Help with a client

helena1103 · ‎11-10-2020

Hello Freelancers,

I am new at Upwork, and work mainly as a translator. I had a French/Portuguese (Europe) translation contract, that I delivered on time, and in my opinion, a good translation to my mother language.

This client never replied to me after having the job done, and payement was only released when it reached the 14 days term. As the client never told me anything about my work, I started to research and found the site I had translated to European Portuguese.... translated in Brazilian Portuguese. He knew perfectly that I am from Portugal, and, honestly, I don't like the translation he chose.

Now, my problem is: I depend a LOT on feedbacks, since I am starting (just have one), and don't know what this client is going to say about me (if he is going to say something); the feedback submissions are made at the same time (client/Freelancer), and I don't know if I should mention (in a polite way, of course) what happened.

Can you, more experienced freelancers, advise me what to do?

By the way..... how can I get more contracts? Is my profile not good enough?

Thank you for your help.

Helena Silva

a_lipsey · ‎11-10-2020

You have some options. You could reach out and say you realize the translation is not quite accurate based on dialect (sorry, I'm not a translator so "translate" this to whatever language will work), and that you'd be open to making edits if he needs them.

You could also just wait until he closes the contract and leaves feedback and see what happens.

If he hasn't said anything and it's been 2 weeks, he's probably not going to even come back and leave feedback. You could close the contract from your side and see if he even bothers to leave feedback. Or you could just leave it open and wait. You've received payment so there's no harm to really leave it open.

Without knowing the tenor of your relationship with the client, I can't say which step to follow. Sometimes it's best to let sleeping dogs lie. Sometimes it's good to be forthright with communication. You could just drop him a line and see if everything was satisfactory.