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fortuner6023
Community Member

client is not sure about his requirements and changing the requirement when I sent him some works

Dear Upwork team, One of my clients is changing his requirement whenever I give him previous work according to his requirements. I want to leave this work because I know for sure that even if I give him complete work even then he will spoil my rating and give me a bad review. currently, he posted the same job with a higher budget. when I ask him to change he says it does not make sense. The budget of the project does not matter to me but I want my good review. and I think the client will never do this. so please give me some suggestions on how I handle this case. The client has not yet approved any milestone And i don't want either. only I want to close the job without bad review. if you want our chat screenshot I will provide you. thanks 

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prestonhunter
Community Member

It is normal for clients to be unsure about their requirements.

That is one of the great things about hourly contracts.

The client does not need to be sure about their requirements.

 

The client can ask you to do something today, and you spend some time on it, and then the client can change his mind and ask you to do something completely different. As long as you are willing to do the work, the hourly contract is flexible and allows the client to ask for whatever he wants.

 

re: "The client has not yet approved any milestone"
This indicates that the client hired you using a fixed-price contract.
A client can't "change requirements" with a fixed-price contract.
A fixed-price contract means that the client and freelancer agree to a specific task, and then the client funds an escrow payment for that task, and then the freelancer does the task and the client releases payment.

 

There is no "changing the requirement."

 

re: "The client has not yet approved any milestone And i don't want either. only I want to close the job without bad review."

If you close the contract yourself, without any milestones having been paid, then you will have a zero-pay contract, and it will be impossible for the client to leave public feedback. There will NOT BE any review on your profile page.

JSS will take a hit due to the zero-pay contract. But you have 100% JSS right now. You have already completed 10 jobs. I think you can absorb a zero-pay contract without going below 90% JSS.

 

One alternative that you may consider is communicating with the client and explaining to him that you can't work on the project any more, but you want to give him a bunch of work that he will find useful. Maybe you could offer to provide him with 80% of the work that he wants done, and charge him only 10% of the original fee. That way he can get a lot of money back. He may feel very favorably toward you and provide good feedback. That way you wouldn't have a zero-pay contract.

 

Keep in mind that the client can not get his escrow money back unless you agree to refund it to him, or unless you unilaterally close the contract yourself and refund the money to him. So you DO have some leverage. If you wanted to, you could click on the "Submit Work & Request Refund" button and ask for any amount of money, including the full amount. There is nothing that the client can do to stop you from doing that.

If you have finished the original agreed-upon task, then I recommend you start by doing that (clicking the green Submit Work button), rather than start with closing the contract and issuing a complete refund to him. If the contract was for $500, and you start by asking for $500.... then you can always negotiate down from that amount. But if you start out by asking for zero dollars, even though you did all the work, then that leaves you with little room to negotiate.

 

Remember: The client is violating Upwork ToS by asking you to do anything that was not in the original agreement. That is asking for free work, and Upwork does NOT allow clients to ask for free work.

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19 REPLIES 19
prestonhunter
Community Member

It is normal for clients to be unsure about their requirements.

That is one of the great things about hourly contracts.

The client does not need to be sure about their requirements.

 

The client can ask you to do something today, and you spend some time on it, and then the client can change his mind and ask you to do something completely different. As long as you are willing to do the work, the hourly contract is flexible and allows the client to ask for whatever he wants.

 

re: "The client has not yet approved any milestone"
This indicates that the client hired you using a fixed-price contract.
A client can't "change requirements" with a fixed-price contract.
A fixed-price contract means that the client and freelancer agree to a specific task, and then the client funds an escrow payment for that task, and then the freelancer does the task and the client releases payment.

 

There is no "changing the requirement."

 

re: "The client has not yet approved any milestone And i don't want either. only I want to close the job without bad review."

If you close the contract yourself, without any milestones having been paid, then you will have a zero-pay contract, and it will be impossible for the client to leave public feedback. There will NOT BE any review on your profile page.

JSS will take a hit due to the zero-pay contract. But you have 100% JSS right now. You have already completed 10 jobs. I think you can absorb a zero-pay contract without going below 90% JSS.

 

One alternative that you may consider is communicating with the client and explaining to him that you can't work on the project any more, but you want to give him a bunch of work that he will find useful. Maybe you could offer to provide him with 80% of the work that he wants done, and charge him only 10% of the original fee. That way he can get a lot of money back. He may feel very favorably toward you and provide good feedback. That way you wouldn't have a zero-pay contract.

 

Keep in mind that the client can not get his escrow money back unless you agree to refund it to him, or unless you unilaterally close the contract yourself and refund the money to him. So you DO have some leverage. If you wanted to, you could click on the "Submit Work & Request Refund" button and ask for any amount of money, including the full amount. There is nothing that the client can do to stop you from doing that.

