Hacker Freelancer

[7bd0d548]

Hi,

I've been upwork's client since the last 2 years. We've always used upwork's freelancer for web developmet and digital marketing campaign works. Thus, We always gives our social media and web site's backend access to our freelancers apart from already made contract on upwork. Luckily, we've never been hacked by a freelancer.

But recently, we've given our freelancer our platform's access but then he made his own personal security access so that no one else including ourself able to login to the platform, despite we might still trust him, but the platform is highly valuable for us. Estimatelly, we've spend thousands or almost hundreds of thousands of dollars to create the such value. Thus this creating a huge risk for us.

So my question is, if he or any other such freelancer hacked our intangible assets, may I know what are the contingency procedures from upwork's side ?

May I know the possibility of suing upwork if the freelancers conduct deviate ethical behavior ? Surely, it's almost imposible to legally track a freelancer than tracking a huge company such as upwork.

Thank You

[prestonhunter]

re: "May I know the possibility of suing upwork if the freelancers conduct deviate ethical behavior ?"

There is a difference between "suing" somebody (i.e., filing a lawsuit) and winning a lawsuit (getting money).

In the United States, anyone can sue anybody for any reason.

I could sue bananas for being yellow. That doesn't mean I'm going to win a $10 million settlement.

Conceivably you MIGHT be able to find an attorney who would take your money to file paperwork, charging you by the hour.

But actually suing Upwork and winning money for this?

Your chances are zero or less. Which is why you will not find a lawyer who will take your case on a pure contingency basis. Lawyers know there's no money it for them, unless that money comes from you.

[7bd0d548]

Hey 

Why do you think the chances are 0 to win ? Isn't there should be a law that protects consumers ?

Are you saying, we can't trust the law system in one of the most civilized democracy country ?

Since we are paying upwork some fee, even though its small. But , if we got hacked, we'll lost much more, Isn't obvious if such case happens upwork should be resposible for it ? failing protecting their clients/consumers ? I wonder facebook nearly got shut down for just failing protecting it's users privacy ?

If such hacking issue occurs, do you expect us to pursue a freelancer that upwork nor we know their home address nor their ID, etc ??

Sincerely

[prestonhunter]

re: "Are you saying, we can't trust the law system in one of the most civilized democracy country"

Not saying that at all.

Upwork didn't hack your site.

Did you read all of the legal notices you agreed to when you became an Upwork user and when you started a contract with this freelancer?

This isn't going to work.

You have a technical issue and a personnel issue that you need to resolve, not a legal issue.

You should be focusing on gaining control of your site. Talking about suing people will not help you accomplish any of your goals.

[7bd0d548]

re : You should be focusing on gaining control of your site. Talking about suing people will not help you accomplish any of your goals.

don't forget its not just a web site, it could be a social media platform that we probably don't have the full control of it.

re: Upwork didn't hack your site.

are they not the one represents their freelancers to us on their behalf ?

re: Did you read all of the legal notices you agreed to when you became an Upwork user and when you started a contract with this freelancer?

I did so, but it seems some part of the contract is indeed helping us win the law suit case more if such case occurs but in another part are the opposite. https://www.upwork.com/legal#useragreement.

Regardless, if such case occurs and upwork does not wants to be hold responsible why shall we use upwork and pay 20% higher fee ??
Especially if their clients resides in some undeveloped less civilized country like we are, what makes them feels confident that none of us will not just pay directly to pay pal ?? 
(Im not saying we do, honestly we don't because we are a small company that abides the law)

Honestly, the main strongest reason I'm still loyal in being an upwork client/user is that we felt the safetiness and security. Im sure im not the only one, not the only client felt the same way.

[AveryO]

Hi Tour, 

Please know that Upwork is not a party to contracts and while we maintain a professional marketplace, neither of the contractual parties can be viewed as our product. It will always be up to the clients and freelancers to manage their own working relationship. For more information, please read Section 5.1 Service Contracts of the User Agreement for more information. 

