
Someone stole my identity on Upwork (2016) - uladzislau
https://hackernoon.com/someone-stole-my-identity-on-upwork-and-all-i-got-was-this-lousy-blog-post-d63aab2b4c90
======
bkovacev
The best part about Upwork is that they have invited me to be a premium
freelancer and closed my account all in the same day. Hilariously I was told
I'm not "good enough for the platform". I have had 5 positive job reviews, all
pretty much 5 stars. That day I applied for 10-15 jobs as I wanted to bridge
the downtime gap between two major gigs. I had 1500$ usd on that account, that
I have not withdrawn yet. I was not working for peanut rate, but rather north
of 50$/h.

Support was unhelpful and I couldn't get a chance to talk to human. Stole my
money literally. They deactivated my account, and only after 10th email to
their support have they've actually deleted the account.

Boycott Upwork.

~~~
dmoy
For $1500, can you take them to small claims court?

~~~
bkovacev
I probably could have - but at the end of the day, it was money well invested.

I moved my business elsewhere (not toptal or any other platform, but a
devshop) and told the same thing to 4-5 other devs that are my close friends
who were charging about the same rate. At the end of the day, they might have
gotten $1500, but they lost 5x that in matter of seconds.

I still feel a bit bitter about it though, but I need to let go.

------
nikanj
Now that this is on the front page of HN, customer service is going to
magically appear.

I don't understand why people even try to wrestle with customer service reps
nowadays, when the only reliable method is getting visibility on
HN/Digg/Slashdot/etc

~~~
mannykannot
You are unlikely to end up on the front page.

~~~
scandox
It's on the front page

~~~
drusepth
In general though, there are probably hundreds (if not more) posts dealing
with customer service that don't hit the front page.

~~~
scandox
Yeah misread original comment actually

------
ivm
One day I found a fake profile that copied my description. Support said that
they can't prove that he got it after me and they will not take any action.

I know two persons who were banned forever after applying to about 20-30 jobs
and not getting them. Support said they are not qualified enough to be on
Upwork, ever.

Sometimes they ban digital nomads for moving around the world too much.
Sometimes they ban people because their clients got unsatisfied and clients
are more important for Upwork than freelancers.

So the support is dysfunctional on many levels but Upwork is the only place
where a non-US/EU freelancer without connections can find jobs relatively
easy.

------
andreasley
Needs (2016) in the title.

------
scandox
I've also previously raised the issue of freelancers selling their accounts:

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13309640](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13309640)

------
pvaldes
Hum, this is not a new history. The same history with exactly the same
messages happened a few years ago to other (the same?) girl if i'm not wrong.
I have seen before the word bombchelle somewhere.

There was also the anecdote of some people (mostly freelancers based in Africa
or Asia) using stock photos of smiling blonde caucasian models to create a
fake sense of trust (and the other freelancers disclosing it for fun again and
again). I remember stock photos taken directly from the web of a dental clinic
for example, or appearing in the first positions in google under the tag
"entrepreneur" and so. It was an arms race, with upwork banning each time and
the fake accounts reappearing and refining their methods each time

As general rule of thumb, If it looks handsome, young and dressed like a model
in a studio of photography, is probably fake.

~~~
edwhitesell
Probably because this blog post is from 2016.

------
nfriedly
That 20% at then end isn't quite right - its actually 23.75% - upwork charges
the clients 3.75% above the contract amount, and they pay the freelancer 20%
less than the amount (for the first $500, then the fees start to drop on the
freelancer side).

So both sides are led to believe that the total fees upwork collects are lower
than they actually are. Its more than a little shady.

Oh, and if freelances don't pay for membership, their accounts get
automatically locked to private for "inactivity" if they go 30 days without
receiving any payment. Regardless of actual activity level. So the freelancers
who earn infrequently have effectively even higher fees. (Support can unlock
it for free, but it can take a day or two.)

------
homero
Upwork recently increased fees massively and I left for good, both as a client
and as a freelancer

~~~
dzamo_norton
Where did you go, if I may ask? I'm also interested in alternatives.

~~~
anon1094
I'm a freelance web developer and I found that what has worked best for me
when I'm in a dry spell is finding people who are actively looking for
freelancers on Twitter, Facebook, and LinkedIn.

No one is going to show up to your website or Google you. You have to actively
look for people who need someone now. I noticed that the ones who post on
social media want to avoid terrible work that is generally associated with
UpWork so you can negotiate good prices.

Send them a quick message to get the conversation started and see where it
goes. It is a numbers game.

~~~
jackgolding
Any particular part of twitter? or is this just your list of followers.

