Make private reviews public!

[spectralua]

One of my clients shat on me in a private review and is afraid to admit it. Naturally, I will not work with him anymore if he is not satisfied. But why do I not have the right to know exactly who is not happy? Or should I stop working with everyone who has left feedback lately? But I don't want to offend normal people by refusing for inadequate reason.

How long will these idiotic games with the secret JSS go on? Many freelancers claimed, noone was answered. Business must be transparent!

**Edited for Community Guidelines**

[6bfcdaf8]

JSS is not for you, it is for the potential new customer. So for example you work with Client A and complete a job. Now Client B is considering to work with you, reaches out to Client A and asks them about their experience. Client A can say anything they want and you have no control over it. It's also a private conversation so you won't even know what they have said about you. 

So we need to accept this a part of the job i believe. And we should be careful when picking who we work with. Still, accidents happen. 

[spectralua]

Not certainly in that way. Client B can tell me. And if client A lied then he harmed business reputation, this is punishable. There is no point in lying: if you are not satisfied, say that you are not satisfied.

Now back to my case. The work is completed and while the client was closing the contract, I checked the diaries and contracts, saw 100 JSS. After the closing of the contract JSS fell by 2 percent. It took less than 5 minutes and clearly this contract has changed JSS. I asked the client why he was not happy and what was wrong. He replied that he was satisfied and left a good review. He even showed me a screenshot since he is a regular client and he intends to continue cooperation. This was not a recalculation of the JSS cycle, this was not the transition of the day 00 UTC, this was not the transition of my day. It turns out that at the time of closing the contract Upwork changed my JSS. I want to know the reasons. I'm sick of this crap about secret calculation mechanisms and sick of this lie from Upwork. If you're ruining my reputation which causes me loss then I want to know about it. Clearly but not answers from stupid chatGPT bots that this is all secret and we will not tell you anything.

[6bfcdaf8]

I thought jss was calculated every 2 weeks on sundays. Maybe your contract close coincided with this cycle?

[spectralua]

Maybe. But it was within 5 minutes, from 16:12 to 16:15 UTC. That's why I want to know.

I would have guessed if 00:00 was moved to Monday. Therefore, I am sure that the closing of the contract was the trigger. But Upwork say (or lie) that is impossible. Also it was good feedback.

Thats why i asking for transparency: did job, got bad feedback, got JSS drop, got lesson nd moving forward with no guessing and time wasting.

[hoyle_editing]

Mykola, 

  Im pretty sure i have said this before, but i was told a long time ago by support that private feedback wont immediately change and translates to your score at other intervals for the specific reason of not letting you know where it has come from. 

Now, I dont know how accurate that is, but it certainly adds up from what i have seen from my own experiance and others posting here.

Aside from that, the fact remains your jss has gone down, as others have said it is intentionally private and whilst i understand (and sympathise) that you would like to be told by a client honestly if they have any problem of sorts, its just not going to happen and something you need to let go of. The client is well within thier right to have a private conversation about someone they have paid to do work, which is essentially the idea of private feedback.

I agree that it would be nice if all clients were 100% straight and honest but in reality that rarely happens or most people wouldnt have the amount of perfect 5star reviews that they do.

[spectralua]

I opened this thread to find out what's going on. In the case of open reviews, this question would not have arisen. I'm not worried about a bad review, it happens. But what happened is contrary to everything that is written on the forums and in the rules.

So the facts:

4:12PM I have 100 JSS. 

4:15PM client closed the contract with 5\5 10\10 review. This is true, the client confirmed.

4:16PM My JSS is down for 2 percent.

Even later I realized that this was the only one review in last 2 weeks.

[hoyle_editing]

OK, Well, the only way to know for 100% sure would be to use the perk (if you have it) to remove the private feedback from your calculation. Once removed if your jss goes up then you know for sure.

[spectralua]

I'll save this for a more important occasion. A lot of scammers and blackmailers here, the perk should be spent only when necessary. 🙂

[hoyle_editing]

Whilst i see your point - does it not refresh in 30 days anyway, or maybe its 60/90? i have seen you comment on this particular feedback on more than one occasion, id use it just to stop you wondering and put your mind to rest!

I was told some time ago that private feedback was not calculated at a set point of one specific job closure, for exmple it may take 3 private feedabcks to be accumalted before the score drops in, or maybe 2 or maybe 5 - the number is irrelevant, but it is so you dont know where it came from.

This number could change, may or may not always be applicable, but is there to protect the privicy of the feedback.