If any of the given scenario arises, you may file a complaint against the freelancer so that the team can start an investigation to assist you further.

[bobafett999]

Well Tour:  I will be blunt here.

You come to Upwork for bargains.  You hire a person you have never met before so THAT IS THE RISK you are assuming that the realtionship between YOU and the freelancer will not sour.  If you are a 'squeezer' type buyer you may have some issues.

If you are that concerned about hacking stuff hire locally.  Or better yet, hire a permanent employee.  You can even do a background check.  Yes you may end up paying more, but you can see the contractor eye-to-eye, and you know where to send the cops.

Upwork is a sophisticated version of Craig's list.  Many crimes happen on Craig's list, but I have not heard of a case when some one sued Craig's list.

[7bd0d548]

Hey,

I appreciate your feedback, but don't forget when I mentioned this earlier :

"Especially if their clients resides in some undeveloped less civilized country like we are, what makes them feels confident that none of us will not just pay directly to pay pal ?? 
(Im not saying we do, honestly we don't because we are a small company that abides the law)

Honestly, the main strongest reason I'm still loyal in being an upwork client/user is that we felt the safetiness and security. Im sure im not the only one, not the only client felt the same way."

Upwork's only bargain power offer toward the clients is should be : "safetiness and security."

Sincerely.

[bobafett999]

Tour:

I will offer you a suggestion that may help you.  I am not a coder, but I know the space.

From the other thread you seem to like hiring new freelancers (becasue they cost less money).  In the coding world you will have greater success if you take a system level approach for your software package rather than piece meal, task oriented cheapest person does the job view.  If you were to take a system level approach, you may be able to develop a 'relationship' with your coder.  Once you have that relationship, the freelancer owns the 'software'.  Right now the freelancer has no clue if it was his fault or the next person you hired screwed up something.

I do not know if any coder will give you extended warranty without knowing that the fault was his or the next guy you hired or tweaked the code yourself.

There is a saying, "Successful businessmen develop relationship with their suppliers.  Wanna be businessmen ask how much, and broke businessmen ask how much and expect lifetime warranty from the cheapest provider".

[7bd0d548]

Hey,

Thanks, but bitbucket github solves that problem you mentioned for me. But This is not related to the subject of this post..

Eventhough we choose for cheap solution as well as probably most other people/business would do, it is not really the concern. The concern is that any types of freelancer here, whether they're coder developer/digital marketer/VA/ etc, if they're given access to our valuable platform is that upwork would not willing to be held responsible. This is total RUBISH !

Believe it or not, Regardless of the 1,000 policies Upwork's has, but they only focus on one of their policy : DON'T PAY OUTSIDE UPWORK'S PLATFORM OR TO PAYPAL DIRECTLY !.

It's obvious, they just don't want to loose money (20% fee). Upwork lured us to pay in their escrow platform enticing the security and safetiness of our platform/business. But what's funny and irational is that : UPWORK DOES NOT WANTS TO BE HELD RESPONSIBLE IF SHALL THEIR FREELANCER HACKED OUR PLATFORM !.

In this case, if upwork don't give the guarantee of the client's platform's security and safetiness, then there's no any reason why a client should not just takes a freelancer outside of the upwork's platform. I'm not saying that I would, But most other clients would probaly do it secretly thus upwork will start to loose money. It'll be almost impossible to trace this type of client in a developing part of the world.

I hope this post is clear as crystal.

Sincerely,

[reinierb]

---

@Tour F wrote:

Hey,

Thanks, but bitbucket github solves that problem you mentioned for me. But This is not related to the subject of this post..

Eventhough we choose for cheap solution as well as probably most other people/business would do, it is not really the concern. The concern is that any types of freelancer here, whether they're coder developer/digital marketer/VA/ etc, if they're given access to our valuable platform is that upwork would not willing to be held responsible. This is total RUBISH !

