Suspicious customer | FixThePhoto | Ukraine-Estonia | Photo manipulations

[vanyadoing]

One situation is really unclear to me.
There is one client on the upwork. He is from Estonia and posts a lot of tasks every day.
All his tasks are of the same type and sound something like this:
**Edited for Community Guidelines**
The content and title changes slightly from time to time, but in general the meaning is the same.
The budget is almost always ~ $ 750 and requires 6 connections.
Usually, even often, on his jobs are around 50+ proposals, and never even several interviews. So the client is not trying to choose candidates. Always just one interview and then goes hire of than person.
If you look at the guys who receive these tasks (you can easily do this by looking his previous contrats), you will notice that they are all connected by the fact that they are from the same region of Ukraine and the fact that they have the same photos in their portfolio and their portfolio is connected with the FixThePhoto website. Nothing more to say on this. There is an obvious link between all of them who work with this client.
At the same time, thay are selected again and again over the time, just them and nobody else, exept new only created accounts, which did not even have a single completed work before. And all their portfolio again has a link with FixThePhoto and Ukraine.
Large-scale jobs are completed in a couple of days or even less. Impossible? Not in this case.
The client even does not bother himself to write about the time, requirements and, in general, about the type of work, since it seems that he is simply pumping money into these accounts of the performers.
I am writing all these things for you to know that the situation is very suspicious. But, first of all, freelancers like me can got into a trap and spend (max amount 6 connects) every day on every his job with no hope and spend the time writing proposals, where they obviously won't even be watched.
Can you do something with that? If the client is really working there with these guys from fixthephoto, can you ask him to write the personal invitations at least. Because but for the such vacancies, work feed becoming a trash can where you are trying to find something at least normal, connections are wasted and time is wasted as well.
Example of recently published work by this client..
**Edited for Community Guidelines**

[NikolaS]

Hi Ivan,

Thank you for reporting and for your effort to keep Upwork professional and safe marketplace. The team will review your report but, unfortunately, we can't share the outcome of the review with others for privacy reasons.

Edited to add information:

Please check this help article for more information on how to use the flag option found on each job post or message to report any suspicious or inappropriate content. Also, check out this post for more tips on how to avoid questionable jobs.

Thank you,

[stariadder]

good that I am not the only one who noticed that SUSPICIOUS person from Estonia

so my conclusion is:

1. this person co-operates with people based in Charkiv, Ukraine

most of these high budget jobs are done in minutes by same people from one agency in Ukrain, My guess is that they 

a) money laundring 

b) making fake reviews on accounts for freelancers so that those freelancers can get better jobs and mislead REAL clients from upwork.

it is quite easy to check those freelancers as they are always same and work in same agency

2. this person is an agency as well and co-operates with ukrainian agency for real work- this version is not realistic at all. I am retoucher and I can understand clearly that those projects and freelancers are simply misleading clients and freelancers on upwork + they ruin upwork reputation for both as they get fake reviews which will be clear if moderators check their messages.... 

So, why upwork is not doing anyting here? no idea. 

-maybe it is ok to make fake reviews this way- since upwork gets % from each project and they do not care about reputation of their services

-maybe upwork moderators are not able to see that those prjects are fake (which is clear for anyone who warks in that industry)

-or any other reason idk...

hope this will grab the attention 

my opinion on all this is

-ukrainian agency created many freelancers accounts,

-they also used vpn and created estonia account,

-then they started to post projetc by themselves for themselves to make good(but fake) feedback history which is scam actually

-they decided that % they will lose on money transfers between accounts is not a bit price for 100+ 5 star ratings even from the same client.

my question to upwork moderation

I already sent reporst many times on those freelancers and clietn from estonia why nothing was done? they are all clear and can prove they do edit those thousands of images in hours or minutes? or upwork policy is fine with this kind of thing? can it be money laundring? are you ok to take part in such things?

**Edited for Community Guidelines** 

[g_vasilevski]

Hi Tetiana,

I would like to clarify that when a violation of our TOS is found proper actions are taken immediatly.
Could you share the job post URL with me via PM (click on my name) so that I can investigate this further? Thank you.

[stariadder]

hello, Goran

thank you for interest I have sent you message with many links and my thoughts about all this. 

regards!

T.

