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833eaa3c
Community Member

Freelancers posing as US Citizens to get more work

I'm having a terrible time with the platform, so many people (freelancers) posing as US citizens so they grab work designated for US citizens. Their profile is fake **edited for Community Guidelines**, putting down they graduate college in 1 year, misspell common words like Airport at projects they have supposedly worked on. Then when you chat with them the language is all bad and way off. Upwork you suck and you are making the problem worse. Find a way to filter this **edited for Community Guidelines**. It's wasting my time and I'll eventually go somewhere else or build something better.

17 REPLIES 17
sergio-soria
Community Member

My suggestion is that you look for the ID verified badge that appears next to the name. If they are US citizens they need to provide an ID issued by the US government.

 

As for education I guess that sooner or later Upwork will implement a certification verification. I won't be surprised if they do it but for now the freelancers vetting is in clients' hands. Look for freelancers with good rating, that'll get you covered.


Sergio S wrote:

My suggestion is that you look for the ID verified badge that appears next to the name. If they are US citizens they need to provide an ID issued by the US government.

 

As for education I guess that sooner or later Upwork will implement a certification verification. I won't be surprised if they do it but for now the freelancers vetting is in clients' hands. Look for freelancers with good rating, that'll get you covered.


I've reported some people who were obvs not in the US but they had the blue checkmark. It's useless reporting these people because Upwork seems to ignore the reports, but the blue checkmark ain't a guarantee either.

 

ETA: OP, best thing to do is to stick with people with a very LONG CONSISTENT history. Nobody would rent or sell their profile when they are making consistent good money on here. It would be profile suicide.


Jennifer M wrote:


I've reported some people who were obvs not in the US but they had the blue checkmark. It's useless reporting these people because Upwork seems to ignore the reports, but the blue checkmark ain't a guarantee either.


Yeah, I know but at least it's better than nothing. Hehe

ambroz
Community Member

Please stay with us 🙂 Here is too much "bad guys", so if "good guys" will leave, then it will become terrible 😛 (half of joke- half of true :P)

Yes sometimes I agree with you. On this platform are some bad solutions which can be fixed, or improved and sometimes we have filling "why they do not do that". But thinks are like it are. If everyone with better idea will create a new platform, then there will be thousands of platforms with only few freelancers and client 😞
Maybe look for the hour rate and feedbacks. As a new freelancer here, I did not understand why feedbacks here are so important. Now I understand it more and more 🙂
Hope they will not add an education verification here ... just another bureaucracy. School does not mean knowleadge or honesty.
P.S: Also outside of US, you can find reliable freelancers. 🙂

prestonhunter
Community Member

Tim:

You are correct. This is a problem.

 

Upwork takes this extremely seriously, and Upwork is doing more than any other comparable platform I can think of to clean this up.

 

Upwork is literally trying to do live video verifications (sometimes multiple times) and also documentation (passport/driver's license/photo ID) checks for ALL of its freelancers. Upwork also uses geolocation and country-identification techniques from the very start of the freelancer registration process. These are huge, difficult, expensive undertakings. But they really are doing these things. All of the freelancers who frequent the Forum can tell you from first-hand experience that Upwork is doing things to verify our identities.

 

Upwork literally DOES NOT WANT ANY FAKE freelancers.

 

Until things are perfect, there are proactive steps you can take when hiring.

 

At the very least, whether you think their efforts have been sufficiently effective yet or not, you should at least know that Upwork's intentention is to make their platform the most trusted freelance work platform possible when it comes to accurately identifying where freelancers live and who they are.


Preston H wrote:

 

Upwork is literally trying to do live video verifications (sometimes multiple times) and also documentation (passport/driver's license/photo ID) checks for ALL of its freelancers


Only those who have earned money, mostly. Not all.

As the majority of freelancers on the site have never earned a dime, that means the majority are not subject to verification

colettelewis
Community Member


Tim M wrote:
I'm having a terrible time with the platform, so many people (freelancers) posing as US citizens so they grab work designated for US citizens. Their profile is fake AF, putting down they graduate college in 1 year, misspell common words like Airport at projects they have supposedly worked on. Then when you chat with them the language is all bad and way off. Upwork you suck and you are making the problem worse. Find a way to filter this **bleep**. It's wasting my time and I'll eventually go somewhere else or build something better.

__________________________

Why on earth do you waste time chatting to people whose profiles you have already seen to be sub par?  If you check the zone time on their profiles you can easily see whether or not they are in the

U.S. And  I do wish certain clients would stop thinking that the U.S. is the benchmark of excellence. This is not always the case ...


