I denied to do free work and Client gave me bad feedback

[anwarkhalid1]

I was in contract with this client and completed all the tasks that we decided in our contract. He was satisfied with my work and approved my milestone. Before closing the contract, he hired someone else for other tasks on his website. Maybe this new person did something to website code and messed it all up. My client again contacted me after few days and asked me to repair his website for free. When I asked him to create new milestone for this new task, he threatened me to give bad rating if I didn't do his task for free. As it was against upwork policy, so I didn't do his work for free. Eventually he ended contract and gave me poor rating.
I went through his previous feedbacks and there were few more freelancers complaining same issue with this client. He is habitual of getting free work from freelancers.
I want to remove those poor rating from my profile? Can someone help me please?
Thank You

[martina_plaschka · Accepted solution]

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Muhammad A wrote:

I was in contract with this client and completed all the tasks that we decided in our contract. He was satisfied with my work and approved my milestone. Before closing the contract, he hired someone else for other tasks on his website. Maybe this new person did something to website code and messed it all up. My client again contacted me after few days and asked me to repair his website for free. When I asked him to create new milestone for this new task, he threatened me to give bad rating if I didn't do his task for free. As it was against upwork policy, so I didn't do his work for free. Eventually he ended contract and gave me poor rating.
I went through his previous feedbacks and there were few more freelancers complaining same issue with this client. He is habitual of getting free work from freelancers.
I want to remove those poor rating from my profile? Can someone help me please?
Thank You

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You are top rated, hence you are able to remove the bad feedback from your profile unless you used this perk recently. 

To avoid an unpleasant experience like this, clearly it is better to read all feedback on the client's account before agreeing to a contract, plus never respond to bad feedback, it looks bad on your profile. 

[feed_my_eyes]

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Martina P wrote:

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Muhammad A wrote:

I was in contract with this client and completed all the tasks that we decided in our contract. He was satisfied with my work and approved my milestone. Before closing the contract, he hired someone else for other tasks on his website. Maybe this new person did something to website code and messed it all up. My client again contacted me after few days and asked me to repair his website for free. When I asked him to create new milestone for this new task, he threatened me to give bad rating if I didn't do his task for free. As it was against upwork policy, so I didn't do his work for free. Eventually he ended contract and gave me poor rating.
I went through his previous feedbacks and there were few more freelancers complaining same issue with this client. He is habitual of getting free work from freelancers.
I want to remove those poor rating from my profile? Can someone help me please?
Thank You

---

You are top rated, hence you are able to remove the bad feedback from your profile unless you used this perk recently. 

To avoid an unpleasant experience like this, clearly it is better to read all feedback on the client's account before agreeing to a contract, plus never respond to bad feedback, it looks bad on your profile. 

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If the client has a history of leaving bad feedback, isn't it possible to have his feedback excluded? It would be worth exploring this before using the "perk". Perhaps a mod could weigh in as to exactly what circumstances are applicable.

[anwarkhalid1]

Thank you Martina. I really appreciate your help, I will ask support to remove that feedback. Thank you for your advice on replying to bad review, I will remember that in future.

[feed_my_eyes]

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Martina P wrote:

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plus never respond to bad feedback, it looks bad on your profile. 

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I don't see anything wrong with explaining your side of the story, as long as you stick to the facts. It would look worse to offer no explanation, IMO.

[purplepony]

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Christine A wrote:

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Martina P wrote:

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plus never respond to bad feedback, it looks bad on your profile. 

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I don't see anything wrong with explaining your side of the story, as long as you stick to the facts. It would look worse to offer no explanation, IMO.

___________________________________________________________________

Christine, I totally agree with you. IMO as long as the explanation is factual, professional, and brief, it's preferred. 

Unfortunately I've read some that are far more so rants written, and unfortunately posted, in the heat of the moment. When at all in doubt I've always found it best to think about something at least over night before acting on it.

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[tlsanders]

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Christine A wrote:

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Martina P wrote:

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plus never respond to bad feedback, it looks bad on your profile. 

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I don't see anything wrong with explaining your side of the story, as long as you stick to the facts. It would look worse to offer no explanation, IMO.

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And keep it SHORT. Even a rational, professional response runs the risk of drawing undue attention to the review and pushing good ones off the page if it's more than a couple of lines.

[anwarkhalid1]

Thank you Christine. I had same thoughts while responding to bad review. I wanted to share my side and show both sides of picture.

[wlyonsatl]

Muhammad.

A moderator on this board has posted here that in calculating each freelancer's JSS "...We exclude clients whose freelancers report a history of unreasonable feedback so their scores won't count against you..."

Unfortunately, there is no reason to think Upwork will tell you if this will take effect on any particular client's feedback for you. So I suppose that makes it possible Upwork would allow you to use your valuable Top-Rated freelancer feedback removal perk to remove feedback that Upwork is already excluding from calculation of your JSS.

[petra_r]

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Will L wrote:

A moderator on this board has posted here that in calculating each freelancer's JSS "...We exclude clients whose freelancers report a history of unreasonable feedback so their scores won't count against you..."

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The official wording is

"We understand that some projects have bad outcomes because the client is difficult to work with. So we track freelancer feedback of clients and flag those clients with a history of poor collaboration. If one of your clients has been flagged (or has been suspended for Terms of Service violations), then the client's feedback will not count against your score."

That client looks like there could indeed be "a history of poor collaboration." - If I were Muhammad, I'd wait until Sunday and see what, if any damage was done to the JSS, and then decide whether to use the perk or not.

[wlyonsatl]

The only problem I see with waiting until the JSS is lowered below the glorious 90 rating in its next calculation is that that puts the freelancer's 16-week requirement of the Top-Rated rating at risk, lowering the freelancer's streak to the bare minimum of 14 weeks out of 16 for at least another 14 weeks, even though the client's inaccurate rating would be out of sight if that's what the Top Rated freelancer eventually chooses to do.

Is this correct, Petra?

[wlyonsatl]

So, Muhammad.

You can assume the client's feedback will send your JSS below 90 at the next calculation and pre-empt that to assure the feedback doesn't hurt your JSS, or...

You can wait until you see whether your JSS goes below 90 at the next calculations and then remove it.

The first choice might assure your 16-week streak of 90+ JSS ratings won't be interrupted by a sub-90 week, but you'll be at risk of not being able to remove negative feedback from other clients for a while.

The second choice preserves your ability to not use the feedback removal perk if it isn't needed.

Neither choice is without its risks. 

Good luck.