Negative feedback (maybe three)

cppublishing · ‎10-29-2019

I have a client who hired me on a fixed rate job to lay out a book. There was no provision in our agreement that I would make editorial changes once the layout was finished (I always ask my clients to be sure the manuscripts they send me are finalized, that is, have been thoroughly edited and proofread). I’m not averse to making these edits after the layout is finished. I just don’t think I should do them for free if I have not agreed to do them in the first place. Aren’t we always urged not to work for free?
I’m always happy to fix any errors that are my fault without charge. He sent me a list of 67 changes to the layout. I checked these against his original document, and only 7 of them were corrections of my errors. The rest were editorial changes that corrected problems that he or his editor should have caught before they sent me the manuscript document, additional text, and other structural changes that he decided he wanted. The 7 errors that were my fault took me less than 10 minutes to fix. The rest of his changes, plus a few more that he sent me, took 3 hours to make. Why did I make the changes before arranging to be paid for them? Because I wanted to be sure I wouldn’t be overcharging him.
I very carefully reviewed his original manuscript and made comments next to his corrections pointing all this out to him. I said to him that in as much as this amounts to additional work not in the original contract that I would have to charge him for another 3 hours of my time. I asked him to create a new milestone for $150 to cover the extra work. He couldn’t figure out how to do it, so he set up two new fixed rate jobs, one for $100, the other for $50.
Now he has closed the original job and written a negative feedback warning my future clients to expect be overcharged when they hire me. This and the point score is gave me strikes me as unfair and I have nicely asked him to reconsider and change his feedback. If he declines, I will probably remove that feedback, which I can do as a top rated freelancer.
Here’s the problem: there are two more contracts associated with this one job, as I said, because he couldn’t figure out how to create a new milestone for the original contract. If he leaves two more negative comments, that will adversely affect my JSS. If he leaves no feedback at all for these two jobs, that will also adversely affect my JSS. Assuming he does leave two more negative comments I wouldn’t be able to remove them for quite a while. If he leaves no feedback at all, I won’t be able to do anything about it. Can I open a dispute with Upwork? Is this something Upwork can help me with? Or am I just **Edited for Community Guidelines**?

petra_r · ‎10-29-2019

Clark K wrote:
I asked him to create a new milestone for $150 to cover the extra work. He couldn’t figure out how to do it, so he set up two new fixed rate jobs, one for $100, the other for $50.

Mistake Number 1. You should not have accepted those. The client could have just paid you as a bonus.

Clark K wrote:
If he leaves two more negative comments, that will adversely affect my JSS. If he leaves no feedback at all for these two jobs, that will also adversely affect my JSS.

Have the other two contracts been paid? If they were paid, then just leave them be. Contracts with money paid on them do not hurt your JSS, whether open or closed without feedback, provided you don't have a huge number of such contracts.

Clark K wrote:
Can I open a dispute with Upwork? Is this something Upwork can help me with?

Nope and nope.

I would stay quiet and not irritate the client so they eventually forget about you. It was pointless to ask them to change the feedback because what affects the JSS is the private feedback, which can't be changed anyway.

tlbp · ‎10-29-2019

Petra R wrote:
Clark K wrote:
I asked him to create a new milestone for $150 to cover the extra work. He couldn’t figure out how to do it, so he set up two new fixed rate jobs, one for $100, the other for $50.
Mistake Number 1. You should not have accepted those. The client could have just paid you as a bonus.

Clark K wrote:
If he leaves two more negative comments, that will adversely affect my JSS. If he leaves no feedback at all for these two jobs, that will also adversely affect my JSS.
Have the other two contracts been paid? If they were paid, then just leave them be. Contracts with money paid on them do not hurt your JSS, whether open or closed without feedback, provided you don't have a huge number of such contracts.

Clark K wrote:
Can I open a dispute with Upwork? Is this something Upwork can help me with?
Nope and nope.

I would stay quiet and not irritate the client so they eventually forget about you. It was pointless to ask them to change the feedback because what affects the JSS is the private feedback, which can't be changed anyway.

Agree. Although, I would argue that mistake number 1 was doing the additional work before agreeing to a price for that work. Perhaps clients should know that requests for changes cost $ but it is up to the freelancer to clarify and manage expectations.

OP, I think that if you leave the feedback, you should politely respond indicating that you did not charge for any changes that were due to typesetting errors but asked the client to compensate you for 60 editorial changes that were not contemplated by the original scope of the work.

And, back to the managing expectations issue: The client is either being dishonest or genuinely doesn't believe the additional changes were outside the scope of the original work. Of course, they are going to be offended by a 50% after-the-fact markup if they didn't realize that what they were asking was outside the scope. That's a pretty big increase in the cost of the work. The client's opinions may be completely unrealistic and unreasonable but the conflict might have been avoided by a little defensive action. As freelancers, we can't anticipate every way in which a contract can go sideways, but it is important to be on alert for potential problems.

petra_r · ‎10-29-2019

Tonya P wrote:
Mistake Number 1. You should not have accepted those. The client could have just paid you as a bonus.
Agree. Although, I would argue that mistake number 1 was doing the additional work before agreeing to a price for that work. Perhaps clients should know that requests for changes cost $ but it is up to the freelancer to clarify and manage expectations.

That's a very important point which I missed completely. In fact, that may well be what upset the client most. It's a bit like blackmail. The client had no way to decide whether to "buy" the extra work or not because it was already done... Sounds like the client did the honourable thing and paid, but was not happy.

cppublishing · ‎10-29-2019

I explained everything to him just as I have explained it here. He was not blackmailed. I told him how much the extra work would cost and he agreed to it. He seemed a little miffed to have to pay more and frustrated that he could not figure out milestones, but I made my point to him and he set up the new contracts and paid everything. It was a very demanding job, but he got all that he wanted and then some. Though he never said so, he must have expected that the original contract covered anything he wanted from me. But he was wrong. So now he dings me with bad feedback. That’s all right. I don’t expect everyone to love me. The part I really don’t like is his saying that I charged him to fix mistakes that I made, which is not true, and he knows it’s not true.