Nichola L wrote:

Tim M wrote:
I'm having a terrible time with the platform, so many people (freelancers) posing as US citizens so they grab work designated for US citizens. Their profile is fake AF, putting down they graduate college in 1 year, misspell common words like Airport at projects they have supposedly worked on. Then when you chat with them the language is all bad and way off. Upwork you suck and you are making the problem worse. Find a way to filter this **bleep**. It's wasting my time and I'll eventually go somewhere else or build something better.

__________________________

Why on earth do you waste time chatting to people whose profiles you have already seen to be sub par?  If you check the zone time on their profiles you can easily see whether or not they are in the

U.S. And  I do wish certain clients would stop thinking that the U.S. is the benchmark of excellence. This is not always the case ...


I don't believe all clients looking for US freelancers are doing so because of any "benchmark of excellence". That does not explain the millions of freelancers who don't live in the US being hired by US clients.

 

Some clients want to keep their money here, where it will come back to them in some way and help our economy, which I appreciate and is especially important given our current administration (don't get me started).

 

Some clients want the ease of communication being in the same, or close to, time zone as their freelancers. I work a lot of rush jobs - that would be difficult for a client if the freelancer is in dreamland while the client is just starting their day. And the obvious reason can simply be for ease of communication if/when you need to speak with your freelancer. Despite statements that my category doesn't require a native English speaker, that is categorically not true. Freelancers need to understand, either via messages of phone chats, what their client is communicating. I know the problems I've had with clients for whom English is not their native tongue. It can make things extremely difficult.

 

I'm not saying there are no biases, I'm just saying that there can be (and are) plenty of other reasons for location requirements.

florydev
Community Member


Virginia F wrote:

I'm not saying there are no biases, I'm just saying that there can be (and are) plenty of other reasons for location requirements.


Here is one, we are imminently more sue'able.

 

 

 

mtngigi
Community Member


Mark F wrote:

Virginia F wrote:

I'm not saying there are no biases, I'm just saying that there can be (and are) plenty of other reasons for location requirements.


Here is one, we are imminently more sue'able.

 

 

 


Well Mark, I don't work with those kinds of clients, so that's not a concern for me ... sorry to hear it might be for you.

florydev
Community Member

My clients tend to be human so you never know what they will do. I am pretty sure many people who have been sued felt that the person who did it never would.

In the last year I have probably signed a dozen NDAs, one assignment of patent rights, and another for copyright. The people who had me sign those documents had the comfort of knowing exactly how they would sue me if things went wrong.
mtngigi
Community Member


Mark F wrote:
My clients tend to be human so you never know what they will do. I am pretty sure many people who have been sued felt that the person who did it never would.

In the last year I have probably signed a dozen NDAs, one assignment of patent rights, and another for copyright. The people who had me sign those documents had the comfort of knowing exactly how they would sue me if things went wrong.

What a coinsidence, my clients are human too ... and after 20+ years of freelancing, I trust my instincts about who I'm working with. But let's not get too far off topic, okay? My original post in this thread was simply to point out that there are many reasons for clients to specifiy location preferences.

lysis10
Community Member


Mark F wrote:


Here is one, we are imminently more sue'able.

 

 

 


ha I had someone straight up tell me that's why he's hiring someone in the US. Not much he could do with that NDA if someone from <you know where> sold his intellectual property off to people.

florydev
Community Member


Jennifer M wrote:

ha I had someone straight up tell me that's why he's hiring someone in the US. Not much he could do with that NDA if someone from <you know where> sold his intellectual property off to people.

Yep.  

 

Even though it's off topic, never been sued, worked with "those" kind of clients, **edited for Community Guidelines** either but that doesn't mean it couldn't happen.  One should be prepared just in case...

 


Nichola L wrote:

U.S. And  I do wish certain clients would stop thinking that the U.S. is the benchmark of excellence. This is not always the case ...


So true, Nichola! Smiley Very HappySmiley Very HappySmiley Very Happy Look at you and me!

florydev
Community Member


Tim M wrote:
I'm having a terrible time with the platform, so many people (freelancers) posing as US citizens so they grab work designated for US citizens. Their profile is fake AF, putting down they graduate college in 1 year, misspell common words like Airport at projects they have supposedly worked on. Then when you chat with them the language is all bad and way off. Upwork you suck and you are making the problem worse. Find a way to filter this **bleep**. It's wasting my time and I'll eventually go somewhere else or build something better.

And if you build something else you will definitely find it is a hard problem to solve.  A million mice trying to get at the cheese can be very innovative.

 

I believe Upwork should do more and better but I don't believe they are not trying to.

AveryO
Community Manager
Community Manager

Hi Tim, 


I'm sorry to learn about your experience with your previous freelancer. I checked your account, and I'm not sure if you are referring to your recently closed contract. Let me know if this is the case so that I can look into this further.


~ Avery
Upwork
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