------
DangerousPie
Anybody else annoyed by all the fixed HTML elements on that page? Here is all
I can see on my 14" screen (maximized browser window):
[https://i.imgur.com/u9L81nY.png](https://i.imgur.com/u9L81nY.png)

~~~
teh_klev
Create a browser bookmark with this:

    
    
        javascript:(function()%7B(function () %7Bvar i%2C elements %3D document.querySelectorAll('body *')%3Bfor (i %3D 0%3B i < elements.length%3B i%2B%2B) %7Bif (getComputedStyle(elements%5Bi%5D).position %3D%3D%3D 'fixed') %7Belements%5Bi%5D.parentNode.removeChild(elements%5Bi%5D)%3B%7D%7D%7D)()%7D)()
    

Has been pretty good at getting rid of "dick bars"[0].

[0]:
[https://daringfireball.net/2017/06/medium_dickbars](https://daringfireball.net/2017/06/medium_dickbars)

------
thiscatis
Upwork is an absolute piece of shit company and so obviously trying to protect
their revenue in the race to the bottom of freelance work. We only used them
as an agency (to hire freelancers) and they would randomly shut off ongoing
contracts, stall refunds for paid but undelivered milestones after shutting
down our contract, didn't pay back fees and have horrible customer support.
The only thing they do is send a 10 paragraph email explaining that they're
not responsible for the contractors on their platform and we should have read
the TOS better. Stay away. Absolutely horrible.

------
KGIII
It's a bit disconcerting to find someone pretending to be you online. I've had
my real name and moniker used multiple times. This has always been associated
with a little information about me, namely they know a bit about me and will
try to impersonate me based in that.

Usually, they get some details wrong - or make things up entirely. It's pretty
well known that I live in Maine. It surprised me when I'd learned that I'd
written about my home on coastal Maine. See, I don't live anywhere near the
coast.

I've seemingly been an owner, or associated with, a few online businesses. I'm
not, I really am not. In fact, I've never even considered doing MLM, sold
stuff at eBay, or been a 'security researcher.'

If you discover someone impersonating you, my advice is to pretend to be one
of their old friends. The more public you can make this, the better. The
page(s) will get taken down, but it is fun while it lasts.

You can have a lot of fun with that. "Oh, man... I still think we did too much
coke that weekend. I never thought I'd say too much coke was possible. Shame
about that hooker, right?" Things like that will give you hours of enjoyment.

Sort of related, I kind of wish I had people calling me to help me fix my
Windows computers. Alas, nobody seems to have put my number on the list. I
have a mental script already prepared.

------
olala69
Screw Upwork, i ditched them a long time ago

------
chris_wot
It sounds like Upwork have a duty to verify their contractors are who they say
they are.

~~~
tmikaeld
They really don't, there is no such process built in. If it where as rigid as
with bitcoin exchanges, this (and probably many similar) would not have
happened.

~~~
ge96
I had to do a video chat before, kind of odd there was no one on the other end
done through the UpWork site/scheduled.

edit: no one visually but vocally there was someone there

~~~
pvaldes
In my opinion; you do not own a total stranger your image just because they
will promise you a few bucks. If they want their problem solved, just show
that you can do the work. Unless for a very specific type of jobs, it is not
their bussiness at all if you are bald, black or like to work in slippers.

Some people typically will want to grab as many of your personal information
as they can, for undisclosed reasons. Just decline politely and walk away.
Profiles and portfolios are designed for showing what you want to show. In the
best cases those pressing to go further are other freelancers studying their
competitors; in the worst, creepy people trying to impersonate you or selling
your info to a third. Is a dog eats dog world and you do not own them
anything.

~~~
jstandard
> "in the best cases those pressing to go further are other freelancers
> studying their competitors"

There are other valid reasons for requesting a video chat. One of those is to
weed out agencies and impersonators of which Upwork and freelancing platforms
are rife with.

It also builds better relationship to talk with someone face to face.

~~~
pvaldes
Of course and very reasonable, but if the people hiring hides their face
wereas asking the freelancers to be videotaped, well... is a red flag.
Specially if in the end, nobody is hired for this job.

Maybe is because they are shy, that is a perfect valid reason to me.

Another hypothetical explanation could be that in upwork some well stablished
freelancers were targetting new fresh and disperate freelancers hiring then
and paying in peanuts to do a job that they then would bill (for a higher
amount) to the final client.

------
itsfreshmade
I recently tried out their platform in hopes of procuring a few freelance
gigs, hadn't had a whole lot of luck and after reading this I may just delete
my account. Sorry this has happened to you, it truly sucks.

