supportive answers. I may come back asking for a few clarifications later, but now I believe I might have been really scammed. The job posting was this one **Edited for community guidelines**

 

I accepted the job because it was research-related (I had no idea at the start that it was going to be about writing a paper), the client had only one bad review out of 9 and, well, I was a newbie. Basically, all his contracts have been assigning his academic work to others (judging by their names).

 

The thing is that the client has no photo and a nickname as profile name. It really struck me as weird how a upwork can allow this, whereas I, as a freelancer am making my best to appear professional. Should I report him to the help center? And what will happen to our contract after that?

re: "The client has no photo and a nickname as profile name."

 

Clients are not required to have a profile photo or use their real name.

 

I have worked for many clients who use a company name or other name as their client name, and/or who have no profile photo. This is a non-issue.

e_nisioti
Community Member

Hi again,

 

thank you all for your replies. I am coming with a new question, as this client has created a new issue. I hope it is smaller this time.

 

After the client refused to pay half of the fixed rate, I told them that we can close the project, as we can't successfully complete it. They proposed to give me 50$ (1/5 of the rate) to not share their academic ideas and I clarified to them that I won't get money for this and I don't want to sell them the work I've done. Instead of simply closing the project, the client approved the milestone, gave me 50$, asked for a refund of the rest (200$) and told that they wanted to pay me a bit because I did some wok.

 

I am quite angry at them, as I never agreed to this price. I also don't want to have any public feedback from this client or have this as a completed project, as I decided to report them after realizing, based on your replies here, that it is against the rules of the platform.

 

As I can see from the interface of the contract, I can either  respond to the refund request (which means returning or not the 200$) or I can give a refund of an arbitrary amount. What should I do? Accept the refund request and give an extra refund of 50$? Will this lead to the client not posting a public review and the contract not appearing on my profile?

 

Eleni

 

 

If you want no money from that contract, agree to the return-of-escrow-funds request, and issue a refund of the $ 50 (those are two different processes, so have to be treated and considered differently.)

 

This will create a "nothing paid" contract and the contract will not show / vanish from your profile completely.

 

It will, however, affect your metrics depending on the feedback the client left while closing the contract.

donnuel
Community Member

Please, I have this JSS bugging me.

New to the platform and wasn't aware of how things work here. But I know that there's some kind of feedback system, and being a perfectionist, I always tried to give my clients the best. I thought I was doing that until I saw my JSS for the first time — 88%. I was depressed, and I asked Upwork support how it's that low. They told me about inactive contracts: I have 2 open contracts without active milestone, and one has been like that since February and the other since March (all 2019). Besides, I joined Upwork in December and landed my first client in January. All together, I have only had 5 clients and 6 projects, 4 of which are ongoing projects.

With Upwork support telling that my poor JSS was from the inactive contracts, I acted on their suggestion and asked the client with the longest inactive duration to close the contract if there's no work (with the option to open a new contract when there's work), but I was met with silence. I explained the reason and even sent him the message from Upwork: yet, no response.

And this is a client that I'm sure is satisfied with my work. See his comment about the first project: "1st assignment and it looks quite good".
See the last message he sent about a month ago: "Yes Emmanuel. I just have been busy. I will come up with another pack for you soon." If he didn't like my work, he wouldn't tell me that he has more work for me.

I need my JSS to improve, so I closed the contract myself. Don't know if he will leave any feedback that will improve my JSS. I just don't understand these inactive contract rules, especially for someone that is new to the platform.
petra_r
Community Member

Emmanuel I wrote:
 I have 2 open contracts without active milestone, and one has been like that since February and the other since March (all 2019). Besides, I joined Upwork in December and landed my first client in January. All together, I have only had 5 clients and 6 projects, 4 of which are ongoing projects.

Those two contracts are NOT hurting your JSS. For starters they are not inactive long enough to hurt you and secondly, unless you have a very high percentage of idle contracts, as long as something is paid under that contract, it does not hurt your JSS.

 

What hurts your JSS is poor feedback (private and / or public feedback) or contracts that result in no earnings (ever) - be they open for 2-3 months or closed.

 

Don't bother asking Support about your JSS, you might as well ask your cup of tea.

 


Emmanuel I wrote:

And this is a client that I'm sure is satisfied with my work. See his comment about the first project: "1st assignment and it looks quite good".


To be honest, a client who tells me my work looks "quite good" is a client I won't work with again.

