Client told me he wants to cancel a contract as he longer needs the service

[walker-alexis]

A client ordered for my service using the project catalog. I asked him to fill some questionnaires, which he did. Afterwards, he asked us to hop on a call. While on the call I asked about the parts of the questionnaires he didn't fill and he told me he'll work on it and send me back his response in 2 days. Due to this, I could not get started with his project. While waiting for him to get back to me, he sent me a message 4 days after our call that he'd like to cancel the contract as he no longer needed the service. I reached out to him to know what was wrong, however, he hasn't gotten back to me. The delivery date for the project is in few days, I've not been able to get started on the project and the client is not replying my messages nor made any attempt to cancel the contract.

I'm so confused on what to do. Should I go ahead and get started on the project with the information he has provided or should I keep waiting for him to come online even though the project is meant to be delivered in a few days and if I don't deliver, it could lead to late delivery?

Please I need advice on what to do as I don't want this to affect my JSS.

[petra_r]

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Alexis W wrote:Should I go ahead and get started on the project with the information he has provided

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Absolutely not! The client told you that they no longer want it.

Close the contract, the client gets their money back.

[wlyonsatl]

Alexis,

If an Upwork client stops communicating with you it could be for a variety of reasons, which, in today's online world, some feel they don't need to discuss with you.

You may not have done anything "wrong." But that doesn't matter now.

Thank the client for considering you as the freelancer on his project and wish him well.

Then give him no more thought. Move on to clients who ARE going to pay you.

It is certainly not fair that such a zero dollar contract could adversely affect your Job Success Score, but that's just one of the things that make life unnecessarily unpleasant for hard-working freelancers.

[petra_r]

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Will L wrote:

It is certainly not fair that such a zero dollar contract could adversely affect your Job Success Score

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It won't unless the client leaves poor private feedback.

Furthermore all freelancers can exclude one project catalogue contract a month  from their JSS calculation.

[wlyonsatl]

Yes, Petra, I know.

That's why I used the word "could." This means it is a possibility, not a certainty.

Now, if I had said "will" that would mean there was certainty. A very different thing, as you may know.