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writermom1
Community Member

Unresponsive client

I have a client who hired me and she started the contract then I never heard from her again. I even messaged her back via Upwork saying I am ready to go. It's going on three weeks now. My questions are:Does it negatively affect my Upwork score or standing if she shows no signs of life?  How do I end a contract on my end?

ACCEPTED SOLUTION
tlbp
Community Member

You need several contracts before your JSS appears. So, even though this one may eventually damage your score, the effects won't be visible (yet). 

 

Two strategies:

1. Leave the contract open and hope that the client returns--it has only been 3 weeks. 

2. Close the contract now and take the damage. In six months, this contract will fall out of your JSS window calculation and so will the damage it has done. 

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13 REPLIES 13
lysis10
Community Member

Yes, any time you click the "Accept Offer" button, it affects your JSS.

 

I tell you from experience, $0 contracts suck hardcore. I'd rather get a blah rating than a $0 contract. 

 

eta: that's why I advocate for taking some money from a client. If they want a refund, they're already unhappy and giving you a bad rating, so avoid the $0 contract and get some money out of it.

prestonhunter
Community Member

re: "I have a client who hired me and she started the contract then I never heard from her again... My questions are: Does it negatively affect my Upwork score or standing if she shows no signs of life?"

 

Yes. If you close a contract with no earnings and no client feedback, this will affect your JSS negatively.

 

This means that you (the freelancer) made a mistake.

 

You can control whether or not you have zero-pay contracts, which is something you want to avoid. You NEVER need to have these, regardless of whether or not a client disappears.

 

In the future:

- Never accept an HOURLY contract unless you know enough about the project to do at least ten minutes of work.

 

- Never accept a fixed-price contract until you have all of the information and input files necessary to FINISH the task.

 

That's what I do.

So if the client disappears completely as soon as the contract starts? That's FINE. That is the client's choice, and doing so does NOT break any rules. I still get paid for the work and I don't end up with a zero-pay contract.

Thanks. I know enough about the project, lol. It's just transcription. It's
just that she said she'd send me audio and never did. Thanks for the JSS
tip, I guess I'll wait and see what happens.
tlbp
Community Member

You need several contracts before your JSS appears. So, even though this one may eventually damage your score, the effects won't be visible (yet). 

 

Two strategies:

1. Leave the contract open and hope that the client returns--it has only been 3 weeks. 

2. Close the contract now and take the damage. In six months, this contract will fall out of your JSS window calculation and so will the damage it has done. 

writermom1
Community Member

Thanks. I think I'll just leave it open then.

Sheila,

 

I usually close contracts when I haven't heard from the client for about 8 weeks. As far as I can tell, this has no significant effect on my JSS. But I also never have had a contract that closed for any reason with no income for Upwork.

Here's another possible option. I haven't heard of anyone trying this, and I would be interested in hearing what more experienced freelancers think of it.

 

I'll assume this is a fixed price job. You could put in a payment request for just part of the milestone value, just a small amount to cover your wasted time. If the client remains unresponsive, you will be paid that amount and avoid a no-payment contract. To avoid paying, the client would have to ask for revisions or close the contract. In the first case, you've got her attention, and perhaps she will then send you the work. In the latter (more likely) case, it's probably not worth raising a dispute, in which case you won't get paid. But you probably won't be any worse off than if you didn't try this.

 

As far as I can see, the worst that can happen is that you would end up with bad feedback as well as no payment.  It's not clear whether this is any worse for your JSS than no feedback and no payment.  At least the bad feedback wouldn't be visible in your work history, because there was no payment. 

 

If the client pays the small amount but leaves bad feedback, and you don't want the bad public feedback to appear in your work history, you've still got the option of refunding the payment, which would leave you in the same position as described in the previous paragraph.

 

 

Hi Will, 

Dosen't it effect on JSS if I close a contract and the client dosen't give any feedback? N:B: I have successfully completed two happy milestones of that client but from a few (about 😎 weeks, she is not giving anymore project or responding my message where I asked her several times to end the contract!

There are regular claims on this message board that closing a contract with no feedback can/does hurt a freelancer's JSS. I have no reason not to believe this is true, but I am not aware of Upwork having any public information about this.

 

It would one of the many major weaknesses in the JSS system that freelancers must somehow force reluctant/absent clients to leave feedback. That is a fool's errand at least some of the time.

 

I can only tell you that I usually close contracts on which I have not had any communication with the client and my JSS of 97 tells me my approach has little, if any, effect on that score.

 

There are posters here who have access to information about the inner workings of the JSS. I expect they'll chime in here if they know something about Upwork's unstated JSS rules that you and I don't.

From this page: https://support.upwork.com/hc/en-us/articles/211068358-Job-Success-Score

 

"Missing feedback is only flagged when it represents a significant portion of your contracts."

 

So yes, it can happen, but it should be rare.


Rafsun S wrote:

Dosen't it effect on JSS if I close a contract and the client dosen't give any feedback?


Only if there was never any money paid or you have a large percentage of such contracts.  As long as something was paid under the contract and there you don't have too many, it's not going to have any effect.

 

Will L wrote:

 

There are posters here who have access to information about the inner workings of the JSS. I expect they'll chime in here if they know something about Upwork's unstated JSS rules that you and I don't.


Considering that Upwork repeatedly confirmed the above it requires no "access to information about the inner workings of the JSS. " - just a little attention to detail and a memory for what was confirmed. Nobody other than the mods have what you keep claiming people to have (access to information about the inner workings of the JSS. ) You have the same access to the same sources: people's profiles and posts from Upwork and so on.

 

If stuff like "no feedback" affected the JSS there wouldn't be so many people with consistently 100% JSS and plently of such contracts in all calculation windows. It would be impossible.

 

That said, the OPs situation is different because no money was ever paid so yes, when she gets a JSS it will be affected because of that "nothing paid and no feedback" contract.

 

 

 

I have a same issue as I submitted the work 17 days from now but the client never responded but on the 14th day, he requested for changes and disappeared again.

re: "I have a same issue as I submitted the work 17 days from now but the client never responded but on the 14th day, he requested for changes and disappeared again."

 

Hassan:

He is abusing the system. He is intentionally exploiting that I refer to as the "fixed-price loophole."

 

When he requested changes right before the 14-day automatic payment was to occur, did he actually ask for any change? Or did he just click the button?

 

How much money is the milestone worth?

Is this the last milestone in a multi-milestone contract? Or is this a single-milestone contract?

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