Getting bad review removed

sourceprouk · ‎08-22-2020

Does anybody know if Upwork will remove a bad review if you prove that what the client said was not true or it was malicious? For instance, if in a dispute with the AAA, the arbitrator finds in your favour and confirms what you say? Or is it always necessary to use one of your 'lives' being top rated?

I just do not want to waste one of my scarce 'lives' on a rogue client.

wlyonsatl · ‎08-22-2020

Federico,

Whatever side prevails in an arbitration should be allowed to ask that Upwork remove the losing side's review/rating from public use, including removing any item that effects the freelancer's JSS if the freelancer is the prevailing party. (Upwork would need to decide what "prevail" means and communicate and apply it in a consistent way.)

As a freelancer, I'd also iike to know how often a potential client has been involved in arbitration and formal disputes with previous freelancers, but that is not something Upwork wants me to know.

sourceprouk · ‎08-22-2020

To clarify. Is this something that should happen or that happens?

lysis10 · ‎08-22-2020

You have to use your perk.

tlbp · ‎08-23-2020

Federico D wrote:
To clarify. Is this something that should happen or that happens?

It is a "should" not a "does."

I suppose that if you were to sue the client for defamation and get a court order, then you could probably also ask for relief in the form of forcing the client to remove the defamatory review. But, the arbitration ruling would serve only as evidence in the civil defamation suit.

Within Upwork, the only recourses I'm aware of would be to negotiate removal as part of the arbitration, use your perk, or refund the entire contract payment so that the review no longer shows on your profile.

Perhaps a moderator will weigh in with a more concrete answer.

wlyonsatl · ‎08-22-2020

Federico,

Upwork says it does certain things, such as excluding the feedback from consistently difficult clients from the JSS calculation for those clients' freelancers, without confirming exactly which clients this approach is applied to.

I have never seen an Upwork comment on how the results of arbitration are taken into account when it comes to either client or freelancer feedback on a project, so the safest thing to assume is that you have to use your Top Rated perk to remove client feedback on an arbitrated project, regardless whether you "prevailed" in order to prevent that feedback from adversely affecting your JSS.

lysis10 · ‎08-22-2020

The whole point of the perk is to deal with OP's issue. That's what it's there for. It's not there for "well, only when the freelancer is dead wrong and needs a get out of jail free card."

sourceprouk · ‎08-25-2020

No, that is not what I read in the information about the 'perk'. My understanding is that this is in situations when the provider makes a genuine mistake (even an ommision on purpose) that makes the job delivered below standard, not to cater for bad reviews from rogue clients.

prestonhunter · ‎08-25-2020

It is not Upwork's intention that their employees read feedback reviews and delete written feedback which is unfair or untrue.

Something like that may happen in extremely rare circumstances... but it is an unsustainable concept on a large scale.

sourceprouk · ‎08-25-2020

An advisor told me about the option to return all the money to the client and then the feed-back disappears. This is a risky option that should not exist. If there are rogue clients who learn about it, they could set about threatening providers to return them money, lest they leave them with bad feed-back, especially if the providers in question do not have the perk to remove the feed-back (it is difficult even when you are top rated).

I say that disputes related to feed-back should be part of the AAA arbitration service because then providers who are not top rated would have a means to remove malicious feed-back.

Also, Upwork is supposed to have expert mediators and those who recommend free-lancers. They should know when a rogue client is trying to take advantage of the systems or is just vindictive in the feed-back.

Providers are as much clients to Upwork as the buyers are.

wlyonsatl · ‎08-25-2020

Federico,

The JSS system is flawed in many ways, but I believe there is no possibility it will be significantly changed in any way unless clients complain about it, which they have no reason to do. (I have had clients complain about my feedback for them, but there is no JSS equivalent for clients.)

Each arbitration between a freelancer and client costs Upwork $291.

I doubt Upwork's average fee per project on what I assume are the projects most likely to have disputes about feedback is $291. If that is true, or even close to being true, there is no way Upwork could afford to allow/offer arbitration on all feedback disputes,

But Upwork has said the feedback from clients you describe as "rogue" is being excluded from all of those clients' freelancers' JSS calculations.