Believe it or not, Regardless of the 1,000 policies Upwork's has, but they only focus on one of their policy : DON'T PAY OUTSIDE UPWORK'S PLATFORM OR TO PAYPAL DIRECTLY !.

It's obvious, they just don't want to loose money (20% fee). Upwork lured us to pay in their escrow platform enticing the security and safetiness of our platform/business. But what's funny and irational is that : UPWORK DOES NOT WANTS TO BE HELD RESPONSIBLE IF SHALL THEIR FREELANCER HACKED OUR PLATFORM !.

In this case, if upwork don't give the guarantee of the client's platform's security and safetiness, then there's no any reason why a client should not just takes a freelancer outside of the upwork's platform. I'm not saying that I would, But most other clients would probaly do it secretly thus upwork will start to loose money. It'll be almost impossible to trace this type of client in a developing part of the world.

I hope this post is clear as crystal.

Sincerely,

The central tenet of your argument is as clear as mud, actually.  

Upwork did not give your freelancer access to your site. You did that all by yourself, so now you expect that Upwork should be liable for damages and misfortunes you brough upon yourself by not having taken appropriate security/safety/precautionary measures to protect your site?

The mind boggles...   

---

[prestonhunter]

What if Upwork said: "Okay, we accept responsibility."

Would your site be any less hacked?

Obviously not.

There are effective ways to work with freelancers in a way that safeguards a client's sites and prevents being hacked or having control take away.

Social media sites in particular have well developed tools for delegating authority to perform specific tasks. Developers can be required to provide source code, and can accomplish their work without having unlimited access to server accounts. The highest level of access can be restricted to lead developers or administrators or DBAs who are better known or well trusted by the project owners.

None of these things would be any different if Upwork or anybody else were to claim some sort of official responsibility for the actions of rogue freelancers.

[7bd0d548]

I understand your point, but just imagine if it was a chinese social media. Whereas you can't read/write mandarin at this point.

This is the chronology :

1. We started a start-up company.

2. We used a Chinese digital marketer (ABC)  outside upwork, paid few $$thousand per month to increase our brand awareness.

3. The Chinese digital marketer (ABC) creates a chinese social media account for us with their email, then they  gave us the social media access.

4. At this point, We found upwork to be a better and cheaper solution for this case.

5. We started using chinese digital marketer freelancer through upwork.

6. We lost contact with the chinese digital marketer (ABC) since we end up stop paying the $per-month fee anymore. I sent email to them but gain no reply for the email access they've self created. I asume they're not happy that we stop their service.

7. At this point, fortunately we still trust the freelancer, but risk occurs since upwork doesn't want to be held responsible for a WHAT IF happens case.

In this case, We can't really retrieve our valuable intangible asset per your last solution, can we ?

It's why I think upwork should be a little bit more open on how they obtained their freelancers... (obtaining their ID/passport/alike ?)

Im looking forward of what you'd like to say.

[petra_r]

---

@Tour F wrote:

Im looking forward of what you'd like to say.

---

 Well, it has been explained to you over and over that Upwork does not take responsibility for what some freelancer you hire and whom you give access to whatever does with that access.

If you don't like that fact, employ people locally, that way you can (to a degree) control what they do.

Simple.

If you want to use Upwork you can take advantage of the tools and the degree of protection this offers, but you must understand the limitations of that "protection." You can maximise your chances of a good outcome by hiring freelancers who have a long and successful history on Upwork (that way their account is worth more to them than wanting to mess with your stuff.)

But you have to understand that you will not get the kind of "total protection" you seem to crave on Upwork.

That way you can make an informed decision whether you want to use Upwork or not.

[bobafett999]

---

@Petra R wrote:

---

@Tour F wrote:

Im looking forward of what you'd like to say.

---

 Well, it has been explained to you over and over that Upwork does not take responsibility for what some freelancer you hire and whom you give access to whatever does with that access.

If you don't like that fact, employ people locally, that way you can (to a degree) control what they do.

