Unauthorized solicitation

[5fb0df6b]

posted a job yesterday and hired a freelancer.  but I made the mistake of listing a reference URL in the post because I wanted to demonstrate a specific behavior of an element I need to duplicate.

Earlier this morning, MY client, for whom I am doing the work, was sent a solicitation email directly by

**Edited for Community Guidelines** 

with a copy sent to

**Edited for Community Guidelines**

.  I did not provide the client's email in the job post, so that means this user is scraping ads posted on Upwork and then soliciting them directly outside of this platform.

I have proof.

please make them stop.

thank you.

**Edited for Community Guidelines**

[kochubei_valeria]

Hi Neil,

I'm sorry to hear you and your company had this experience. It's against Upwork TOS for users to make unsolicited contact outside of Upwork. I checked the names and emails that you shared in the screenshot and it looks like Upwork team has already taken action according to our processes.

Please, let me know if you need any assistance with updating your job posts to omit any information that may lead to contact forms or emails.

Thank you!

[waltham01]

Valeria,

this is not related to this post, but this is around solicitation too.

The owner of the ad during the invterview reached out to me in messages and asked for my email address. I told him that as per the Upwork policy he has to hire me first, and then I can share my email address. He said they he would find someone else, I told him that this isn’t fair to penalize me for sticking to the Upwork rules.

Please kindly have a look into this matter, as I don’t believe this is fair to discriminate me for following the rules.

[VladimirG]

Hi Andrey,

I'd like to thank you for following Upwork TOS but would like to clarify that providing contact information isn't prohibited at the moment but will be starting June 26. You can share your email with this or any other client during the interview phase in the meantime. Let us know if you need further clarification or assistance.

[waltham01]

Thanks, Vladimir, much appreciated.

[prestonhunter]

re: "posted a job yesterday and hired a freelancer, but I made the mistake of listing a reference URL in the post because I wanted to demonstrate a specific behavior of an element I need to duplicate. Earlier this morning, MY client, for whom I am doing the work, was sent a solicitation email directly..."

This kind of thing was ALWAYS inappropriate. It was always unprofessional and rude.

I am glad that Upwork recently issued clear guidelines specifying that unsolicited contact of any kind is a violation of Upwork ToS.

Anybody who reports this is helping out the Upwork community and platform as a whole.

Of course only a small minority of Upwork users are so unprincipled that they would do something like this. If we can remove them from the platform as much as possible, it will make the Upwork experience better for clients and freelancers alike.