How on Earth does Guru justify letting freelancers block negative feedback?

There is another question here that MUST be asked. If the freelancer was that horrible and didn't do what they should have, when they should have, WHY did you even pay them? Shouldn't you have contact Guru for help before issuing payment to someone who wasn't doing the work you requested? In order to even leave feedback in the first place, payment had to be made. Does it not seem logical that if the work was substandard or nonexistent in the first place, you wouldn't pay for it and would lodge a dispute? As far as the freelancer likely knew, their work had been accepted and was good, because you paid them. I don't blame them in a way for blocking the feedback in that case, because their understanding was that everyone was happy.
Don't get me wrong, there are awful freelancers out there. I've seen a few in my time as well, but there has to be more to this story than just someone receiving horrible work and paying for it, only to complain afterward. If the work was valuable, it would have been checked over before payment was made, and corrective action taken at that time.

I'm sorry to hear that you had a bad experience. Just so you know, blocking power only goes so far. It's determined by the amount of money you make which gives you credit to remove feedback but you can only do it a few times before you run out.

I've had to use the "block" feedback only 1 time in the past 9 years and I was grateful it existed. It was an employer who was a handful and although I provided him everything and then some he left me a 1 star rating because he was upset that I wouldn't bend over backwards and go beyond the scope of the project. This is where it came in handy because it was just malicious what he did.

In your case, you should file a complaint against the freelancer through Guru. If they are made aware of what happened they'll keep an eye on the freelancer and if more issues arise they will deal with it.

Also, reviews only go so far. You would be surprised how many employers don't even read them. I've had companies hire me and then after the fact they realize that reviews exist.

Good luck! I hope you don't give up on Guru. There are tons of great, loyal and trustworthy workers on here.

I have a couple questions for the employers commenting on this thread.

If the project was so awful, why did you wait so long after payment to leave feedback? And more to the point, why did you continue working with them if they were that bad? You were never "forced" to do anything and as the employer and the one in charge of the project, you had the ability to call it quits and contact Guru to report your experience with this freelancer. If others had issues with them, perhaps Guru could have taken steps to deal with their practices. Guru isn't just a pro-freelancer environment - they are a pro-business one. They can't help you if you don't speak up.

I'm not in favor of the site becoming a kindergarten where bad feedback becomes a method of getting back at someone because they didn't agree to a lesser price or to do work for free. Believe me, I've been around and I've seen places like that. It makes me ill to know that some behave that way. But, Guru has their methodology in place for a reason, so rather than argue with it, why not work with it? Maybe the powers that be would agree to have a new feature on accounts that would allow for an icon or indicator to show up each time a feedback rating is blocked. It can provide a date and time when it occurred but not the necessarily the content of the feedback. There are some things that shouldn't be made public and I think that the blocking would be irrelevant if the content were spilled with a mouse click.

Things go wrong in projects just as they do in life. We all make mistakes, lose contact for various reasons, miss appointments or are late, etc. This shouldn't be the reason for someone's freelance career to be trashed. But at the same time, there should be a mechanism that indicates a history if problems persist. Maybe Guru central will take that into consideration.

To answer some of the questions here about why you would pay a vendor if you are not satisfied with the service. We had a website developer develop a site and would not give us the code until we made the final payment. The site never worked right and we ended up loosing a lot of time. People should know about this. I will never use Guru again now that I know. There is no point in having a feedback section if only the good is shown.

Freelancers can't block all feedback. Only 10% of their earnings. Don't blame Guru for it though. They give employers MANY methods to judge freelancers. Freelancers don't have NEARLY as many to judge employers. Guru's a service. Remember that. Screening freelancers OR employers is totally up to the user.