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mordar
Community Member

Is it ok for me as a Freelancer to hire another friend after creating a contractor account?

Hey Everyone, 

I have a friend of mine and room mate who wants to start working as a freelancer. I need several documents translated into spanish and since he is a native spanish speaker I though it could be a good opportunity to create a contractor account and hire him to do the job as well as helping him ease into the platform.


Is this against the TOA? is it possible to do this and not incur some sort of penalty or something like that?

 

Thanks in advance for any help.

12 REPLIES 12
prestonhunter
Community Member

No. You may not hire your friend or roommate.

 

Upwork takes attempts to violate its core business model very seriously. Even if, by some mind-bending stretch of rationalization, you manage to convince yourself that this is somehow legitimate, Upwork's algorithms are constantly on the lookout for these kinds of shenanigans. You will get your account suspended. Funds involved may very well be locked up and become inaccessible.

 

Don't do this.

jmlaidlaw
Community Member


@Pedro L wrote:

Hey Everyone, 

I have a friend of mine and room mate who wants to start working as a freelancer. I need several documents translated into spanish and since he is a native spanish speaker I though it could be a good opportunity to create a contractor account and hire him to do the job as well as helping him ease into the platform.

_______________________________________________________________

 

Pedro  --

 

Since your Profile indicates that you are a Native Spanish speaker,as well as a Native English speaker, yourself, and you offer translation services -- why not just go ahead and do the translations yourself? Puzzled as to why you would complicate your life and potentially complicate relations with your roommate, as well as spend money unnecessarily, hiring someone else to do a job for which you appear to be qualified. 

mordar
Community Member

-------------------------------------------------

Since your Profile indicates that you are a Native Spanish speaker,as well as a Native English speaker, yourself, and you offer translation services -- why not just go ahead and do the translations yourself? Puzzled as to why you would complicate your life and potentially complicate relations with your roommate, as well as spend money unnecessarily, hiring someone else to do a job for which you appear to be qualified. 

---------------------------------------------

 

Problem is, I do not know a thing about German which he does, if it was up to me I would do it myself but my knowledge of German is almost non-existant.

 

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Ignoring the "fees" (around 23% combined at this point), why would you think this would be a good idea?

 

Get some easy "stars"?

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Well, obviously if he does a good job I would give him a good review which will make it easier for him to get work on this platform, you should remember that is almost impossible to get a decent work without having some good reviews first.

gerrys
Community Member

Ignoring the "fees" (around 23% combined at this point), why would you think this would be a good idea?

 

Get some easy "stars"?

petra_r
Community Member


@Gerry S wrote:

 

Get some easy "stars"?


 ... and two accounts...

browersr
Community Member

Create an agency if you want to do this.

re: "Problem is, I do not know a thing about German which he does, if it was up to me I would do it myself but my knowledge of German is almost non-existant... if he does a good job I would give him a good review which will make it easier for him to get work on this platform, you should remember that is almost impossible to get a decent work without having some good reviews first."

 

What languages you know... what skills you have... This is all irrelevent.

 

You can't hire your friend, relative, or roommate on Upwork. Don't try this. Upwork knows this is simply an attempt to bypass the system.

 

------------------------------------------------------

What languages you know... what skills you have... This is all irrelevent.

 

You can't hire your friend, relative, or roommate on Upwork. Don't try this. Upwork knows this is simply an attempt to bypass the system.

---------------------------------------------------

 

And what If I have a Client that I want to bring on Upwork to work for him and use the platform? Is this also punishable? other freelancer sites (and the one that is the direct competitor of upwork) actually promotes this as a way to bring business into the platform.

 

I guess it is better to hire my friend on another platform so he can begin his Freelancer career and not get punished or condemned by the community and the platform for it.

re: "And what If I have a Client that I want to bring on Upwork to work for him and use the platform?"

 

Yes, you can do this. Upwork encourages this.

 

In fact, Upwork has a special program that lets you bring a client onboard and lets you pay zero fees when working for that client.

re: "I guess it is better to hire my friend on another platform so he can begin his Freelancer career and not get punished or condemned by the community and the platform for it."

 

Upwork most definitely does not want you to hire friends in order help them begin their freelancer careers. Upwork has automated algorithms and human analysts who specifically look out for this kind of thing and do everything they can to prevent it. This is considered fraudulent behavior. It is not worth the risk to your Upwork account for you to try to do something like this.

Somebody else mentioned doing this as an agency, does this change anything about this? I'm just curious since I've recently started trying to look for work for myself as an agency. So in this case, is it still against Upwork's policy to add a friend or relative as an account manager/employee?


Joel L wrote:

Somebody else mentioned doing this as an agency, does this change anything about this? I'm just curious since I've recently started trying to look for work for myself as an agency. So in this case, is it still against Upwork's policy to add a friend or relative as an account manager/employee?


Agency Manager yes, employee through Upwork, no. You can add freelancers who are friends or relatives to your agency, as long as you don't hire them and they don't hire you. 

 

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