Freelancers that have an assistant and I can't speak to the actual person

[832c2873]

On at least a couple of occasions, I am trying to work with someone that is relatively well priced, but they have an assistant or coordinator that is the one that speaks to you, does the research but limits your access to the writer itself. That concerns me with being an account that is hacked or that I am not talking to the actual person. 

Is this common? 

J.R.

[prestonhunter]

re: "Is this common?"

Based purely on what I have read in the Forum, I think this sort of thing is very rare.

I don't think you're dealing with an account that has been hacked.

I think you're dealing with a person who is working with an assistant. Or you're dealing with a "group."

Depending on the particulars, you may or may not be dealing with Upwork users who are violating Upwork ToS (rules).

If this is something you don't want to deal with, then you can stop working with whoever it is you hired. It is not necessary for you to determine if you they are violating any rules or not. For example, Upwork has agencies which may operate like this, and which aren't violating any rules by doing so. But not all clients want to work with agencies.

Upwork prohibits individual freelancer accounts from being shared. But there are no rules against working with an assistant. For example, if you hired a freelance writer, that writer could ask you to communicate with her by emailing her assistant. That would not violate any rules.

It would be very unusual, though.

Most of the time, things are very straightfoward. A client hires a freelancer, and that freelancer is the only person the client deals with or communicates with.

[832c2873]

I think you might be right. But is the second time that I have a writer that says, you have to talk to my assistant. In this case, the assistant does not have access to the upwork account or messages. So I have to email outside of the system. After our first meeting (gotomeeting), discussing blog posts, the writer replied with a site map for my website. My feeling is that the person I'm talking to might be "outsourcing" the work to somebody else. Something is odd.

[richard_wein]

It sounds to me like the freelancer you hired is a "farmer", someone who accepts the job but then farms the work out to a subcontractor to do the writing. This is allowed by Upwork PROVIDED that it's a fixed-price job (not hourly) AND the client is informed about the arrangement from the start. It sounds like you were not informed about it at the start.

[a_lipsey]

---

Richard W wrote:

It sounds to me like the freelancer you hired is a "farmer", someone who accepts the job but then farms the work out to a subcontractor to do the writing. This is allowed by Upwork PROVIDED that it's a fixed-price job (not hourly) AND the client is informed about the arrangement from the start. It sounds like you were not informed about it at the start.

---

What Richard said is true. 

As someone who has an assistant, I will tell you how it works for me. I only do fixed-price contracts, and ALL my clients, in our initial discussions, are informed I have an assistant who helps with research and formatting. However, my clients only ever deal with me. They may see my assistant copied on an email to help with something, but the client never speaks to my assistant. 

If your freelancer is using an assistant, you should have been informed from the start. As far as communicating with the actual freelancer versus the assistant, I guess this is just based on business model. I would personally never have my assistant dealing with my clients, but the scope of an assistant may be different from person to person. Mine is a research assistant specifically, not a secretary or scheduling assistant. So if your freelancer has an assistant that does secretarial functions, you may end up communicating with the assistant. 

What concerns me most is that you are unclear of the assistant's role, that you were unaware when you started the contract that you'd be communicating with an assistant, and that how to best communicate with the assistant and freelancer does not seem established. For example, with one of my clients, he has a secretary/paralegal, and I know when to bother her versus bother him based on the questions I have. If I need to schedule a call or find some documents, I reach out to her. If I need specific project questions or approvals for something, I reach out to him. 

I'd ask for some clarification from your freelancer on who is doing what. It also may be reportable to Upwork if you were not informed that there was an assistant or subcontractor.