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hardorff
Community Member

Is it allowed for the client to do so (The Support says yes)

I want to ask the community if it's me who puts too much in it.
The situation is that I applied to a job and in the conversation, I asked how much the payment was. The client then replied with this, "... i pay 5$ for it and 5 star review".

 

My question is: Is it allowed according to Upwork ToS to promise a 5-star review as part of the payment?
I opened up a ticket and the support isn't going to do anything about it.

The interesting thing is, that when I report a job as inappropriate (of the same reason), the support reacts and takes down the job.

 

So according to you, is this in line with the Upwork ToS,?
If it's allowed, it's going to be very easy to get a good job score. I can just offer a 25% discount if the client offers me a 5-star rating - which would ruin Upwork.

ACCEPTED SOLUTION

re: "Preston, if I'm not sure of getting the correct answer, when I contact customer support, how should I go about and get a correct answer?"

 

Dimitri: I can assure you that I do NOT contact Customer Support to ask questions.

 

You can ask any question you have here in the Community Forum.

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9 REPLIES 9
richard_wein
Community Member

Hi Dimitri. You're right, it's not allowed. It's considered "feedback manipulation", and it's against the ToS.

Richard, then I don't understand why the support says it's ok.

re: "Richard, then I don't understand why the support says it's ok."

 

Dimitri:

Individual Customer Support personnel are not the arbitters of what is allowed or not allowed on Upwork. They are human beings who are hired to help Upwork users. But they are not perfect.

 

One person's mistake does not mean that "Upwork says something is okay," or that "Upwork Customer Support says something is okay."

Also, keep in mind that there is a difference between what Upwork allows, and what you personally allow as a freelancer.


There can be a difference between what Upwork will actively enforce, and what we as a community of freelancers will accept.

 

As freelancers, we can enforce appropriate practices even if Upwork does not actively enforce our own understanding about how Upwork users should behave. For example, you (personally) should NOT respond to job postings which represent feedback manipulation. And you should refuse to work with clients who do that kind of thing.

tlbp
Community Member


Dimitri H wrote:

I want to ask the community if it's me who puts too much in it.
The situation is that I applied to a job and in the conversation, I asked how much the payment was. The client then replied with this, "... i pay 5$ for it and 5 star review".

 

My question is: Is it allowed according to Upwork ToS to promise a 5-star review as part of the payment?
I opened up a ticket and the support isn't going to do anything about it.

The interesting thing is, that when I report a job as inappropriate (of the same reason), the support reacts and takes down the job.

 

So according to you, is this in line with the Upwork ToS,?
If it's allowed, it's going to be very easy to get a good job score. I can just offer a 25% discount if the client offers me a 5-star rating - which would ruin Upwork.


Is that a gamble you want to take? You have said yourself that when you report similar conduct it is penalized. So finding one person in CS who according to you said it was "okay" would cause you to change your strategy despite what you know to be true?  

hardorff
Community Member

Preston, if I'm not sure of getting the correct answer, when I contact customer support, how should I go about and get a correct answer?
Maybe I'm naive, but when I contact the support, I thought they should give me correct answers according to the ToS of the site.

 

Tonya, I'm not going to do such a thing, but according to the support it's allowed. I even asked the same support employee and was told, I could do so.

re: "Preston, if I'm not sure of getting the correct answer, when I contact customer support, how should I go about and get a correct answer?"

 

Dimitri: I can assure you that I do NOT contact Customer Support to ask questions.

 

You can ask any question you have here in the Community Forum.

Preston, I start to understand why.
Thanks for the answers!

tlsanders
Community Member


Dimitri H wrote:

 

 

So according to you, is this in line with the Upwork ToS,?
If it's allowed, it's going to be very easy to get a good job score. I can just offer a 25% discount if the client offers me a 5-star rating - which would ruin Upwork.


Nope, sounds like feedback manipulation to me.

 

That said, it IS very easy to get 5-star ratings--so easy that Upwork instituted private feedback to make sure that a freelancer's JSS reflects what the client really thinks and not what the many fake 5-star ratings clients leave to be polite or avoid freelancer harassment would indicate.

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