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farahzaki_k
Community Member

Unresponsive client (she replied back)

Hey guys!

Okay so I took a job of $7 and delivered it on time. The client asked me to do some changes and I resubmitted my work last week (on Thursday to be precise) However, the client is unresponsive and hasn't replied to my texts as yet. Should I be worried? It was a fixed price project.

Please reply ASAP.

Thanks.

Edit: she replied back.

Need your help.

My client got back to me a few hours back. So she didn't reply me because she wasn't happy with my work. I did additional work in $7 which wasn't included in the job description. I don't know what to do now. She says my description isn't professional enough. I'm new to upwork and I didn't want any negative feedback. She vanished for 6 days and just today got back because I sent her a text message. The entire conversation is on upwork. How do freelancers deal with this mess? How do I deal with this?
ACCEPTED SOLUTION

Hi Farah,

 

Please note that a pattern of contracts without feedback can affect your JSS, which is the reason why we always advise our freelancers that it is best to communicate regularly and have clients close their contracts. 

 

I would suggest trying to contact your client again as there might be some valid reasons for a user not to be able to respond.

~ Bojan
Upwork

View solution in original post

29 REPLIES 29
BojanS
Community Manager
Community Manager

Hi Farah,

 

If the client has simply stopped responding but the milestone was funded in escrow, then the client has a period of 14 days (7 more days in this case) from the most recent work submission on a milestone to review and request any changes, after which the funds will automatically be released from escrow to you.

 

You don't want to submit the work more than once, since this resets the clock back to the beginning and you will have to wait 14 days from your most recent submission for the funds to be released if the client does not take action on their end. You can have a look at this article about Fixed-Price Protection for more information.

~ Bojan
Upwork

Thank you so much, Bojan. Won't that affect my JSS though? I mean I won't be getting any feedback from the client so I'm worried about that.

Hi Farah,

 

Please note that a pattern of contracts without feedback can affect your JSS, which is the reason why we always advise our freelancers that it is best to communicate regularly and have clients close their contracts. 

 

I would suggest trying to contact your client again as there might be some valid reasons for a user not to be able to respond.

~ Bojan
Upwork

We were conversing quite nicely. She just disappeared all of a sudden though. I've sent her a message but what if she doesn't respond? Can I somehow end the contract with minimum damage? I'm new to upwork and really want to build my profile with good JSS.

Hi Farah,

 

You can end the contract if the client is unresponsive to your request. A notification will be sent to your client requesting that they share their feedback for you. The feedback period is 14 days from the end of a contract. The system is double-blind, which means that feedback won’t be visible until both parties provide it for each other. If only one party leaves feedback, it will be posted after the 14-day period has expired. 

 

~ Joanne
Upwork
petra_r
Community Member

DON'T tell her to close the contract!

 

If she closes the contract now, she won't get paid because the escrow funds are sent back to the client and then it WOULD affect her JSS as a "nothing ever paid" contract!

 

Farah, simply wait until the client either comes back or the $ 7 have been released after 14 days.

 

Once you have been paid, the contract won't hurt your JSS unless the client leaves poor feedback.

Hi Petra,

 

Thanks for pointing that out. I'm sorry for not being clear on my response. You're right, Farah should have to wait for the funds to be released to her automatically after 14 days to ensure that she receives payment. I apologize for not being clear and have responded in general in terms of the freelancer's ability to end a contract. 

~ Joanne
Upwork

That's wonderful. Thank you so much, Petra. 🙂

Hey Bojan,

Need your help.

My client got back to me a few hours back. So she didn't reply me because she wasn't happy with my work. I did additional work in $7 which wasn't included in the job description. I don't know what to do now. She says my description isn't professional enough. I'm new to upwork and I didn't want any negative feedback. She vanished for 6 days and just today got back because I sent her a text message. The entire conversation is on upwork. How do freelancers deal with this mess? How do I deal with this?

Hi Farah,

 

I would recommend communicating with your client further about how to proceed and how to reach a positive outcome for both sides. Thank you.

~ Goran
Upwork


Farah Z wrote:
My client got back to me a few hours back. So she didn't reply me because she wasn't happy with my work. I did additional work in $7 which wasn't included in the job description. I don't know what to do now. She says my description isn't professional enough. I'm new to upwork and I didn't want any negative feedback. She vanished for 6 days and just today got back because I sent her a text message. The entire conversation is on upwork. How do freelancers deal with this mess? How do I deal with this?

Honestly, clients who make a fuss over a 7 Dollar contract are poor clients 😞

Ask her what you can do to fix the work. If she replies, see if that is a reasonable request. Then fix it, or not.

 

Unless the client actually requested changes, do nothing further. Maybe you shouldn't have sent her a text message. When clients go silent on you, just let them be. Wait until you've been paid.

 

Concentrate on winning new work. Stay away from cheap clients.

Thanks, Petra.

What if she leaves a negative review on my profile? Is there anything I can do to avoid it? I'm not really concerned about the money.


Farah Z wrote:
Thanks, Petra.

What if she leaves a negative review on my profile? Is there anything I can do to avoid it? I'm not really concerned about the money.

There is really not much you can do about that. You want to be super careful who you work with from now on. The first few contracts are so important, it's simply not worth risking working with the wrong clients at this stage....

Thanks for all the help, Petra. 🙂

I've received this response. Honestly it's not my responsibility if she didn't utilise the content I provided her. I did what she asked me to do. The entire conversation is on upwork.

Can I accept the task she's offering?

PS: She hired me for the about us section but asked me to do more in $7.
tlbp
Community Member


Farah Z wrote:
Thanks, Petra.

What if she leaves a negative review on my profile? Is there anything I can do to avoid it? I'm not really concerned about the money.

