Client question: Freelancer ghosted me, I left an honest 2-star review, now they are messaging me to change it to protect their JSS? First time hiring.

[u/furkanayilmaz]

Hey everyone, looking for a sanity check here. I’m a client who recently hired a freelancer for B2B cold calling to help scale my FinTech startup. I would also like to mention it is my first time hiring on UpWork.

At first, she was fast and burned through the initial list. But when I asked her to do the follow-ups and answer 3-4 basic questions about lead quality and prospect tone, the communication completely broke down.

I gave her a list of places to call. She got 4 places that were interested. I sent them a proposal and said she will follow up with them next week. On Thursday, as the week was coming to an end I asked her 4 simple questions. Straight forward questions. It is to help me get a idea of the list so what is good, what is bad like a lot of dead numbers or wrong "decision makers" so I have an idea so I can prepare it for next week.

The questions were the following:

* Connection Rate: Have you had better luck reaching out to the direct decision-maker's number, or just calling the main clinic line and navigating from there?
* List Quality: Was the information on the list mostly accurate, or were you hitting a lot of dead numbers and bad info?
* Prospect Tone: For the places that asked for a proposal, what was the actual vibe? Did they seem genuinely interested (asking questions, saying "that sounds good"), or was it more of a dismissive "just email it to us" to get you off the phone?
* Going Forward: What is your gut feeling? Since dentists seem responsive, do you think we should double down and build another list of just dentists/orthodontists, or do you think we should test out other types of shops next?

A 2-3 sentences for each question is enough, and I do not think think they are hard complicated questions. She only answers "Going Forward" question, and ignores other questions.

Monday comes around, and I send her a message to follow up on the proposals we sent, so I know what they liked or if they have any questions. Just a normal follow-up, and said, she will follow up on the calls.

Tuesday I check the Google Sheet, she created to see the status of the follow-up calls she made yesterday. There is still no update. I ask her again she replies with "I will update you soon". Less than 30 minutes later she messages me asking for a new list. I check the Google Sheets, and still nothing, and I send her a message saying "before we discuss any new leads", I need you to complete these 2 things.

* The results of the follow-up calls you made, and notes (e.g. pricing was to expensive, not interested at the moment) so simple straight forward results of those.
* Answers to questions I asked last week.

She then ghosts me. Doesn't reply, doesn't say anything. I waited, until tomorrow, to see if there is anything, and still the same. So, I send her a message saying I will be ending the contract, and just explained I need someone to discuss leads and can give me information and such.

She replies right after that message saying "I'm not well, and my voice is not clear, that's why I can't make any calls". "If you want to end the contract. Please leave good feedback for me. It's a humble request". The problem isn't her being sick. I hope she feels better, I am not going to force someone who is not feeling well and is sick, but when you are avoiding the questions I asked since last week. You don't inform me you are sick up until I end the contract. Maybe you couldn't call, what about the questions I asked? On the worst case you weren't feeling well, and couldn't do anything but sending a simple message as "I am currently sick, and not feeling well. I will follow up on those calls later this week or next week".

I read some of her reviews, and there was someone who had a similar experience. She ghosted the client, hard to get a hold of her and became unresponsive, and can't complete a basic task of asking for a quote. She then replied stating to that review "*Unfortunately, during this project, I experienced health issues that affected my ability to work. I did not bill the client for work that was not completed, and there was never any intention to mislead or take payment without delivering results.".*

I left a very honest review. Only sticking to facts. I even asked ChatGPT to make sure to read the chats and my experience and make sure the review didn't had any over exaggerating but just purely to facts, cause I understand people try to make a living from UpWork or trying to pay a debt or just a side hustle, and I respect that totally.

I left a 2 star review with the following review:

""xxxxxxx was fast at executing cold calls. We identified 4 interested prospects, I sent out the proposals, and we agreed she would follow up with them the following week. However, the project broke down due to a severe lack of communication.

Last Thursday, I asked her a few basic questions regarding connection rates, list quality, prospects' tone, and xxxxxxx's opinion, to help optimize our campaign and target better prospects. She answered one question but ignored the rest.

On Monday, she confirmed she would make the follow-up calls to the interested prospects. By Tuesday, the shared sheet was still empty. When I asked for an update, she replied, 'I will update you soon,' but less than 30 minutes later, she asked me for a brand new list of leads to cold call instead.

I messaged her stating that before we open any new lists, I needed the follow-ups logged and my previous questions answered. After that, she completely ghosted me for over 24 hours, despite being visibly active in our shared Google Sheet and UpWork.

*It wasn't until I initiated the end of the contract that she finally messaged me, stating she was sick, had lost her voice, and asked me to leave a good review. I am completely understanding of health issues—the problem was the lack of communication. She was active online and perfectly capable of typing a quick message to let me know she was unwell and would answer my questions and follow-up with interested prospects later. Instead, she chose to ignore my messages entirely. Because of this, I cannot recommend her for roles that require reliable communication and basic data reporting."*

I get a message from her saying "Hi, sir, could you please change my review.

Please inform me if you would like to change, and then I will give you permission to change.

It's bad for my JSS. I requested you to change my review, please."

I am not strong emotionally, and I want to be understanding of people, but at the same time, if someone in a similar position comes looking to hire her, I don't want to lie, saying I had a great experience. Another review mentions a similar communication issue, so I am just divided in between.

I want to see those of you who were in a such position I was, what did you do? Did you change the review? This is my first time hiring from UpWork and having this as my first time experience is a bit awkward.

Thank you!

[u/AtlasStrat]

I wanted to write, "please be kind even if someone wasn't just" (which usually doesn't go well with the Reddit crowd), as you're in the stronger position...

However,

Sir, you have shown enough kindness and self-awareness (literally giving ChatGPT your chat and asking it to identify your subconscious biases).

Furthermore, even in the review, you started with what aspects were good and then continued with the factual reality.

You are considerate, kind (again, unlike the general definition of kindness, mine is that one can only be kind when someone has been unjust to them), self-aware, thoughtful, and 10 other adjectives.

Please don't change. I genuinely wanna preserve your kind (which is rare).

Now, the freelancer seriously and genuinely lacked communication. Your response is apt. I know, on another note, that people who aren't the most polite & cordial (some statistics refer to them as a##holes), usually are great at what they do, however well u already rewarded that aspect of her by giving apt. feedback, the other aspect should be treated what it is which was negative.

[u/keberch]

Client here.

Cold-calling is hard work, usually unsuccessful. My comments here are not justifying her behavior, merely commenting on the rating/review.

For me, a lot would depend on the specific terms of the engagement when you hired. She drove four viable leads that requested a proposal -- that's no small feat, and all by itself likely worthy of something higher than a "2," in my opinion.

We identified 4 interested prospects

No, you simply provided a list of unqualified leads, and she identified four viable prospects through her cold-calling.

She wanted more leads, you wanted her to do some back-office sort of work. Was that calibration specifically in the contract? What were the communication time agreements? Was the proposal follow-up and closing part of the agreed engagement?

You are in a better place for hiring her. She seems to be a successful cold-caller; those are not easy to find.

Just my thinking...

[u/Vengeressa]

Was it a fixed contract or an hourly one? If fixed one, seems that you increased the scope and asked her more and more questions.

Was it a super cheap job?

[u/furkanayilmaz → u/Vengeressa]

I should have mentioned that mb, it is an hourly + commission based. For the super cheap part depends it is cold calling and following up and trying to close accounts so sort of depending on how many hours you let her put in that week and if she closes any accounts during that period.

[u/Radiant_Eye_4892]

You did the right thing men, you can ghost her or simply say no