Test for potential suspicious activity from the freelancer (web developer)

[4f245d89]

I need help in determining whether the freelancer (web developer) did not "invent" the chat history with one of your representatives. Freelancer on Upwork,**Edited for Community Guidelines** (he is a web developer), sent me the chat history with **Edited for Community Guidelines** . (allegedly Upwork representative) after I asked **Edited for Community Guidelines** to remove the bad review on their page to inspire my confidence in them. It appears the bad review could not be removed (according to **Edited for Community Guidelines** on chat snapshot **Edited for Community Guidelines** sent me).

I need to know if the chat is genuine, or if they made it up (they are programmers, web developers!)

See attached snapshot of the chat conversation **Edited for Community Guidelines** sent me. As you can see there are links on the chat history so you can find the freelancer page there as well using these links.

Please do NOT contact **Edited for Community Guidelines** about my inquiry, because if the chat is genuine they may be discouraged from working with me. Please do this privately and let me know.

Thank you
David

**Edited for Community Guidelines**

[holymell]

What?!

What did I just read?

You want to hire a freelancer, is that correct?

You see he has one negative review from years ago.

You then ask him to somehow remove it (newsflash, NO it cannot be removed at the freelancer's whim, otherwise all of us would have perfect profiles) so that you can have confidence in what? That the freelancer would try to remove your review if you didn't like them?

I don't understand this logic.

Why do you care what someone else wrote about the freelancer? He's top rated. I would NEVER work for you. Never.

I hope he's smart enough not to.

Wow. 

I've never seen anything like this.

Edit- also, why would he fake a support chat?

I don't think I've ever been this confused/amused.

No, they won't remove random bad reviews at the whim of a freelancer or potential client. Get over it and move on.

[kat303]

David. - Let me get this right. You asked this freelancer to remove a negative feedback from THEIR profile so you can have more confidence in working with them. ARE YOU SERIOUS????

AND you don't want this freelancer to find out about this post here because they MAY??? be discouraged to work for you. Sorry, I hope he does find out. Because if it was me, I certainly wouldn't work for you. If you asked him to remove that bad feedback, and he went through all that trouble, and after all that you ask here, whether the chat he sent to you is real. 

If this is what you do, even before you've hired anyone, I feel sorry for whoever ends up working for you.

[holymell]

I have the freelancers information from before the edit. Would it be problematic for me to contact him about this post?

Probably.

But I want to. He should know who he's dealing with.

[nkocendova]

Hi David,

The purpose behind the feedback system is to inform a potential client or freelancer about the experience that other users have had with that person on the Upwork platform and to help them make decision as to whether to offer or accept a contract. Feedback generally cannot be removed except for in rare cases which you can read about here.

Furthermore we won't be able to provide information about another user's private chat with the support team and posting private communications is against the Community Guidelines.

Please consider checking out this Client Guide which is a handy user manual to get you started off on working with freelancers.

[4f245d89]

Thank you all for your reply and info.

[holymell]

Soooo... how'd everything turn out?