"Quite good" is something like 3 or 4 out of 5... or 60 - 80%

 

Chances are your JSS is due to private feedback being as lukewarm as "quite good"

donnuel
Community Member

For new freelancer, I was told that I need up to 8 closed contracts before
I get a JSS. I have only got 6, out of those 6, 2 were one-off contracts
and we're well rated.
Four were ongoing projects and one of those 4 just completed this week and
was closed, bringing my closed and rated contracts to 3, all of which had
5-star ratings.

I was surprised how they could give me a JSS with only 3 closed contracts,
so I asked Upwork support. I was told that they used all my 6 contracts to
calculate it, including the 3 open contracts. One of those 3 open contracts
hasn't received an income in 2 months. Also, another one last had an
activity 4 weeks ago. Upwork support told me that the inactive contracts
were the cause as they constituted close to 50% of the contracts they used
in the JSS calculation — according to them — owing to my few number of
contracts.
petra_r
Community Member


Emmanuel I wrote:
For new freelancer, I was told that I need up to 8 closed contracts before
I get a JSS. I have only got 6, out of those 6, 2 were one-off contracts
and we're well rated.
Four were ongoing projects and one of those 4 just completed this week and
was closed, bringing my closed and rated contracts to 3, all of which had
5-star ratings.


Again - don't bother asking Support about your JSS. You were told misleading quarter-truths.

 

Freelancers get a JSS which is calculated from completed contracts only. The only effect non-closed contracts have is a POSITIVE effect because ongoing contracts have a positive effect unless they are idle (no activity for 2-3 or more months) when they become neutral.

 

Most people need 4 or more contracts for a JSS but people with long term active contracts often get it sooner.


Upwork actively WANTS people to have long term, ongoing contracts, so don't worry about that.

 

Frankly there is nothing you can do about your JSS now, make sure you get future contracts go well and end well in a timely manner. The big contract that closed with enthusiastic feedback will probably have a significant effect at the next update and push you over the 90% line I think, and that is the most important thing.

 

I am still convinced one of your contracts ended with less than great private feedback, which is really the main factor for the JSS. Probably the one who said your work looks "quite good" - "Quite good" isn't good, or very good, or excellent.  It is "ok, but no cigar."

 

 

 

 

 

donnuel
Community Member

Thank you. You have been of great help.
donnuel
Community Member

Hello,
Please, how do I approach this:
I had a contract offer which I worked on without first accepting the offer. When I finished writing the article, I went to accept the offer so that I can submit the work I have done, but the system wouldn't allow me, saying my client's account is temporarily on hold. Please, what do I do? I contacted **Edited for Community Guidelines**, but they don't seem to have any solution for me.

**Edited for Community Guidelines**

petra_r
Community Member


Emmanuel I wrote:


I had a contract offer which I worked on without first accepting the offer. I contacted **Edited for Community Guidelines**, but they don't seem to have any solution for me.

 


There is no solution. Why did you work without a contract?

donnuel
Community Member

I forgot. I got the offer and worked on it when I had chance. The offer hasn't expired though. I have up to 2nd of May to accept the offer. But it seems the client's account has got a glitch.
petra_r
Community Member


Emmanuel I wrote:
I forgot. I got the offer and worked on it when I had chance. The offer hasn't expired though. I have up to 2nd of May to accept the offer. But it seems the client's account has got a glitch.

Yes, the client is suspended.
Have you asked the client abut it?

donnuel
Community Member

Sent a message but hasn't replied.
petra_r
Community Member


Emmanuel I wrote:
Sent a message but hasn't replied.

Yes, well, you worked for free then.

 

donnuel
Community Member

Please, has the new "connect" rule commenced?
kat303
Community Member


Emmanuel I wrote:
I forgot. I got the offer and worked on it when I had chance. The offer hasn't expired though. I have up to 2nd of May to accept the offer. But it seems the client's account has got a glitch.

Advice- If this is the way you work on this site, you're going to get burned a lot more then this one time. ALWAYS accept an offer BEFORE working on it, And make sure that not only is the client's account verified but also escrow is FULLY funded for the job or each milestone as them come up. 

donnuel
Community Member

Thank you. But that's the point. This offer was fully funded but I forgot
to accept the offer first or do I say I thought I could accept it anytime
till 2nd of May. Unfortunately, the client's account now has problem. I
hope it's sorted out soon.
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