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dunsky-roy
Community Member

Topic for discussion , the important and open topic for all, please share your answer.

Topic for discussion , the important and open topic for all, please share your answer.
I noticed that there are people who open projects in order to get an idea in the end. They close the contract because of poor design quality, and they pay you for a feeble price.
Has the customer the right to weaken the freelancer's profile?
Has the freelancer become afraid of a customer swap because UPWORK takes into consideration the customer's opinion even if the customer has a non-professional conversation with the freelancer?
Like for example how can a freelancer keep his or her job success after dealing with such people? Yet how can he report them without wrecking all the built up reputation and profile?

3 REPLIES 3
wlyonsatl
Community Member

Benznana,

 

The Job Success Score system is often discussed on this message board, most heavily every Sunday when new JSS numbers are released.

 

The JSS is not intended to help freelancers do a better job on future projects or understand how clients actually felt about work a freelancer has performed for them.

The JSS is a flawed system that a) allows clients to provide hidden and inaccurate "feedback" for freelancers without any consequences for the client and b) makes some clients believe they are considering only the best freelancers Upwork has to offer by setting their JSS minimum at 90, despite the fact Upwork has provided no proof that the JSS actually does a good job of measuring future success and client/freelancer chemistry.

In order to make money Upwork itself must have most of its operations run by impersonal and imperfect algorithms, not people. The best a freelancer can do is fully understand all of Upwork's protocols and rules and use them when necessary to avoid disagreements with clients and limit the damage from unreasonable/clueless/dishonest clients. Unfortunately, many of the subtleties of Upwork's protocols and rules are unwritten, so the only way for a freelancer to learn them is to learn from (sometimes costly) mistakes, but reading what's been said about the JSS in the many threads related to it on this message board.


Whether that learning curve is too steep and expensive to make it worthwhile is a decision only each freelancer can make for themselves.

 

The Golden Rules I can think of are:

 

1) Don't accept a contract for work you can't do very well

2) Don't accept a contract for work you don't understand or, maybe worse, work your potential client doesn't understand.

3) Don't start work on a project until Upwork has told you a) the client's payment  method is approved and b) you have a contract in place through Upwork's system

4) For fixed price jobs, a) be very specific on what your deliverable is for each milestone, b) frontload milestones (collect as much money as you can with early milestones rather than taking most of your income on the back end of the project), c) don't start work on any milestone until Upwork's system shows that milestone is fully funded by the client and you have been paid in full for all previous miletones on the same project

5) For hourly jobs, a) only work when you can invoke the TimeTracker software you have installed on the PC you use to do work, b) DO NOT add manual time, even if the client "allows" it, as the client never has any responsibility whatsoever to ever pay you for any manual hours.

 

If you do all of these things well, your JJS will take care of itself. 

 


Will L wrote:

 

If you do all of these things well, your JJS will take care of itself. 

 


It might, if he gets unsuspended...

Yes, that's some helpful insight, Petra.

 

What did he get suspended for? 

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