Unfortunately, no freelancer knows whether a particular client's feedback will or will not be included in the freelancer's JSS calculation. So, while a Top Rated freelancer can very occasionally remove a client's feedback, that freelancer doesn't know whether using that perk was wasting that perk because the client's feedback would have been omitted from the freelancer's JSS calculation by Upwork anyway.

This is why I have suggested Upwork notify a freelancer whether a client's feedback will be included in the freelancer's JSS calculation after both freelancer and client have left feedback on a project. Doing so would go a long way to reducing unnecessary stress freelancers experience after dealing with consistently difficult-to-work-with or obsessively negative clients.

feed_my_eyes · ‎08-25-2020

Will L wrote:

But Upwork has said the feedback from clients you describe as "rogue" is being excluded from all of those clients' freelancers' JSS calculations.

Unfortunately, no freelancer knows whether a particular client's feedback will or will not be included in the freelancer's JSS calculation.

You don't know for certain, but you can make an educated guess. I would expect that a truly rogue client will have left bad feedback reviews for the majority of their freelancers, and received bad feedback in return. In the OP's case, his client has only done one other project on Upwork, and both the client and freelancer appear to have had a great experience and left glowing feedback for each other; therefore, there's no clear evidence that this is a rogue client whose feedback deserves to be excluded.

And if the client DID have a track record of leaving awful reviews for the majority of their freelancers, we can read these reviews and choose not to bid on their projects in the first place.

The perk is designed to be used only on rare occasions - which I think is fair - and I don't think that it should be Upwork's job to judge whether feedback is appropriate or not. It's one person's word against another's.

wlyonsatl · ‎08-25-2020

Christine A. wrote:

You don't know for certain, but you can make an educated guess. I would expect that a truly rogue client will have left bad feedback reviews for the majority of their freelancers, and received bad feedback in return. In the OP's case, his client has only done one other project on Upwork, and both the client and freelancer appear to have had a great experience and left glowing feedback for each other; therefore, there's no clear evidence that this is a rogue client whose feedback deserves to be excluded.

And if the client DID have a track record of leaving awful reviews for the majority of their freelancers, we can read these reviews and choose not to bid on their projects in the first place.

The perk is designed to be used only on rare occasions - which I think is fair - and I don't think that it should be Upwork's job to judge whether feedback is appropriate or not. It's one person's word against another's.

Will L. is replying:

Christine,

Nothing in my post indicated I think it is “Upwork’s job to judge whether feedback is appropriate…” And I don’t expect Upwork to tell me what a client’s hidden private feedback was.

I only ask that Upwork tell me whether a client’s feedback is included in my JSS calculation. Even with that information I wouldn’t know what the client’s private feedback was, but the “educated guess” you refer to would be just a bit more educated and a little less of a guess.

There is no good reason for a Top Rated freelancer to blindly waste the perk if it isn’t necessary. Or for any freelancer to worry about every client's feedback being included in their JSS calculation.

feed_my_eyes · ‎08-25-2020

Will L wrote:

Will L. is replying:

Christine,

Nothing in my post indicated I think it is “Upwork’s job to judge whether feedback is appropriate…” And I don’t expect Upwork to tell me what a client’s hidden private feedback was.

I only ask that Upwork tell me whether a client’s feedback is included in my JSS calculation. Even with that information I wouldn’t know what the client’s private feedback was, but the “educated guess” you refer to would be just a bit more educated and a little less of a guess.

There is no good reason for a Top Rated freelancer to blindly waste the perk if it isn’t necessary. Or for any freelancer to worry about every client's feedback being included in their JSS calculation.

I was trying to address the OP's specific question instead of muddying the waters. He's not going to be blindly wasting his perk, because he does know which client left him bad feedback, and I think he can safely assume that Upwork won't consider this particular client to be a "rogue". If he wants the feedback removed, he'll have to use his perk.

sourceprouk · ‎08-25-2020

Christine A wrote:
Will L wrote:

Will L. is replying:

Christine,

Nothing in my post indicated I think it is “Upwork’s job to judge whether feedback is appropriate…” And I don’t expect Upwork to tell me what a client’s hidden private feedback was.