Be concerned about the money. You are presumably on a freelance platform to earn money. Also, if a freelancer's contract ends without any earnings, that hurts their JSS. So, once a contract has gone bad, there's nothing you can do. You can keep the money and get a bad review or you can try to avoid the bad review by issuing a refund and end up with a bad contract outcome. Either choice will negatively affect your JSS. 

farahzaki_k
Community Member

I tried to be as accommodating as possible. Not sure what went wrong. She vanished for 6 days without notifying me. It's just very unprofessional. She took all the docs (the extra ones too). I've made a massive mistake by accepting her gig. Thanks for all the support though. Means a lot. 🙂
prestonhunter
Community Member

re: "Okay so I took a job of $7 and delivered it on time. The client asked me to do some changes and I resubmitted my work last week (on Thursday to be precise) However, the client is unresponsive and hasn't replied to my texts as yet. Should I be worried? It was a fixed price project."

 

No.

You should not be worried.

 

Clients are not required to "responsive."
Clients are not required to reply to your texts or your mesages.

 

When you click the "Submit Work" button, clients are not required to reply or do anything.

 

If the client does nothing, then all of the money in escrow will be released to you automatically. (14 days after you clicked the Submit button.)

farahzaki_k
Community Member

Hey guys,

So I won't repeat what I said before on the forum but you can read the entire story here:

https://community.upwork.com/t5/Freelancers/Unresponsive-client-she-replied-back/m-p/786333#M480320

The 14 day period is about to expire. Today's the last day and I just received a notification that the client has made changes in the milestone. I'm new to upwork so don't really know what that means. Can anyone guide me?

I submitted my work on time. The entire chat is on Upwork. I pressed the green button once I sent the file via chat.

She vanished for 6 days without informing me after receiving the work which I edited for her 3 times. Also, she made me do extra work in $7. I didn't object to that. I didn't want to get any negative reviews so asked her if I could make further changes to the content. She gave me a new task altogether. I had other commitments too. I said I would send it. It's been going on for too many days. She asks me to do a task and doesn't like it in the end and then gives me a new one. I'm quite upset because she made changes to the milestone for something that isn't even mentioned in the contract. It's extra work.

What can be done? Can someone please guide me? I just want this to end with minimum damage.

I can see this right now. What does it mean?


Farah Z wrote:
I can see this right now. What does it mean?

I believe it means that the 14 day review period until you get paid automatically starts again. 

Stay professional but firm that you will not do additional work on an agreed milestone. 

This is insane. This is extra work and not what the job description demanded. What action should I take?


Farah Z wrote:
Hey guys,

So I won't repeat what I said before on the forum but you can read the entire story here:

https://community.upwork.com/t5/Freelancers/Unresponsive-client-she-replied-back/m-p/786333#M480320

The 14 day period is about to expire. Today's the last day and I just received a notification that the client has made changes in the milestone. I'm new to upwork so don't really know what that means. Can anyone guide me?

I submitted my work on time. The entire chat is on Upwork. I pressed the green button once I sent the file via chat.

She vanished for 6 days without informing me after receiving the work which I edited for her 3 times. Also, she made me do extra work in $7. I didn't object to that. I didn't want to get any negative reviews so asked her if I could make further changes to the content. She gave me a new task altogether. I had other commitments too. I said I would send it. It's been going on for too many days. She asks me to do a task and doesn't like it in the end and then gives me a new one. I'm quite upset because she made changes to the milestone for something that isn't even mentioned in the contract. It's extra work.

What can be done? Can someone please guide me? I just want this to end with minimum damage.

You already received good advice on your other thread, but ultimately it's your decision and there isn't really any way to get out of this with no damage. It sounds to me like your client is determined not to pay you, and if you keep working for her, she's just going to keep adding tasks and probably leave you a bad review anyway. If it were me, I would give her back her crappy $7 and close the contract, just to put an end to this nonsense. She won't be able to leave you public feedback if she doesn't pay, but the nothing-paid contract will hurt your JSS.

 

Others will tell you to stand up for yourself and ask for mediation, and that's a valid point as well. However, I believe that having poor public feedback is too damaging for new freelancers, and not worth it just for $7.

Should I politely ask her to pay me first and then I'll send her the file? I really don't want to damage my profile. 


Farah Z wrote:

Should I politely ask her to pay me first and then I'll send her the file? I really don't want to damage my profile. 


Farah, you already submitted the work and it's clear that she doesn't intend to pay you and will just keep demanding more changes and more work. I don't see any possible way that she's going to give you a good review, either. In my opinion, the sooner you accept that this isn't going to end well and just close the contract, the sooner you can get on with your life. 

Personally, over $7, I'd rather take the ding to my JSS from one closed unpaid contract than give an unreasonable client the opportunity to leave an untrue review. You probably can't avoid a JSS hit, but if you refund her $7 and close the contract, she won't be able to leave a public review.

To add to what others have said,  you do have the option to start a dispute,  and ultimately to go to arbitration, to try and get paid. However,  it may not be worth it over $7, since winning the dispute won't stop the client from leaving bad feedback.

Thank you so much, Sarah. I have ended the contract. 🙂

 

To all those who answered me:

Thanks a lot. 🙂

 

For every client, for every job posting... freelancers should be able to see this information: how many times has a client hired for a job that ended up not paying out any money due to the money being refunded. Then freelancers can see if a client is a habitual offender, and ignore job postings from such clients.

 

A freelancer shouldn't be put into a position where she needs to work without pay on endless extra requests in order to collect a meager seven dollars that she is owed.

 

Rather, a client should desire to promptly release that seven dollars to the freelancer once the agreed-upon task has been completed, lest the freelancer close the contract herself... resulting in a "devastating" full refund black mark on the client's stats.

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