If you have finished the original agreed-upon task, then I recommend you start by doing that (clicking the green Submit Work button), rather than start with closing the contract and issuing a complete refund to him. If the contract was for $500, and you start by asking for $500.... then you can always negotiate down from that amount. But if you start out by asking for zero dollars, even though you did all the work, then that leaves you with little room to negotiate.

 

Remember: The client is violating Upwork ToS by asking you to do anything that was not in the original agreement. That is asking for free work, and Upwork does NOT allow clients to ask for free work.

thanks Preston H, for your help regards this


Preston H wrote:

JSS will take a hit due to the zero-pay contract. But you have 100% JSS right now. You have already completed 10 jobs. I think you can absorb a zero-pay contract without going below 90% JSS.


He hasn't completed 10 contracts. He's completed 8. So one out of 9 is different to one out of 11..

 

The latter likely wouldn't drop him below 90%

The former may well do so.

Hi Petra, as per you say I have not taken any payment from the client, from beginner to till now, and I also approved the cancel contract request to the client. Today when I check my JSS it is 85 now from 100%. How can it be possible? I have been following the steps mentioned by the Upwork community from the starting about closing the contract. I also checked my profile there is no feedback provided by the client. All feedback is 5star on my profile except one 4.85. What is my fault in this? Currently, I am about to complete my Top-Rated Criteria. and then this happened. Please suggest to me what is my fault and how can I gain 100 JSS again. Please check again. if you want a chat screenshot with the client, I will also provide you.

petra_r
Community Member


Petra R wrote:

Preston H wrote:

JSS will take a hit due to the zero-pay contract. But you have 100% JSS right now. You have already completed 10 jobs. I think you can absorb a zero-pay contract without going below 90% JSS.


He hasn't completed 10 contracts. He's completed 8. So one out of 9 is different to one out of 11..

 

The latter likely wouldn't drop him below 90%

The former may well do so.


And it's dropped to 85% - as I thought it would. This is why it's poor form to encourage someone to do something that can have very significant consequences on a freelancer's profile without paying attention.

Dear Upwork Team, Thanks for helping with the previous query. I have one more query today and it is very important and needy than the previous one. Yesterday My JSS went down from 100% to 85%. I want to know the reason behind it. I am giving my best performance from my first project and earn 5star feedback from the client on every project. Two of those clients have hired me again due to my best result. You can see my portfolio regards this. Today I see 2 jobs that I can do but due to my less JSS, I did not apply to them because the client has a requirement that JSS will be more than 90%. Currently, I choose my freelancer career as a full time career. I am currently about to complete my Top-Rated criteria up to next month. and suddenly this happened to me. 

So it is a humble request to you please provide me better feedback regards this and how can I regain my JSS back to 100% 

Thanks and Regard - Naveen


Naveen N wrote:

Re: JSS became 85% from 100% without any reason


The cancelled contract hurt you, as we told you it would. "Nothing paid" contracts have a significant impact, and the client likely left poor private feedback on it considering the history.

 


Naveen N wrote:

how can I regain my JSS back to 100% 


That won't happen for 6 months at least.

lysis10
Community Member


Naveen N wrote:

Dear Upwork team, One of my clients is changing his requirement whenever I give him previous work according to his requirements. I want to leave this work because I know for sure that even if I give him complete work even then he will spoil my rating and give me a bad review. currently, he posted the same job with a higher budget. when I ask him to change he says it does not make sense. The budget of the project does not matter to me but I want my good review. and I think the client will never do this. so please give me some suggestions on how I handle this case. The client has not yet approved any milestone And i don't want either. only I want to close the job without bad review. if you want our chat screenshot I will provide you. thanks 


lmao wait holup. Are you saying you saw him post hte project again with a higher budget and you went back and told him you want the same budget money? Oh please say yes this is correct.


Jennifer M wrote:

Naveen N wrote:

Dear Upwork team, One of my clients is changing his requirement whenever I give him previous work according to his requirements. I want to leave this work because I know for sure that even if I give him complete work even then he will spoil my rating and give me a bad review. currently, he posted the same job with a higher budget. when I ask him to change he says it does not make sense. The budget of the project does not matter to me but I want my good review. and I think the client will never do this. so please give me some suggestions on how I handle this case. The client has not yet approved any milestone And i don't want either. only I want to close the job without bad review. if you want our chat screenshot I will provide you. thanks 


lmao wait holup. Are you saying you saw him post hte project again with a higher budget and you went back and told him you want the same budget money? Oh please say yes this is correct.


They way I read it, yep, he did that. Sigh. 


Martina P wrote:

Jennifer M wrote:

Naveen N wrote:

Dear Upwork team, One of my clients is changing his requirement whenever I give him previous work according to his requirements. I want to leave this work because I know for sure that even if I give him complete work even then he will spoil my rating and give me a bad review. currently, he posted the same job with a higher budget. when I ask him to change he says it does not make sense. The budget of the project does not matter to me but I want my good review. and I think the client will never do this. so please give me some suggestions on how I handle this case. The client has not yet approved any milestone And i don't want either. only I want to close the job without bad review. if you want our chat screenshot I will provide you. thanks 


lmao wait holup. Are you saying you saw him post hte project again with a higher budget and you went back and told him you want the same budget money? Oh please say yes this is correct.