I only ask that Upwork tell me whether a client’s feedback is included in my JSS calculation. Even with that information I wouldn’t know what the client’s private feedback was, but the “educated guess” you refer to would be just a bit more educated and a little less of a guess.

There is no good reason for a Top Rated freelancer to blindly waste the perk if it isn’t necessary. Or for any freelancer to worry about every client's feedback being included in their JSS calculation.

I was trying to address the OP's specific question instead of muddying the waters. He's not going to be blindly wasting his perk, because he does know which client left him bad feedback, and I think he can safely assume that Upwork won't consider this particular client to be a "rogue". If he wants the feedback removed, he'll have to use his perk.

Exactly, how do you know how the Upwork view this client. Do you know the details of the dispute? No.

sourceprouk · ‎08-25-2020

Christine A wrote:
Will L wrote:

But Upwork has said the feedback from clients you describe as "rogue" is being excluded from all of those clients' freelancers' JSS calculations.

Unfortunately, no freelancer knows whether a particular client's feedback will or will not be included in the freelancer's JSS calculation.

You don't know for certain, but you can make an educated guess. I would expect that a truly rogue client will have left bad feedback reviews for the majority of their freelancers, and received bad feedback in return. In the OP's case, his client has only done one other project on Upwork, and both the client and freelancer appear to have had a great experience and left glowing feedback for each other; therefore, there's no clear evidence that this is a rogue client whose feedback deserves to be excluded.

And if the client DID have a track record of leaving awful reviews for the majority of their freelancers, we can read these reviews and choose not to bid on their projects in the first place.

The perk is designed to be used only on rare occasions - which I think is fair - and I don't think that it should be Upwork's job to judge whether feedback is appropriate or not. It's one person's word against another's.

As you noticed, he is only starting. And 50% of his use of Upeork is already roguish.

feed_my_eyes · ‎08-25-2020

Federico D wrote:
As you noticed, he is only starting. And 50% of his use of Upeork is already roguish.

Saying that 50% of his projects have gone wrong definitely sounds worse than saying only one of his projects has gone wrong - I'll grant you that.

sourceprouk · ‎08-25-2020

Will L wrote:
Federico,

The JSS system is flawed in many ways, but I believe there is no possibility it will be significantly changed in any way unless clients complain about it, which they have no reason to do. (I have had clients complain about my feedback for them, but there is no JSS equivalent for clients.)

Each arbitration between a freelancer and client costs Upwork $291.

I doubt Upwork's average fee per project on what I assume are the projects most likely to have disputes about feedback is $291. If that is true, or even close to being true, there is no way Upwork could afford to allow/offer arbitration on all feedback disputes,

But Upwork has said the feedback from clients you describe as "rogue" is being excluded from all of those clients' freelancers' JSS calculations.

Unfortunately, no freelancer knows whether a particular client's feedback will or will not be included in the freelancer's JSS calculation. So, while a Top Rated freelancer can very occasionally remove a client's feedback, that freelancer doesn't know whether using that perk was wasting that perk because the client's feedback would have been omitted from the freelancer's JSS calculation by Upwork anyway.

This is why I have suggested Upwork notify a freelancer whether a client's feedback will be included in the freelancer's JSS calculation after both freelancer and client have left feedback on a project. Doing so would go a long way to reducing unnecessary stress freelancers experience after dealing with consistently difficult-to-work-with or obsessively negative clients.

JSS is not all that matters. What potential clients read about you matters just as much, sometimes more.

mohammaddosoukey · ‎03-10-2021

Hello,
I am just done with my dispute, and I asked the same question.
Dispute and arbitrator, both of them about payment "funds in the escrow" neither feedback nor JSS.
So, there is no way to deal with that.

However,
I noted that feedback page was re-enabled? I mean went I wen to feedback page I found its available again as my previous one "client's one also" aren't their any more.
So, I am not sure what should that means.

Also, I found my "customer rate - my stats " decreased again, but I am not sure if that related to disputed contract or not.

Thanks.