A freelancer on Upwork has died. Can we change the account to continue usage?

[8591b2fd]

One of my friends on Upwork (working as a freelancer) provided me his credentials before his tragic death due to covid-19, what's the procedure in order to cater his ongoing clients and eventually change of authority of his profile?

[amber9130]

Are you asking to log in as him and work under his name or "credentials"? I'm confused.

[prestonhunter]

re: "Can we change the account to continue usage?"

No.

An Upwork profie is not like a sweater. You can't just give it to whoever wants it.

It represents a person.

If that person is dead, then NOBODY is authorized to use that account.

If you are caught using somebody else's account, you could be permanently removed from the platform.

[BojanS · Accepted solution]

Hi Anas,

Sharing log in credentials with anybody or logging into other users' accounts is a serious violation of Upwork TOS.

We do have a process in place for contracts that may still be open or any balance that may still be on the account. You can check this help article for more information.  One of our agents will reach out to you directly to further advise you.

Thank you!

[sapnaa_singh]

This Upwork profile's user has died due to covid .. and now someone else is using it
Please verify this account as It's a serious violation of upwork TOS

Here is the account username

**Edited for community guidelines**

[JoanneP]

Hi Sapna,

I'm sorry to hear about that. I have escalated this to our team. One of our team members will reach out and assist you directly via a support ticket. 

[sapnaa_singh]

Thanks Joanne .. Do verify Neha's id as some other person is using her profile .. just want this matter to get noticed by upwork community .. because they are violating upwork rules

Regards

Sapna

[jawadakr]

actually this is a very good question. No need to jump in about privacy or ethics here.

I am also a freelancer and sole earner of my family and this point also came to my mind last year when I was going through the same phase of my life ( covid survivor and road accdient survivor )

So if something happened to me or say for any reasons its no longer possible for me to work on upwork then can any of my family member e.g my wife or my sister can use my account or can I give it to someone else on partnership basis or sell it out or that's just it ? end of my 10 years worth of online working profile ?

that's how a portfolio works if I am correct because I sold 2 of my running physical business that way when I was in need of money and it was easy to sell bottled water shop with its plant and delivery wan. 

[roberty1y]

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Jawad U wrote:

actually this is a very good question. No need to jump in about privacy or ethics here.

I am also a freelancer and sole earner of my family and this point also came to my mind last year when I was going through the same phase of my life ( covid survivor and road accdient survivor )

So if something happened to me or say for any reasons its no longer possible for me to work on upwork then can any of my family member e.g my wife or my sister can use my account or can I give it to someone else on partnership basis or sell it out or that's just it ? end of my 10 years worth of online working profile ?

that's how a portfolio works if I am correct because I sold 2 of my running physical business that way when I was in need of money and it was easy to sell bottled water shop with its plant and delivery wan. 

---

Bequeathing your Upwork account to someone in the event of your demise would be like passing on your passport or your driver's licence to them. 

[jawadakr]

Well we can also think it like a store or a business who is passed on to next one in line.

One of my past employer ( IT service company owner ) passed away few months back and now his son is running the same thing. 

Same is happening with any online business if owner is not available or not in the picture then that does not mean you have to close it down and shut down the blog, online store or the website with years of efforts being done on it.

[a_lipsey]

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Jawad U wrote:

Well we can also think it like a store or a business who is passed on to next one in line.

One of my past employer ( IT service company owner ) passed away few months back and now his son is running the same thing. 

Same is happening with any online business if owner is not available or not in the picture then that does not mean you have to close it down and shut down the blog, online store or the website with years of efforts being done on it.

---

That's not how Upwork thinks of it. The person on the profile must be the person doing the work. It's not like selling a store front business. They do not view it that way. Period. So no, you may not give your Upwork account to someone to use after you die. 

[jawadakr]

well higher up in upwork should think about this.

I atleast know 11 people in my circle who are no longer with me due to covid and they were from every group of age. Even a young designer who just started his career was one of them.

thanks.

[a_lipsey]

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Jawad U wrote:

well higher up in upwork should think about this.

I atleast know 11 people in my circle who are no longer with me due to covid and they were from every group of age. Even a young designer who just started his career was one of them.

thanks.

---

Of course it's very sad that they died, but their freelancer profile is theirs. Someone eles cannot impersonate them to do work once they have died. They do not need an Upwork profile anymore. They've gone to a place where they hopefully don't have to work for their supper anymore. If a family member wants to do work on Upwork then they need to create their own profile. 

[martina_plaschka]

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Jawad U wrote:

well higher up in upwork should think about this.