[stariadder]

update

unfortunately nothing has been done, even though I sentall links to profiles, projects and explained that those projects are looking fake... upwork did not do here anything for some reasons

anyway, I would appreciate upwork to add feature where freelancers could simply block client, whos projects they do not want to see in a feed and place bid accidentally as it will be a waste of time and connects

I am truely hoping that upwork did not block those profiles becuase they do have real explanation and not beause upwork earns % on those transactions (I use transaction here as this is not looking as jobs at all)

thanks.

[vanyadoing]

The worst thing of that is that freelancers keep wasting their connects by trying to apply for these jobs.
When you see a job for a first time in your feed you can’t know is it fake or not. I think such things can decrease the reputation of the platform. Idk why Upwork doesn’t care even after several complaints.

[2a05aa63]

---

Ivan A wrote:
The worst thing of that is that freelancers keep wasting their connects by trying to apply for these jobs.
When you see a job for a first time in your feed you can’t know is it fake or not. I think such things can decrease the reputation of the platform. Idk why Upwork doesn’t care even after several complaints.

---

They should start refunding connects from jobs of banned clients. 

[mipaparazzi]

I wish that upwork does provide an option for us to block such postings from showing on one's feed, each time I see that posting related to estonia recently I just give it a minimal look because I belive its fake and a waste of connet. My suggestion is if the agency are magicians that can retouch hundreds of photos in split of seconds everyday and twice a day, they should send them private invites and not cluster our feeds.

[2a05aa63]

---

Fortune A wrote:

I wish that upwork does provide an option for us to block such postings from showing on one's feed, each time I see that posting related to estonia recently I just give it a minimal look because I belive its fake and a waste of connet. My suggestion is if the agency are magicians that can retouch hundreds of photos in split of seconds everyday and twice a day, they should send them private invites and not cluster our feeds.

---

Privating it would make it more suspicious. 

[zedsded]

Has there been any investigation into the suspicious customer yet? it is still carrying on weekly! same large jobs, same "freelaners hired" same images and layouts in there portfolios!

[zedsded]

could someone please answer the questions about the "Estonia" jobs?

It seems to be completely ignored by Upwork and is obviously some kind of scam!

[g_vasilevski]

Hi Simon,

Could you please reach out to me via PM (click on my name) with more details so that I can advise you accordingly? Thank you.

[jekaterina_kass]

Hi! Ivan, coud You contact me? I am new here and also from Estonia. I have a lot of questions how to start here to do some extra work and also questions with payment and our country taxes.

[AleksandarD]

Hi Jekaterina,

Welcome to Upwork!

For help getting started, I suggest that you start from this Community thread as it has a lot of articles already. You can also visit our Resource Center and sign up for upcoming events and webinars to learn more about how you can boost your success on Upwork. On Upwork Help pages, you can find articles that cover every aspect of the platform.

I'm not sure what questions you have regarding payments, but you can find your answers here and here.

Regarding taxes, I can suggest that you check with a local tax advisor as we can't provide tax advice. 

I hope this helps and good luck!

[stariadder]

So guys and girls I am really a lucky person have some amazing information about Estonian client hiring Ukrainians. I am not able to share here names as I feel it will violate tons of restrictions etcetcetc BUT there is an interesting twist and I would be happy if upwork support finally have understanding what's going on

you all know that sometimes support of upwork is really amazing and sends you invites to cool projects where you can place your bid with 0 connection spending.

For some unreal luckiness I got this invite to one of projects created by Estonian client we all talk about. And now I can see the name and registered company shared when you bid on project. 

1. I chacked Google - only several people I found under this name were from Ukraine Kharkiv, same town that most freealncers hired from. But we can not suspect people with just same name and same town right? so ...

2. I decided to check the name + the company name and found out that there is registered company with such name, registered in Estonia on this persons name, there is a domain and website that also registered under this company and person name.

3. Website link stated connection to photography services so I decided to check this wesite and do you know what domain is that? FixThePhoto website. 

So my qustions is how is that?

-We have client from Estonia who owns company and website

-the same website is promoted on many upwork accounts all from the same country (ukraine)

-this site owner hired through upwork people who promote his website

what is the point if this is not money laundry? why spend thousands and lose on fees while you are the owner of the website whom you actually hire, if it is not a manipulation with feedacks?

