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k_froudarakis
Community Member

Is it within Upwork ToS..?

Hello Upwork community,

 

I just wanted to ask a question on a subject that has been bugging me for a while.

 

I have seen, and I am sure you have too on many occasions, job ads that look for a freelancer to do an academic report, weekly report, Final Term Paper and many other academic types of work.

 

The issue here is that it is clearly against the regulation of every academic institution on the planet to submit work with your name on it when you are not the one that did it. However, I see a lot of these ads and I have seen them increasing in my time on this platform. This clearly means that Upwork is a platform that has been making a name for the go-to place for academic fraud, which is unfortunate.

 

My questions are:

Is this actually against Upwork's Terms of Service?

Is Upwork in agreement with this practice (i.e. am I just being weird here)?

And is this an issue that is actively being addressed or planned against?

 

Obviously, this is more of a question for Upwork themselves but I would also like the input of my fellow freelancers.

 

Please, discuss!

19 REPLIES 19
AleksandarD
Community Manager
Community Manager

Hi Konstantinos,

 

Requesting the creation of content that violates academic integrity and academic policies of any educational institution are prohibited on Upwork. For more information please refer to article 4.1. Prohibited Site Uses of Upwork TOS. 

 

If you do see this kind of job posts, or if a client offers you a job that you suspect is a case of academic integrity, please report it using the flagging option found on every job post so that our team can review and take appropriate actions. 

 

Thank you.

~ Aleksandar
Upwork

I have been flagging them vigorously!!! It's just that I think they are increasing in number and it seems that it has been circulating from mouth to mouth.

 

I saw that you added a flag option saying that it's a freelancer ad not a job ad. But I really think this should have it's own unique flag option instead of just selecting the Other option and describing it.

 

I think this would encourage more people to flag for this particular reason and also make it more obvious that it's not acceptable as a practice.

I agree. Action this please Upwork!

I flagged several such jobs in the past. Got emails saying, we took actions. Jobs were still there.

 

¯\_(ツ)_/¯

 

Over the weekend, I flagged two profiles of graphic designers (with details) whose portfolios and jobs featured stock images and/or were copied from other websites/ organizations.  Although the threads were drastically edited and one closed, the profiles remain active and untouched.  What the heck is going on here??  Seems backwards to me.

 

Academic fraud - I have successfully gotten a few taken down but my opinion is that the UW people who  review the ads don't understand/ have no training in academic fraud.  One freelancer has actually replied to the jobs, uncovered the university involved, and reported the students.  That's a lot of unpaid work which should have been taken care of before she had to go to such lengths.


Mary W wrote:

 

Academic fraud - I have successfully gotten a few taken down but my opinion is that the UW people who  review the ads don't understand/ have no training in academic fraud.  One freelancer has actually replied to the jobs, uncovered the university involved, and reported the students.  That's a lot of unpaid work which should have been taken care of before she had to go to such lengths.


That's an interesting point of view. I agree with you, not everyone can spot academic fraud. Maybe we should all try to get the jobs and play detectives, students would end up hearing about the horrible, heartless Upwork freelancer police brigade????

 

I try to do my bit, particularly when free work is asked in French. I'm not sure what happens next.


Luce N wrote:

I try to do my bit, particularly when free work is asked in French. I'm not sure what happens next.


The answer is "not much" happens next.

 

If dishonest freelancers weren't so willing to do these types of projects - and if Upwork actually enforced their TOS - then this type of client would be out of luck. You don't even need to play detective and go looking for freelancers who break the rules - they regularly show up in the forum ASKING people to look at their profiles and give them advice. Then you check the profile and it's painfully obvious that they're frauds and con artists who bring absolutely no value to Upwork; on the contrary, they undoubtedly scare good clients away from hiring here. Why Upwork wants to keep them around is a complete and utter mystery to me. 


Christine A wrote:

Luce N wrote:

I try to do my bit, particularly when free work is asked in French. I'm not sure what happens next.


The answer is "not much" happens next.

