I'm desperate

[pott3r]

Hey everyone, hope you have a great day.

So, a year ago I got into a dispute with a client who was asking for more work. Something like "I'll text you next week and you'll make another one". When I kindly told him that's not what was stated in the job description, he started being rude, insulting me, and... You got the point. Of course, I won the dispute, but Upwork allowed the client to leave feedback, absurdly.

It was at the start of my Upwork career, after two 5-stars jobs.

People have stopped replying to my proposals whatsoever. After a month of tries, I went for a low-paid job from a client with 3 stars rating. That's where I got a not-so-good review, which dropped my JSS to 63%. Stuff like that happens but after this scam client, it destroyed my JSS.

So, a year passed and I got 0 replies to my proposals.

I'm desperate now, I really don't know what to do. I tried everything, different proposals, taking niche jobs, low-paid jobs, honestly saying that I need feedback, nothing works. I feel like the first jobs are kind of make or break, and I didn't make it.

I asked different people on forums.

A guy who uses Upwork as a client told me that no one will ever open a proposal from someone with 63% JSS (if there are other proposals). 

Other people mostly advised me to change the freelance platform.

Is that it?

[tagrendy]

I've had 63% JSS before, it is possible to recover from it. For now, if I were you, I'd refund the 2 jobs with bad feedback, while it won't improve your JSS, but it looks really bad to have those 2 back-to-back on your work history. The 2 bad feedbacks are from small jobs, so their impact on your JSS is not actually as bad, if you land 1 job in the future of $500 and more with good feedback, it will likely bump your JSS to 90%+ . So, improve your profile, remove bad feedbacks, be more cautious for next jobs. While you do want to offer free perks & services to clients to attract them and ignore your JSS, you DON'T want to go for low-paying clients, as those are the ones who usually bully the freelancer to get as much free work as they can.

[martina_plaschka]

The time limit for refunding has passed. It's 180 days, I believe.