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joansands
Community Member

How does a client make a feedback comment private?

Does anyone know what it means when a client makes a feedback comment private?

44 REPLIES 44
petra_r
Community Member


Joan S wrote:

Does anyone know what it means when a client makes a feedback comment private?


It's the first time I've seen "The client has made this comment private" on a profile. Maybe (and I genuinely don't know) that replaces the "No feedback given" that was previously displayed when a client requested to remove the feedback they left for a freelancer, which removed the stars as well. I've never seen stars to remain and the comment get changed to "The client has made this comment private"

 

Can you see the feedback the client left when you go to the actual contract and then Terms & Settings?

Petra - Thank you for your response. The only thing I see from the client is the stars. No other feedback. Sometimes clients have left stars and no feedback in writing but I never saw the comment before about making a comment private. Maybe Upwork has changed something again. They did recently change "this feedback has been removed" to "no feedback given" but never explained that.


Joan S wrote:

Petra - Thank you for your response. The only thing I see from the client is the stars. No other feedback. 


Right in the actual contract under "Terms & Settings" - rather than on your profile? It's peculiar, as it shows differently on the client's side as well.

 


Joan S wrote:

Maybe Upwork has changed something again. They did recently change "this feedback has been removed" to "no feedback given" but never explained that.


I believe that was a glitch as I've seen recent instances where it says "this feedback has been removed"

 

Let's flag my post and see if a mod can find out for us 🙂

 

Petra - In terms & settings, the only thing that shows are the stars.

Hi Joan,

 

Just to confirm that I`m checking this with our team and once I have more information I will post an update here. Thank you for your patience.

Update: Joan, our team will need to investigate this further and will create a ticket for you as well where they can assist you further and share more details with you.

~ Goran
Upwork


Goran V wrote:

Update: Joan, our team will need to investigate this further and will create a ticket for you as well where they can assist you further and share more details with you.


Joan, come back when you get an answer, because I'm nosy 😄

Petra - I finally received a message this morning from Customer Service that said my issue is complex and so the person has sent it to the Technical Support Team for assistance. 


Joan S wrote:

Petra - I finally received a message this morning from Customer Service that said my issue is complex and so the person has sent it to the Technical Support Team for assistance. 


Thanks for the update... it remains a mystery for now....

g_vasilevski
Retired Team Member
Retired Team Member

Hi All,

 

Just wanted to confirm that our team is investigating this further and is working on resolving it as soon as possible as well. Thank you.

~ Goran
Upwork


Goran V wrote:

Just wanted to confirm that our team is investigating this further and is working on resolving it as soon as possible as well. Thank you.


Thanks, but someone must have programmed that function, even if it is currently misbehaving. It didn't program itself and if it was programmed, someone must have devised it and asked for it to be programmed and have had a purpose for it in mind.

 

It is that purpose I am curious about, not so much the fact that it's escaped and gone rogue.

 

What is it, why is it, and when/what is it designed to be used for if it is used as designed?

We know it's clearly not working as designed. We (or I, at least) would like to know what it was designed for.

Even I have noticed this with one pf agency member, where star rating is there but for commect which was showing earlier now it sayd "Client made it private" below is screenshot :

https://prnt.sc/ubai2w

Hi Shashi,

 

I’ve shared your concern with the team. One of our team members will reach out and assist you directly via a support ticket. Thank you!

~ Joanne
Upwork
petra_r
Community Member


Joanne Marie P wrote:

I’ve shared your concern with the team. One of our team members will reach out and assist you directly via a support ticket. Thank you!


Could we also get an answer what this is about in the first place? Obviously some feature is misbehaving, but what feature is it?

 

Can clients "make their comments prvate" or not? If so, under what circumstances?

 


Joan S wrote:

Petra - Thank you for your response. The only thing I see from the client is the stars. No other feedback. Sometimes clients have left stars and no feedback in writing but I never saw the comment before about making a comment private. Maybe Upwork has changed something again. They did recently change "this feedback has been removed" to "no feedback given" but never explained that.