 

If dishonest freelancers weren't so willing to do these types of projects - and if Upwork actually enforced their TOS - then this type of client would be out of luck. You don't even need to play detective and go looking for freelancers who break the rules - they regularly show up in the forum ASKING people to look at their profiles and give them advice. Then you check the profile and it's painfully obvious that they're frauds and con artists who bring absolutely no value to Upwork; on the contrary, they undoubtedly scare good clients away from hiring here. Why Upwork wants to keep them around is a complete and utter mystery to me. 


I don't really think these freelancers are dishonest, just plain foolish. When you accept to work for nearly nothing, then pay 20% to Upwork, plus exchange rate and taxes on this small amount of money, you are a real fool. Yet, with the Covid situation, I have noticed that loads of "freelancers" are trying to underbid each other, the result being that any client is now able to get jobs done for peanuts.

 

Yesterday, I had to flag a job where some "client" was asking for the translation of 2 documents, maybe a total of 2000 words for 17 dollars and a hint that there would be other jobs in the future. I'm glad I haven't got the Upwork Plus membership plan, or I would have been tempted to see how lower than $17 the bids would go.

 

As a matter of fact, I'm even getting worried for Upwork, as they are making 20 percent of nearly nothing with these new type of deals.

 

My only hope is that the client offering $17 for his two translations got a terrible machine translation that he won't really be able to use.


Luce N wrote:


I don't really think these freelancers are dishonest, just plain foolish. When you accept to work for nearly nothing, then pay 20% to Upwork, plus exchange rate and taxes on this small amount of money, you are a real fool. 

 


I disagree - most of them know exactly what they're doing. It only takes a minute to steal a logo or machine translate an article, so $10 is quite a good payment for the effort involved. I wonder why the rest of us waste our time learning skills and doing actual work - maybe we're the fools.


Christine A wrote:


I disagree - most of them know exactly what they're doing. It only takes a minute to steal a logo or machine translate an article, so $10 is quite a good payment for the effort involved. I wonder why the rest of us waste our time learning skills and doing actual work - maybe we're the fools.


I may be wrong, but I'm not sure they all do that. I think many just think that's how you get started on Upwork.


Luce N wrote:

Christine A wrote:


I disagree - most of them know exactly what they're doing. It only takes a minute to steal a logo or machine translate an article, so $10 is quite a good payment for the effort involved. I wonder why the rest of us waste our time learning skills and doing actual work - maybe we're the fools.


I may be wrong, but I'm not sure they all do that. I think many just think that's how you get started on Upwork.


If you don't know how to do something, then you wouldn't lie in your profile, steal work that isn't yours, and apply for jobs that you have no idea how to do - no matter how "new" you are. Some people might do it out of desperation for money because they have no marketable skills, but I don't think that anybody does it by accident. Either way, their accounts should be banned instead of making all of us look bad.


Christine A wrote:


If you don't know how to do something, then you wouldn't lie in your profile, steal work that isn't yours, and apply for jobs that you have no idea how to do - no matter how "new" you are. Some people might do it out of desperation for money because they have no marketable skills, but I don't think that anybody does it by accident. Either way, their accounts should be banned instead of making all of us look bad.


That may be true in your speciality, but I'm a translator. Many people have no idea what a translator is. Clients even ask for trouble, they expect the same person to translate into 5 or 6 different languages, while a real translator knows that he/she should translate into his/her native tongue only. These clients are the ones that give the idea that as long as you use machine translation, you can translate into any language and get paid for it. If they took the time to read profiles, they would get a fairly good idea of whether a freelancer is capable of doing a job correctly. But I guess they prefer to dream of the perfect freelancer, who will, without previous preparation, be able to do a perfect job for them - and for cheap.

However, I agree with you, any freelancer who steals work done by others should be banned.


Christine A wrote:

Luce N wrote:


I don't really think these freelancers are dishonest, just plain foolish. When you accept to work for nearly nothing, then pay 20% to Upwork, plus exchange rate and taxes on this small amount of money, you are a real fool. 

