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newsy
Community Member

Got ripped off

**bleep** -- I bought a blog post from a freelance writer. Turns out he ripped me off by selling me plagarized or copied work, probably taken from an old website. 

 

I paid him and rated him 4.8 stars too. When I called him on it he blasted me out, accused me of abuse, and said I'd made my decision so live with it. I'm starting to think he's not even a real person. 

 

$US 120 is not the end of the world. It's just not the standard I work to or I hold my people to, and certainly not what my clients hold me to! 

 

Frustrated in Toronto. 

5 REPLIES 5
prestonhunter
Community Member

Paul:

I am very sorry that this happened to you.

I have hired over 80 freelancers on Upwork and I have found that most are honest, hard-working and skilled professionals.


But some people here are outright scammers, scoundrels or thieves.

 

It sounds like you had a process that you used to determine whether or not the content this freelancer provided to you was original or plagiarized.

 

Next time, use that process before you release payment to the freelancer.

 

Technically, it is possible for clients to dispute fixed-price work within the first 30 days after releasing payment.

 

So you have the option of doing that, or just moving on. You provided feedback in good faith based on what you knew at the time. So my personal belief is that you are NOT obligated to use your own time and energy to pursue the matter.

 

Whatever you decide to do, I can assure you that this is NOT the type of freelancer Upwork wants to have on its platform at all. So if you do decide to report the freelancer and/or dispute the payment to him, you would be doing a service to the platform as a whole.

ok, good to know. Thanks.

 

How do I dispute the payment? I'm not sure what I will do yet. I'm just curious. 

 

I'm not exactly sure if he plagarized the work, but I know that the blog post was "Apps you'd be surprised existed," and when I went to link to the copy to the app websites, one had been out of business since 2011 and another simply didn't exist. I think he was just copying words from web pages and pasting them into a document. 

 

I really don't think I have much of a case. He's shown he will fight and he has a legitimate argument that "I had my chance." 


Paul L wrote:

ok, good to know. Thanks.

 

How do I dispute the payment? I'm not sure what I will do yet. I'm just curious. 

 

I'm not exactly sure if he plagarized the work, but I know that the blog post was "Apps you'd be surprised existed," and when I went to link to the copy to the app websites, one had been out of business since 2011 and another simply didn't exist. I think he was just copying words from web pages and pasting them into a document. 

 

I really don't think I have much of a case. He's shown he will fight and he has a legitimate argument that "I had my chance." 


_____________________________________

This is absolutely unacceptable. This sort of freelancer gives other genuine writers on this site (and on the internet) a really bad name.

 

You can dispute payment within 30 days of closing the contract, but you need to contact Customer support with all the details supporting your claim and the conversations you have had with this freelancer. Even if "he is prepared to fight", I think in this instance you should be too. He does not have a legitimate argument if he cut and pasted someone else's work, and if he cut and pasted various people's work - it is still plagiarism. 

35f3fb60
Community Member

I am sorry to hear of your bad experience.

All of my job postings state that it must be original content, and will be checked with Copyscape and Grammarly for plagerism, if content does not pass no payment will be made and the freelancer will be reported.

I am sure it prevents some freelancers from bidding on my jobs, but the ones it eliminates are probably those I would not want anyway.

newsy
Community Member

Excellent idea
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