Are you sure? This feedback has been removed and no feedback given are 2 completely different things - first one to remove bad feedback, second one when either the client or the freelancer has not left feedback within the 14 days when it's possible to do so. 

Martina -

A couple of months ago I used my perk to remove some bad feedback from a difficult client, the first time I did that. So, at first it said "this feedback has been removed." Then they changed the layout of the profile page and then it said "no feedback given." Now it is back to "this feedback has been removed." But I never saw before anything about a comment being made private. I got a message from customer service that they are investigating that. All very mysterious. What I have learned lately is that I have got to be much more picky in choosing who I will agree to work with. I thought I was doing that but am going to be even pickier now.


Joan S wrote:

Martina -

A couple of months ago I used my perk to remove some bad feedback from a difficult client, the first time I did that. So, at first it said "this feedback has been removed." Then they changed the layout of the profile page and then it said "no feedback given." Now it is back to "this feedback has been removed." But I never saw before anything about a comment being made private. I got a message from customer service that they are investigating that. All very mysterious. What I have learned lately is that I have got to be much more picky in choosing who I will agree to work with. I thought I was doing that but am going to be even pickier now.


So the being made private was over a previous client feedback? That was not bad, or anything?

Martina -

I have a contract that was closed and it has feedback but only stars. There has not ever been written feedback - it just says right under the stars "The client has made this comment private." And I have another recently closed contract with the same thing. I have not heard back from customer service about this but they said earlier today that they are investigating it. At any rate, you can see it on my profile and I don't understand it.


Joan S wrote:

Martina -

I have a contract that was closed and it has feedback but only stars. There has not ever been written feedback - it just says right under the stars "The client has made this comment private." And I have another recently closed contract with the same thing. I have not heard back from customer service about this but they said earlier today that they are investigating it. At any rate, you can see it on my profile and I don't understand it.




 


Thanks for clarifying. It seems it appears when no comment was left? Will check my feedback if I see the same. 

I any case, it looks weird on a profile, as if the client said something horrible and later decided to remove it out of the kindness of his heart....


Martina P wrote:

Joan S wrote:

There has not ever been written feedback - it just says right under the stars "The client has made this comment private." And I have another recently closed contract with the same thing.


 

Thanks for clarifying. It seems it appears when no comment was left? Will check my feedback if I see the same. 

I've seen quite a few of them now

 

client made this comment private.png


Petra R wrote:


I've seen quite a few of them now

 

client made this comment private.png


The other thing new I'm noticing here, and I've seen this come and go on my profile over the last few days, is that the exact dates are displaying rather than just the month and year.


Wes C wrote:

Petra R wrote:


I've seen quite a few of them now

 

 


The other thing new I'm noticing here, and I've seen this come and go on my profile over the last few days, is that the exact dates are displaying rather than just the month and year.


I dont like it. Unneccessary and too distracting.


Joan S wrote:

Petra - Thank you for your response. The only thing I see from the client is the stars. No other feedback. Sometimes clients have left stars and no feedback in writing but I never saw the comment before about making a comment private. Maybe Upwork has changed something again. They did recently change "this feedback has been removed" to "no feedback given" but never explained that.


And just changed it back again. And changed some "perked" jobs to not showing at all, which have now returned. They seem to be pretty busy breaking stuff.


Petra R wrote:

Joan S wrote:

Does anyone know what it means when a client makes a feedback comment private?


It's the first time I've seen "The client has made this comment private" on a profile. Maybe (and I genuinely don't know) that replaces the "No feedback given" that was previously displayed when a client requested to remove the feedback they left for a freelancer, which removed the stars as well. I've never seen stars to remain and the comment get changed to "The client has made this comment private"

 

Can you see the feedback the client left when you go to the actual contract and then Terms & Settings?