Simple.

..... You can maximise your chances of a good outcome by hiring freelancers who have a long and successful history on Upwork (that way their account is worth more to them than wanting to mess with your stuff.)

---

 Yeah, but he wants to hire "New People" because all he wants is to plop some github codes.  Established people with long history will cost more money.

And hey, You do not pay 20% to Upwork.  Freelancer pays that.

You also must have some creative extrapolation techniques.  I never said hire them on Upwork and pay them privately via paypal.

[kat303]

---

@Tour F wrote:

I understand your point, but just imagine if it was a chinese social media. Whereas you can't read/write mandarin at this point.

This is the chronology :

1. We started a start-up company.

2. We used a Chinese digital marketer (ABC)  outside upwork, paid few $$thousand per month to increase our brand awareness.

3. The Chinese digital marketer (ABC) creates a chinese social media account for us with their email, then they  gave us the social media access.

4. At this point, We found upwork to be a better and cheaper solution for this case.

5. We started using chinese digital marketer freelancer through upwork.

6. We lost contact with the chinese digital marketer (ABC) since we end up stop paying the $per-month fee anymore. I sent email to them but gain no reply for the email access they've self created. I asume they're not happy that we stop their service.

7. At this point, fortunately we still trust the freelancer, but risk occurs since upwork doesn't want to be held responsible for a WHAT IF happens case.

In this case, We can't really retrieve our valuable intangible asset per your last solution, can we ?

It's why I think upwork should be a little bit more open on how they obtained their freelancers... (obtaining their ID/passport/alike ?)

Im looking forward of what you'd like to say.

---

 Number 4 is probably the key. Sometimes cheaper is NOT better. Sometimes you have to pay more to get better results. When something is working, and you're happy with it, then you stick with it, This is just a site that allows clients and freelancers alike to meet up to get jobs done and to get work. They have a sort of hand on this site, and they don't have to do this, but they provide payment protection for hourly jobs, and escrow for fixed rate jobs. and arbitration if problems arises, which also costs them money. But they don't run your business. YOU do.

For example, if you pay a parking lot/garage to park your car, and in that garage you meet up with a person and get scammed, you do not hold the owner of that garage responsible. The same here. You meed someone here to work for you. You don't know anything about them except they are cheap. The saying goes, you get what you pay for.

I don't know anything about websites, but when hiring anyone on the internet, you need to take precautions. sandboxes, virtual machines, a different password, that only allows them certain access to your site. Whatever it takes.

And as to #7 --- You still trust this freelancer??? Really???

[7bd0d548]

Please remember that It's not just about the website, it could be a social media platform or something else.

Upwork did not give your freelancer access to your site. You did that all by yourself :

=> Your point is surely clear, but What we'd expect is that, upwork might should have already obtain the freelancer's ID/passport etc the least, pretty much like what and how an outsourcing company would have done.

To put it simply just imagine this in your mind

CLIENT -> UPWORK (mark up 20%) -> FREELANCER

If upwork does not wants to be held responsible, why shall not any client would do this :

CLIENT -> avoid 20% fee -> FREELANCER.

thus client will wins 20% fee.

I understand well why upwork shall be paid 20% fee as we opt not to pay outside upwork to keep upwork running. However, more and more freelancers asked to get direct paypal payment !. Just a matter of time most clients would agree to it since upwork has no counter measures for this activity right ??. (ANSWER TO THIS PARAGRAPH)

Also, Don't forget that upwork on occassion likes to suddenly blocks a hired freelancer (usually the ones new to upwork) and telling us to revoke our website's access to insecured kinds of freelancer. 

=> What does this means ?, upwork figure out which one is secured/insecured freelancer ? so it means they want to keep us safe but if shall they've missed the insecured ones, upwork will not want to be held responsible? 

[sam-sly]

Based on what you wrote in the 7 point list, the way you set up your social media is wrong. Whenever I have a client who wants to set it up that way I explain why it is wrong.