I atleast know 11 people in my circle who are no longer with me due to covid and they were from every group of age. Even a young designer who just started his career was one of them.

thanks.

---

Well they have, and have stipulated that only the real freelancer can use his account. You need to think of this as his account, sadly, dying with him. 

Now look at it from the client's perspective. If accounts could be bequeathed, a different person would suddenly use it. That person not only does not have the skillset of the original owner, he/she might have no idea at all how to deliver the specific service. Maybe the original owner provided web development, and the new person knows nothing about that? Finally, using another person's account would be lying to the client, who expects the upwork work history to be reliable proof of the freelancer's abilities. 

[roberty1y]

When I die, I want to make sure my account is closed, deleted and done with. I've heard lots of stories about people using others' accounts to cheat clients. If the genuine owner of the account has a good record on Upwork, it's easy for the usurper to start a contract with an unsuspecting client.

If you took over a doctor's practice, that would be fine (assuming you're a doctor) as long as you made it clear you're a new doctor. Impersonating the dead one would land you in prison.

[prestonhunter]

re: "If you took over a doctor's practice, that would be fine (assuming you're a doctor) as long as you made it clear you're a new doctor. Impersonating the dead one would land you in prison."

There is a TV series about this. Available on Netflix right now. (EDITED: Currently on Hulu, not Netflix. Thanks to Amanda for the correction.)

Trust Me (2017–2019).

This is written by an actual doctor who researched real-life people who impersonated doctors.

In this series, a real doctor did not DIE, but moved from the U.K. to Australia. A nurse took over the doctor's identity and posed as that doctor, becoming the chief doctor at a remote U.K. hospital.

A fictional series, but based on real people who have impersonated doctors.

And in case you are wondering, yes, this is illegal.

[lysis10]

When I die, will Upwork finally just give me the troll badge on this forum? It's my dying wish since they won't do it when I'm alive. 😡😡😡😡

[martina_plaschka]

---

Jennifer M wrote:

When I die, will Upwork finally just give me the troll badge on this forum? It's my dying wish since they won't do it when I'm alive. 😡😡😡😡

---

expert vetted troll.

[jawadakr]

I guess no one is actually trying to understand what I am trying to say or what this actual post was.

My point was that if a guy passed out and he own a valueable profile then their should be an option to allow him / her to nomiate some person to keep doing his work in one way or allow him to sell his / her profile for some price. 

Now this is not a cheat if upwork can act as a mediatary and implement a system whcih allow something like this to be done. how hard it is to implement a system which shows that this profile was sold or say like change of ownership happend. 

We usually get a verficiation call after every couple of months so clearly no one can do illegal work but just saying that their is a work around to every proble and this is a real situation.

I know a lot of people who fully relied on freelancing in Pakistan and unlike most people commenting here from other countries our govt don't support its people that much. you are expected to pay for your own expenses no matter how bad a situation is and the way our culture evolved thanks to living with indian heirarcy system for a 300 years and taking on values from theri culture. Asking for a help is most difficult case and let's say people are cruel everywhere. most comment on this post is the prooft of it.

No one is trying to understand the real problem which can be happend to anyone living anywhere on this planet. May be a successful writer work from home mom suddently passed away and now a block profile is no use for her kids but if same profile is allowed to be used by someother for any condition ( be on partnership or sold in some auction ) after making it public that will give her kids something to live for. 

Every one here saying that porilfe is private which is fine but we should also treat a profile as asset or an agency or company. 

it's all about perspective. Personally I think this will be very good feature. I never thought about something like this but now every day I think about it. This is part of our lives.

I always make sure that If I am investing or doing something is it going to live or work after me or not. 

We all seen so many physically fit pople crossing over with in span of few weeks. 

Anyway this was my last comment here since every one is kind of throwing it on the negative side of the fence. I got the idea in my head. If I get the chance or means to do something about it. I l do it on my own then hopefully rest of the group will follow it. All we need is someone to take the frist step.

[a_lipsey]

We understand what you're saying. What you don't understand is that this constitutes fraud. It's not the same as selling a restaurant. You're selling an identity. That's fraud.

[feed_my_eyes]

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Jawad U wrote:

I got the idea in my head. If I get the chance or means to do something about it. I l do it on my own then hopefully rest of the group will follow it. All we need is someone to take the frist step.

---

You can take the first step and then your account will be banned permanently, which will be of no use to your relatives.