 


I disagree - most of them know exactly what they're doing. It only takes a minute to steal a logo or machine translate an article, so $10 is quite a good payment for the effort involved. I wonder why the rest of us waste our time learning skills and doing actual work - maybe we're the fools.


Agreed ... who doesn't know it's against the rules anywhere to do other people's homework? I used to report them, but a few years ago someone came to the forum (exposing herself because most of her jobs were obviously academic fraud). Her profile was never acted upon by Upwork

 

I was able to get two students in trouble because they were stupid enough to leave their school information on their attachments. One professor was shocked - she had no idea this kind of thing was happening. The other professor was somehow able to figure out who it was (probably the guy with the dunce cap on). It was quite satisfying. But witnessing that some just get a slap on the hand and continue on the site just made me give up.


Virginia F wrote:


Agreed ... who doesn't know it's against the rules anywhere to do other people's homework? I used to report them, but a few years ago someone came to the forum (exposing herself because most of her jobs were obviously academic fraud). Her profile was never acted upon by Upwork

 

I was able to get two students in trouble because they were stupid enough to leave their school information on their attachments. One professor was shocked - she had no idea this kind of thing was happening. The other professor was somehow able to figure out who it was (probably the guy with the dunce cap on). It was quite satisfying. But witnessing that some just get a slap on the hand and continue on the site just made me give up.


Virginia, although this is the main topic of this thread, I did'nt mean accademic fraud. However, I could imagine a student selling his own homework, with a few modifications, in order to get a first job on Upwork done quickly, who knows, people have a lot more imagination than we usually asume they have! That to me would be fraud.

robric
Community Member

I agree this is a disgrace Mikko. I have stopped complaining because Upwork never acknowledges. I worked very hard for my quaifications. Allowing these cheats degrades Upwork's otherwise excellent contribution to the hard working community. Richard

I am sorry to keep banging on about this, but... Look at this job and look at the feedback given!!!

**Edited for community guidelines**

 

The same guy has another job asking someone to give him answers to an exam as it happens.

 

This is a problem Upwork needs to recognize and solve. We need to keep this platform clean. It's not worth making a bad name for the platform for a handful of low paying projects on which Upwork gets the commission. It's even bad business for Upwork because it deters serious corporate clients from hiring here, in my opinion at least. Although this can be verified by statistical analysis and/or a questionnaire to past and present clients on the platform.

 

As always, please let me know if I'm out of line here but I think this needs to be addressed.

Thank you for flagging this for us, Konstantinos.

 

I have escalated this report to the correct team for their review. Appropriate action will be taken according to our internal processes. 

~ Bojan
Upwork


Konstantinos F wrote:

I am sorry to keep banging on about this, but... Look at this job and look at the feedback given!!!

**Edited for community guidelines**

 

The same guy has another job asking someone to give him answers to an exam as it happens.

 

This is a problem Upwork needs to recognize and solve. We need to keep this platform clean. It's not worth making a bad name for the platform for a handful of low paying projects on which Upwork gets the commission. It's even bad business for Upwork because it deters serious corporate clients from hiring here, in my opinion at least. Although this can be verified by statistical analysis and/or a questionnaire to past and present clients on the platform.

 

As always, please let me know if I'm out of line here but I think this needs to be addressed.


Even though your link was deleted, it's in my email. What's interesting is what comes up when I click on the link: "This job is private. Only freelancers invited by client can view this job". Does that mean once it was flagged, the "client" got around it by making the job private?

 

So ... cheaters work with a freelancer once, and get to go unobserved because the job posts are invisible to us. They probably share willing freelancer profiles with their classroom buddies as well. I would hope, probably futilely, that Upwork not only gets rid of the "client", but any and all freelancers who were invited ... they are surely repeat offenders.

petra_r
Community Member


Virginia F wrote:

"This job is private. Only freelancers invited by client can view this job". Does that mean once it was flagged, the "client" got around it by making the job private?

No, it means Upwork set it to private while investigating.

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