You should never have a freelancer set up your social media account using their email address. That means they own it. They should set it up with an email address that you own. Open a new address for them if you need to (ideally a branded company email).  That way, if you have any problems then you can reset the password or you can open a support ticket.

I don't really have any tips for working with someone in a language you don't know. This is just about maintaining ownership of your company's account. Most channels do have a way you can dispute if someone is impersonating your company or you. If what this person is doing is bad enough, that might need to be what you do. I am not Chinese, so I am not familiar with the Chinese platforms. But I guess that is what I would suggest you look into if you can't persuade the freelancer to change the channels email address to one that you control.

---

@7bd0d548wrote:

Please remember that It's not just about the website, it could be a social media platform or something else.

[bobafett999]

Hey.  Easy Fix.  Don't hire on Upwork and that will solve all your problems.

[7bd0d548]

.

[7bd0d548]

Hey.  Easy Fix.  Don't hire on Upwork and that will solve all your problems.

=> did you mean to find a freelancer in upwork then just ask to pay direct paypal payment to the freelancer? as well as avoid the 20% fee ?

Are you part of upwork's company ? if so, im sure your employers will not be happy neither to post such comments.

Im not happy neither with such solution, because I expect upwork would gives the security and safetiness of our business or other people.

[silw]

Sorry Tour, but it's nobodys fault but yours if you EXPECT upwork to do something which they dont claim to do at any given time, or any given place, to ANYBODY.

If you come up with wild expectations and don't check if they are true and have a legal foundation, continue to hire someone and give them sensible data he can probably **bleep** around with, then it's nobody's fault but yours.

Sorry to say it that strictly, but your situation is the end-result of making expectations without checking.

Maybe you can fix the current situation, maybe not, but either way the result should be that you get rid of your naive decision making without checking the facts.

Don't "expect" things. Check facts. That will save you a lot of nerves.

[7bd0d548]

hey

Actually, I only needs one more question needed to be answered.

Here's are the question :

1. So my question is, if he or any other such freelancer hacked our intangible assets, may I know what are the contingency procedures from upwork's side ?

 => has been answered

2. May I know the possibility of suing upwork if the freelancers conduct deviate ethical behavior ? Surely, it's almost imposible to legally track a freelancer than tracking a huge company such as upwork.

=> has been answered

3. To put it simply just imagine this in your mind

CLIENT -> UPWORK (mark up 20%) -> FREELANCER

If upwork does not wants to be held responsible, why shall not any client would do this :

CLIENT -> avoid 20% fee -> FREELANCER.

thus client will wins 20% fee.

I understand well why upwork shall be paid 20% fee as we opt not to pay outside upwork to keep upwork running. However, more and more freelancers asked to get direct paypal payment !. Just a matter of time most clients would agree to it since upwork has no counter measures for this activity right ??. (ANSWER TO THIS PARAGRAPH)

Regardless, if such case occurs and upwork does not wants to be hold responsible why shall we use upwork and pay 20% higher fee ??
Especially if their clients resides in some undeveloped less civilized country like we are, what makes them feels confident that none of us will not just pay directly to pay pal ?? 
(Im not saying we do so, honestly we don't because we are a small company that abides the law)

=> Has not been answered

[bobafett999 · Accepted solution]

I believe people have given many explanations.  If you are posting stuff for entertainment you got that too.  If you needed serious advice you got that too. 

But now the time has come and show must end.

it seems that with your hiring practices you will get burned one of these days. 

If you really want a detailed report on all the options with their advantages and disadvantages just post a job. 

[AveryO]

Thank you for participating on this thread, everyone. Please know that we have closed this thread for further replies from the Community. 

As a gentle reminder, let's all be mindful of the Upwork Community Guidelines when posting in the Community. 

[prestonhunter]

re: "Are you part of upwork's company ? if so, im sure your employers will not be happy neither to post such comments."

Prashant is not an Upwork employee. He is an Upwork user.