When will upwork start filtering fake US workers?

[60df81df]

There seems to be not much effort to filter out fake American workers by Upwork yet. Is this something that will be resolved at some point?

I have no problem with overseas contractors for many topics, but we have some tasks that we just want some US based people on.

Here's one who racked up a bunch of hours that were false:

Claims NY...

**Edited for Community Guidelines**

but then he's in Kenya:

**Edited for Community Guidelines**

And he works at a department at Hamilton that does not exist

This one was easy to spot, but we had another that you could not tell until much more time was wasted and the writing was just off for the topic

[g_vasilevski]

Hi Mel,

I`m sorry to hear about the bad experience you had with this freelancer. I can confirm that our team has already taken proper actions.

Trust and Safety is our top priority, we have security and verification processes in place to identify this type of behavior. But, we also appreciate every report we receive. Once something has been reported our team will investigate it further and take proper actions as soon as possible.

If you have any additional questions let me know, thank you.

[mwithiga_simon]

It saddens me to see people lie about where they come from just to win jobs. I am from Kenya and have had quite decent success despite not being located in the US. As a freelancer, I can confirm that the Upwork team has taken up a new strategy to flash out all fake accounts. It is also a bit frustrating to see most clients prefer to hire talent from the US alone while there are so many verified, native freelancers like me out here.

[prestonhunter]

re: "It is also a bit frustrating to see most clients prefer to hire talent from the US alone while there are so many verified, native freelancers like me out here."

Most?

More than 50%?

I'm not sure if that is true...

It is my belief that "some" clients prefer to hire U.S.-based freelancers.

And "some" cilents prefer to hire non-U.S. freelancers.

[resultsassoc]

Simon, my default statistician was from Uganda, my default researcher on Africa was from South Africa, My default legal redearcher was from Pakistan, and her husband was my website guru, in fact tech guru. At least until she lied to me and stole money. Then I fired her and her husband; I couldn't trust that she might get access through his work.

I was scammed once by Indian graphic artists who failed miserably. I asked for an ebook cover that displayed two young men in Florida playing basketball. Their first attempt was near-pornography; second one showed two young men playing outdoors with mountains in the background. There are no mountains in Florida.

I used that experience to explore how foreigners claiming to be US or Canadian managed to do it, and I began screening for that. I needed Canadian or US freelancers to do a Deep Beta Read on a novel, because I needed someone not only fluent in English, but also fluent in North American culture. The responses were horrifying from foreigners who accused me of racism.

[rustin]

This is a huge problem. I've had to fire two workers in the past year or so & I'm having an impossible time hiring a worker now because there is so much lying about location. I've heard of US-based Upwork folks being approached to act as 'storefronts' for foreign workers. This situation sucks.