I have all proves and screenshots, though it is easy to check yourself (if you are upwork team you can check it by googling this person name+company name)

PS important

I had this in mind earlier but now I can tell that it looks like someone from Ukraine did this

1- created fake profiles for Estonia+ many Ukrainian profiles with names etc... from different IPs which is actually easy if you know how vpn work etc. It is also not that hard to ask your friend to make a phonecall or even use your friend ID whithout his knowing, this practice happens a lot in Ukraine especially when some people take money in bank and your name involved and you have no idea about this

2- this person transfers money from one account to other accounts, looks like amuonts are so big that paying fees is better then paying taxes and explaining where did you get those money from.

3. Ukraine has no PAYPAL available to accept money so upwork also can be used as money transfer - registered paypal in estonia accepts money then it loads money to upwork and sends to many accounts to be able to withdraw without problems... 

I don't know which is true of those ideas but I am sure that no one in his mind would create website-promote it on upwork by hiring his own website.... I mean what's the point???

[petra_r]

I've noticed this "client" before as well. However, many companies and freelancers create an E-Residency in Estonia.

That, in itself, would not be a red flag. The rest, of course, is.

[stariadder]

never heard of it but after a quick glance it looks like this program was suspended years ago due to tons of fraud or somthing

[petra_r]

---

Tetiana K wrote:

never heard of it but after a quick glance it looks like this program was suspended years ago due to tons of fraud or somthing

---

No, it wasn't. Only some of the digital ID card were, and only temporarily, and not because of "tons of fraud" but because the cards "could" expose some card owners to the risk of identity theft.

[JoanneP]

Hi Tetiana,

Could you please send me a PM with more information so I can check this with the team? You can PM me by clicking on my name. Thank you!

[stariadder]

I will try to send all links and screenshots again later.

even though I feel frustrated as it seems no one will take any action this time as well and this will be just a waste of my time, again. 

[stariadder]

ok another update, I guess the last one from me. It seems like upwork did check all information I sent and found it usefull as all connected to fixthephoto accounts are deleted and Estonia person has no running projects at the moment. I really hope that these things even if happen will be solved fast and actually attention to this suspicious thing happening was very inspiring, thanks to all.

[m_terrazas]

---

Tetiana K wrote:

So guys and girls I am really a lucky person have some amazing information about Estonian client hiring Ukrainians. I am not able to share here names as I feel it will violate tons of restrictions etcetcetc BUT there is an interesting twist and I would be happy if upwork support finally have understanding what's going on

you all know that sometimes support of upwork is really amazing and sends you invites to cool projects where you can place your bid with 0 connection spending.

For some unreal luckiness I got this invite to one of projects created by Estonian client we all talk about. And now I can see the name and registered company shared when you bid on project. 

1. I chacked Google - only several people I found under this name were from Ukraine Kharkiv, same town that most freealncers hired from. But we can not suspect people with just same name and same town right? so ...

2. I decided to check the name + the company name and found out that there is registered company with such name, registered in Estonia on this persons name, there is a domain and website that also registered under this company and person name.

3. Website link stated connection to photography services so I decided to check this wesite and do you know what domain is that? FixThePhoto website. 

So my qustions is how is that?

-We have client from Estonia who owns company and website

-the same website is promoted on many upwork accounts all from the same country (ukraine)

-this site owner hired through upwork people who promote his website

what is the point if this is not money laundry? why spend thousands and lose on fees while you are the owner of the website whom you actually hire, if it is not a manipulation with feedacks?

I have all proves and screenshots, though it is easy to check yourself (if you are upwork team you can check it by googling this person name+company name)

PS important

I had this in mind earlier but now I can tell that it looks like someone from Ukraine did this

1- created fake profiles for Estonia+ many Ukrainian profiles with names etc... from different IPs which is actually easy if you know how vpn work etc. It is also not that hard to ask your friend to make a phonecall or even use your friend ID whithout his knowing, this practice happens a lot in Ukraine especially when some people take money in bank and your name involved and you have no idea about this

2- this person transfers money from one account to other accounts, looks like amuonts are so big that paying fees is better then paying taxes and explaining where did you get those money from.

3. Ukraine has no PAYPAL available to accept money so upwork also can be used as money transfer - registered paypal in estonia accepts money then it loads money to upwork and sends to many accounts to be able to withdraw without problems... 

I don't know which is true of those ideas but I am sure that no one in his mind would create website-promote it on upwork by hiring his own website.... I mean what's the point???

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Good research. Applause!!