A freelancer usually closes the contract after the finished job. Besides this, there are specific situations when it is okay to close the contract before the job even starts.
The situations when it is okay to close the contract by yourself are:
- The client didn’t put the money in the escrow. Every serious client will verify their profile and payment card. If the client did not confirm the profile or put the money in escrow, ask the client for a reason. Maybe it just needs time to be verified, or there is some objective reason.
- The client asks for more work and does not want to pay more. You should work on what you negotiate. If the client asks for the amount of work that is not arranged in the contract, ask for additional payments or that you need to log more working hours.
- The client is asking for too many corrections. Before you accept the contract offer, define the number of free corrections. Every added correction is additionally charged.
- The client is not answering messages. If you completed the job, send the done project and ask the client for feedback. You can close the contract if the client is not answering after a long time (for example, six months).
Job is not the same as written in the contract.
You accepted the contract with all the necessary job details, but the client asked you to do a different task and wrote that you will get bad feedback. In this situation, closing the contract and sending the message to Upwork support is okay.- The client blackmails you with a lawsuit without reason. There were situations when freelancers got a message that clients would sue them. The job was finished months earlier, everything went well, and the client did not close the contract or answer the messages. Months later, you are informed that you did not finish something good. You can contact Upwork Support to help you with this problem and close the contract later.
- You can not finish the job that you accepted because the client is not responding to your messages. The client is not answering, so you can not start the job. In this situation, write to the client, wait a couple of days, or even contact the client on LinkedIn with a polite message. If that does not work, close the contract.
- The contract is open for too long without earnings. This situation is related to the contracts that are not active. You can close the contract and leave feedback.
- The client asks for free work after accepting the contract. The client does not follow the Upwork Rules, and after you accept the offer, he asks for free work. Even if you wrote your hourly or fixed milestone rate. Contact Upwork Support and close the contract.
- The client wants to avoid collaborating with you because he found a new cheaper freelancer. After accepting the contract, you are informed that the client found a more affordable freelancer. You can close the contract and write in the feedback the real reason for closing the contract.