They way I read it, yep, he did that. Sigh. 


ok I wasn't sure if I was reading that right. I love this forum. lmao That is hilarious.

yeah Jennifer, I have sent you 2 attachments in which the 170$ is that I worked on this and 2nd one is 400$ that the client posted later on yesterday.

 

**Edited for Community Guidelines**

Naveen, I can see that the client hired you to do a particular job. It looks like the client then posted a job posting to hire someone else to do essentially the same thing. But this time the client was offering to pay quite a bit more.

 

Did you see this and then feel that this was not fair, and so you confronted the client and asked the client to pay you the same amount of money he was offering in this new job posting?

 

You asked for more money for your contract because it wouldn't be fair for two different freelancers to be paid a different amount for the same work?

Hi Preston, it is because the client is not sure about his requirement from the start. I am doing this because it is my startup career on the Upwork, so I did not want to lose the client because of the budget. I told him in the beginning that this work is more than you say. I told him the budget 400$-450$. But when he offers the same job with too much high budget then things going to change now. That's why I contact to Upwork community regards this.


Naveen N wrote:

yeah Jennifer, I have sent you 2 attachments in which the 170$ is that I worked on this and 2nd one is 400$ that the client posted later on yesterday.


If you weren't happy to do the job for $170, then you shouldn't have agreed to do the job for $170. It's quite likely that the client decided to re-post his job with a higher budget because he was looking for somebody with better skills and more experience. Just because the project is the same, that doesn't mean that everybody who bids on the job is worth the same amount of money.

Your JSS is going to be affected by this contract. Those are the rules--if you agree to a contract, the client gets to review you. The only way to possibly avoid any part of the review is for you to close the job without accepting any payment (or refund any payment you've received.) Even then, the client can still leave private feedback AND your JSS will reflect a zero payment contract. 

There is no "but I don't want to live with this decision" way out. You took the contract, you live with the outcome. You ask the client for more money mid-contract, you live with the client's reaction to that. 

Upwork is a hard place to learn these lessons because everything you do has a long-lasting consequence. Bad reviews can be eliminated by obtaining Top Rated status and then using a Top Rated perk or waiting for them to fall out of your calculation window. 

Hi Tonya, as per you say I have not taken any payment from the client, from beginner to till now, and I also approved the cancel contract request to the client. Today when I check my JSS it is 85 now from 100%. How can it be possible? I have been following the steps mentioned by the Upwork community from the starting about closing the contract. I also checked my profile there is no feedback provided by the client. All feedback is 5star on my profile except one 4.85. What is my fault in this? Currently, I am about to complete my Top-Rated Criteria. and then this happened. Please suggest to me what is my fault and how can I gain 100 JSS again. Please check again. if you want a chat screenshot with the client, I will also provide you.


Naveen N wrote:

Hi Tonya, as per you say I have not taken any payment from the client, from beginner to till now, and I also approved the cancel contract request to the client. Today when I check my JSS it is 85 now from 100%. How can it be possible? I have been following the steps mentioned by the Upwork community from the starting about closing the contract. I also checked my profile there is no feedback provided by the client. All feedback is 5star on my profile except one 4.85. What is my fault in this? Currently, I am about to complete my Top-Rated Criteria. and then this happened. Please suggest to me what is my fault and how can I gain 100 JSS again. Please check again. if you want a chat screenshot with the client, I will also provide you.


You were warned after your very first post that a "nothing paid" contract would hurt your JSS, and that's exactly what happened. There's no point in showing your chat screen, because if you don't get paid anything, then Upwork considers your contract to have been unsuccessful. Also, clients leave private feedback as well as public feedback, so the stars that you're seeing are only a small part of your JSS calculation. But you have relatively few contracts, so you should be able to get your JSS back up again quite quickly. 


Christine A wrote:

Naveen N wrote:

Hi Tonya, as per you say I have not taken any payment from the client, from beginner to till now, and I also approved the cancel contract request to the client. Today when I check my JSS it is 85 now from 100%. How can it be possible? 


You were warned after your very first post that a "nothing paid" contract would hurt your JSS, and that's exactly what happened. 


Yep, but Preston told him that it probably wouldn't drop him below 90% because he calculated with the wrong number of completed contracts. It was clear that this was going to end in tears and I said so at the time. But people want to hear what they want to hear. Another "victim" of poor advice all too eagerly followed.

Hi Christine, after taking advice from the Upwork community I had closed the job till you gave the warning. Can you do it manually because I almost delivered 80% of the work to the client with paid? This will affect my productivity. I think it is not my fault. I only follow the guideline provided by yours. If I have to get paid for this contract then it is fine for me to accept the JSS score.  

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