From memory I have used the perk 3 times that i remember over the years - each time i thought i knew which feedback it was....

one was a bad feedback and quite obvious, the client and I ended up in arbitration so that one was clear as day.

The next one my jss dropped after closing a (good feedback) job, I used the perk and there was no change.

The final one was when my JSS dropped to 99 after a (good feedback) job closure, this time my JSS did go back up.

[spectralua]

That's why I want transparency.

A perk is the only thing that will protect you where an Upwork should. For example, your case with arbitration: Upwork must to prohibit reviews after arbitrage. Also delete reviews from scammers. Upwork does nothing at all. For example, I can hire you with bot and give you a bad review, it will cost me $5 total. And Upwork won't do anything.

[hoyle_editing]

No, you cant because I would not take a bot job for $5 - $500 maybe, i will take the bad review for that 😉

Seriously though, in all fairness it wasnt arbitration (it was the stage before that where upwork are involved but i forget the name) I do beleive that arbitration cases do not have reviews.

Scammer reviews - i thought if it was a scammer they were removed along with any review ect?

I understand your wish for transparency, but it doesnt work, thats why they came up with the private feedback/JSS -

At the moment most professionals on the platform are aiming to get a 5* review with their client, and most of the time people do get it. However, this is not a reall representation as there is no way so many people are that perfect that often, sorry but thats just not true. I know myself from all of my 5* reviews I could easily critique some of them and bring them down a bit. If private feedback wasnt private it would go the same way.

What i think they should do if anything, is scrap the public feedback score, change it to "testimonials" only where clients can leave a written review only. This aligns much better with real world business models and would stop any conflict between the differing scales of the current 2 systems. Then private feedback remains 'as is'.  

[spectralua]

Bot can promice you 500 or 500000, dont matter. $5 needed for verification and contract started, thats all. Then private feedback your for sure.

Scammer deleted but review left. I have some. Upwork rejected to delete it.

About 5: rules must be same for all. One who received true feedback (an 4.4 for example, it is not bad) will outside and never will be hired a while other have default 5. Also 4.4 is 88% JSS, no more TopRated. Realy now feedback is binary: 5 is good, 4.9 is bad.

[tlsanders]

Private reviews are necessary because public reviews are absolutely meaningless. The world's greatest freelancer who made $1 million for the company and the one who narrowly avoiding burning the client's house down both demand and usually get five meaningless stars. They should eliminate the fraudulent public reviews. 

[PradeepH]

Hi Mykola,

I understand your concern and frustration with the transparency of the private review process. The private feedback system is in place to prevent instances of fraud, retaliation and feedback manipulation. This will also help to gain honest, trustworthy insight into client satisfaction.

Thank you,

Pradeep

[spectralua]

I know how it is argued. I say that it does not match what is described. Openness will avoid misunderstanding. In this case I see cheating from Upwork. And I don't understand why do that. Or system bug. Is same because bug is also will be "very secret bug".

So i need clear answer: it was this feedback, other feedback, it was error, what it was? Or transparent system\rules to avoid such question. I see users created JSS related topics hourly becouse very large secret here. And this secret only to cover tricky cheaters\crooks but not for benefits of honest FL\CLs.

[yofazza]

if you are not satisfied, say that you are not satisfied

Some (most?) people are just not like that or have changed into not being like that.

I used to be 'very honest' to clients, but I've changed. Right now, I prefer to keep quiet (and prevent future cooperation) with clients I don't like. I don't say anything public or to their faces anymore. It's just that I don't want to introduce more drama and prefer to just 'let it go'.

You can see in my (currently) second feedback. The client, coming from hell, keeps saying things like 'I have a freelancer who can do this but he's not available right now'  on some impossible things to do, and also some other silly things he said, but I keep being polite and provided him with a public 5 stars (and plan to respond if his feedback 'needs to be responded' which it does).

So, this is a problem. The 'public rating system' will be inaccurate. It's not only here, but it happens in all gig-economy businesses.

You'll of course occasionally see "honest-bad-feedback" and also "bad feedback even if they're not true" sometimes. I used to give bad feedbacks to Uber drivers who missed a turn  when they're approaching my location (you can argue if this is 'real-honest' or 'bad but not true'), but not anymore.

So, private feedback tries to address this problem (although it reduced the JSS in my example above).

[bilsim]

Private feedback can be inaccurate too. Can you provide evidence that private feedback is always accurate?

That's the problem here. Anybody can write anything and there's no control system.