Exciting! Feels a bit like discovering a new species, doesn't it? 

iaabraham
Community Member

I came to the forums because I saw the same thing on someone else's profile: "The client has made this comment private"

 

Would be good to know if this is a bug or another change we can all look forward to Smiley Frustrated

Isabelle - It seems odd to me that the moderators and customer service don't know what it is. At least, I have not yet heard back from customer service.

I've got the same message on one of my projects: "The client has made this comment private" but the client never actually left any written comments so instead of no comments only that statement appears now.

 

This former client left me a substandard star rating and then stated that he made a mistake and left feedback for another freelancer on my profile instead of the other freelancer's profile.

 

I contacted support and they didn't know what to do. The client never came back to correct the feedback and I never heard from him again. Welcome to Upwork!

etrusca
Community Member

I saw the same message in some of my jobs (with 5 stars). These are job completed since some months, and previously there were good feedback, and with some of the interested clients I'm still working. Strange enough.

BojanS
Community Manager
Community Manager

Hi Antonia,

 

I apologize for the inconvenience this caused. One of our agents will reach out to you directly via a support ticket to assist you with this issue. Thank you for your patience. 

~ Bojan
Upwork
etrusca
Community Member

Thanks Bojan

Hi,

 

I have the same problem with my recent completed Job. In my profile, under the specific Job It says "The client has made this comment private".

 

Could you please fix this?

 

The Client does not know how to make it public. Does this option really exists? Is it a glitch?

 

Regards,

Balakumar

Hi Balakumar,

 

Our team is currently investigating this and we'll follow up here once we have more information.

 

Thank you.

~ Aleksandar
Upwork


Aleksandar D wrote:

Our team is currently investigating this 


What, still?

 

And still mo answer what the feature that is misbehaving is designed to be there for?

Hi Petra,

 

We will not be able to share details about why this message is in the code but I can confirm that this code has been there for awhile and it isn't tied to any current or upcoming feature.

As for the bug itself, I can confirm that our engineers have identified the problem and will be releasing a fix soon.

~ Valeria
Upwork

 Valeria - I don't understand why you can't explain why that message is appearing on profiles. Was it just a mistake? A bug? What? After all, they are our profiles that the message is messing with and I think we deserve an explanation.

Joan,

 

Yes, currently the reason this message is appearing under contracts where the client left no feedback comment is a bug and our engineers are working to fix it as soon as possible. 

~ Valeria
Upwork

Well, Valeria, it is interesting to me - because that message appears when a client has left stars but no written feedback - but not in every case.

Hi Baris,

 

I hope you can help me. My client recently stopped his business and ended all of the team's contract on the same day. I saw my co-workers' feedback with a message reflected on their profile but in my case, up until now, it didn't. I had to verify it to my client and he said, he did leave one for me.

 

Now, I did follow what you have suggested and waited for a couple of days too. I'm just worried because they can see theirs within minutes but I'm the only one who got 5 stars but with no message at all.

 

Thank you.


Allyzza S wrote:

I'm the only one who got 5 stars but with no message at all.

If you can see the stars but no written feedback, then that means that there was no written feedback.

That said, written feedback doesn't really matter. 

 

That said, what I see on your profile is something different

 

made it private.png

 

This is somehing many freelancers have reported when clients have not left any written feedback, and Upwork have thus far failed to explain anything about this.

 

No written feedback is absolutely no problem or in any way negative. An announcement that a client made feedback private is not a good look, especially whn that is utterly untrue.

 

To check if the client left any written feedback, go to the actual contract and click on "terms and settings"" - If there was written feedback, you'd see it there.

 

Thank you so much for responding Petra. I appreciate you for being helpful.

 

Unfortunately, no message there at all. We have specifically asked the client to leave us written feedback and I know for sure it's true that he did it for all of us but for some reason, mine is not showing.

download.png

 

To be honest, this is important for me because it adds value to what I do. If Upwork couldn't be more direct as to what this bug may be, I totally understand and I really hope this issue will be fixed soon.

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