Client claims he does my work

[glacial]

Hello! So, this is the situation. My client hired me, I've been doing some design work for him, we keep contact in Slack. He's been sending me some videos of calls with his respective client (I don't know whether his client is from Upwork or not) so I could edit the document accordingly and I've noticed that in these calls it's implied he's doing my job (i.e. directly working with these files), basically lying to his client. When I noticed that and asked him directly, he admitted it like it's no big deal. I think that's inappropriate behavior, but not sure about the rules.

[prestonhunter]

A client named "John" hired a freelancer named "Sandra."

John paid Sandra to write an article about the birds of Madagascar.

John then posted the article online, with his name as the author.

John also went on various websites, claiming that he wrote the article.

John did not violate any Upwork rules.

As far as Upwork is concerned, John owns all rights to the article. That includes the right to claim authorship.

re: "John has been sending Sandra some videos of calls with his respective client, so Sandra could edit the document accordingly and Sandra noticed that in these calls it's implied that John is doing Sandra's job (i.e. directly working with these files), basically lying to his client."

That is an opinion.
That is not Upwork's opinion.

John is the owner and creator of these files.

As far as I'm concerned, John is NOT lying to these clients.

[ba230d46]

Finally, I met someone with the same name as mine, I am so delighted

[glacial]

I have some new information regarding this. I have reasons to believe that by using my contribution my client (John) violated his own NDA that implies he's doing the work himself and is not allowed to share it with anybody. I believe my Upwork client (John) got hired for the project by a certain agency, then he hires multiple Upwork freelancers to work on the agency's projects while claiming he does their work himself.

I did NOT sign any NDA with this agency, and I do NOT want to break Upwork ToS. Would it be a good idea to contact the agency John's working for and expose this scheme? Would it be a good idea to suggest the agency contact me on Upwork (via Direct Contract or Bring-Your-Own-Client) to make this process legal and not confusing for any participant?

[petra_r · Accepted solution]

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Mikhail T wrote:

Would it be a good idea to contact the agency John's working for and expose this scheme?

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That WOULD be a violation of Upwork's terms of service. It would likely mean the end of your Upwork account.In previous cases, when a freelancer did something as inappropriate and unprofessional as this,  they were permanently banned from the platform.

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Mikhail T wrote:

I have reasons to believe that by using my contribution my client (John) violated his own NDA

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How would you know what NDA your client signed?

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Mikhail T wrote:

Would it be a good idea to suggest the agency contact me on Upwork (

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It would be a good idea to take this opportunity to mind your own business and do what you were hired to do and then walk away.  It would not be a good idea to attempt to sabotage your client's business

Upwork does not forbid subcontracting. If you don't like it, make yourself too expensive to be hired by people who farm out your work.

[glacial]

Thanks! I won't do anything.