This is not at all the same situation as inheriting a shop, where customers don't care who's selling the merchandise as long as it's merchandise that they want to buy. If you're a software and web developer, then the reviews and money that you've earned are a result of your own specific set of skills and expertise, and if somebody else were to claim that they're you, and that they did the work and earned the reviews, then that's fraud. Pure and simple.

If you have relatives with the exact same skills and expertise as you, then it should be no problem for them to start their own Upwork profiles, get their own clients, and earn money themselves.

[jr-translation]

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Jawad U wrote:

I guess no one is actually trying to understand what I am trying to say or what this actual post was.

My point was that if a guy passed out and he own a valueable profile then their should be an option to allow him / her to nomiate some person to keep doing his work in one way or allow him to sell his / her profile for some price. 

You can try to nominate someone to take over for you in case you are not longer available, but not with your profile.

Now this is not a cheat if upwork can act as a mediatary and implement a system whcih allow something like this to be done. how hard it is to implement a system which shows that this profile was sold or say like change of ownership happend. 

Upwork is not going to change the ToS. There are allready too many people creating profiles and then selling them.

We usually get a verficiation call after every couple of months so clearly no one can do illegal work but just saying that their is a work around to every proble and this is a real situation.

? If someone else uses your profile to sell something to your client, it is fraud, because at this very moment YOU sell something you do not own.

I know a lot of people who fully relied on freelancing in Pakistan and unlike most people commenting here from other countries our govt don't support its people that much. you are expected to pay for your own expenses no matter how bad a situation is and the way our culture evolved thanks to living with indian heirarcy system for a 300 years and taking on values from theri culture. Asking for a help is most difficult case and let's say people are cruel everywhere. most comment on this post is the prooft of it.

We are not cruel but realistic an honest. Freelancing is allways a struggle no matter where you are in the world.

No one is trying to understand the real problem which can be happend to anyone living anywhere on this planet. May be a successful writer work from home mom suddently passed away and now a block profile is no use for her kids but if same profile is allowed to be used by someother for any condition ( be on partnership or sold in some auction ) after making it public that will give her kids something to live for. 

So someone will be working using someone elses reputation while claiming to support the deceased kids. Where is the guarantee that it will happen? Where is the guarantee that clients will get the same quality?

Every one here saying that porilfe is private which is fine but we should also treat a profile as asset or an agency or company. 
The profiles are not private but personal. My profile is an asset to my business, one that cannot be sold it is attached to me.

it's all about perspective. Personally I think this will be very good feature. I never thought about something like this but now every day I think about it. This is part of our lives.

Anyone can die at any time. All you can do as a responsible father is to make sure your kids and wife are taken care off when you are no longer around.

I always make sure that If I am investing or doing something is it going to live or work after me or not. 

We all seen so many physically fit pople crossing over with in span of few weeks. 

Anyway this was my last comment here since every one is kind of throwing it on the negative side of the fence. I got the idea in my head. If I get the chance or means to do something about it. I l do it on my own then hopefully rest of the group will follow it. All we need is someone to take the frist step.

---

We are all understanding the problem of families losing their only source of income, but you are looking for is a way to violate the ToS. You need to find other solutions to help your family or others. The only thing I can think of right now is an agency but I have no idea what happens if the owner dies.

[petra_r]

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Jawad U wrote:

Personally I think this will be very good feature.

---

No..,

Trust me, it won't ever be "a very good" (or any) feature.

[martina_plaschka]

You're quickly going from bad to worse. Selling? Auctioning off? Oh dear. 

You seem to be completely unaware what a big problem fake profiles are on upwork, people lying about their credentials, fake pictures, copy/paste overviews, people doing jobs they should not be doing, and the list goes on and on, and how much work goes into prohibiting that kind of thing. You can't be so naive that suggesting doing that, and much more, is a good idea and reflects positively on you, in the eyes of upwork. 

[a_lipsey]

It certainly raises suspicion, doesn't it?

[a_lipsey]

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Preston H wrote:

re: "If you took over a doctor's practice, that would be fine (assuming you're a doctor) as long as you made it clear you're a new doctor. Impersonating the dead one would land you in prison."

There is a TV series about this. Available on Netflix right now.

Trust Me (2017–2019).

This is written by an actual doctor who researched real-life people who impersonated doctors.

In this series, a real doctor did not DIE, but moved from the U.K. to Australia. A nurse took over the doctor's identity and posed as that doctor, becoming the chief doctor at a remote U.K. hospital.

A fictional series, but based on real people who have impersonated doctors.

And in case you are wondering, yes, this is illegal.

---

Preston, I got curious so went to find the series. It's actually on Hulu, not Netflix.