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jfrenchyyy
Community Member

Freelancer Plagarized My Profile and Stole Portfolio Samples

After applying to a job, I received a message from the client asking "Hey, Jessica. I'm a bit confused. I got the same sample resumés from another freelancer. Any idea what's going on?"

 

After asking her to send me the freelancer's profile, I discover that this guy has copied ~25% of his freelancer profile verbatim from mine, has copy and pasted a project description from my portfolio to his, and has stolen and uploaded two resume samples from my profile (I am a resume writer). After further investigation, I have the sense that this guy has plagarized his entire portfolio from other freelancers, as there is 0 consistency in his resume format or style. Additionally, all of the companies that he has listed under his employment history don't even exist.

 

This is very upsetting, as I have no idea how many connects I have wasted applying to a job that has been thrown out because they receive the same samples from this other guy and assume we are both frauds. I have reported this to the UpWork team but have received no response. How can I make sure this guy gets kicked off??

11 REPLIES 11
mtngigi
Community Member

I've flagged your post to get a mod's attention.

 

ETA: While you're waiting for a mod to assist you, you may want to do a search on the forum - there are a multitude of posts - a mod back in 2017 stated "we also expect to reduce instances of copied profiles in the near future with some initiatives we are developing", but the problem persists. I believe some of those frauds are allowed to stay after they get a "slap on the hand" ... which is just wrong.

I completely agree! I have read through other posts and it seems that UpWork's general response to this behaviour is insufficient. The fact that someone has plagarized any information should be immediate grounds for removal from the platform. Not only is he misrepresenting himself to clients, but he is harming my livlihood, as well.

Y
Jessica F wrote:

I completely agree! I have read through other posts and it seems that UpWork's general response to this behaviour is insufficient. The fact that someone has plagarized any information should be immediate grounds for removal from the platform. Not only is he misrepresenting himself to clients, but he is harming my livlihood, as well.


Yep ... it's  easy to see how they deal with these frauds when you can see that their profiles are still active. Hey, as long as they're making money, right?


Virginia F wrote

 

Yep ... it's  easy to see how they deal with these frauds when you can see that their profiles are still active. Hey, as long as they're making money, right?

I found out the same happens with profiles that contain links and links inside videos that eventually let someone contact the freelancer outside. That's supposed to be a ToS violation too but some who already make money get away with it. How fair... (sigh) I wish Upwork was more serious about that and protect people who behave honestly and comply with the rules, punishing the others.


Sergio S wrote:

Virginia F wrote

 

Yep ... it's  easy to see how they deal with these frauds when you can see that their profiles are still active. Hey, as long as they're making money, right?

I found out the same happens with profiles that contain links and links inside videos that eventually let someone contact the freelancer outside. That's supposed to be a ToS violation too but some who already make money get away with it. How fair... (sigh) I wish Upwork was more serious about that and protect people who behave honestly and comply with the rules, punishing the others.


Agree ... I guess they're too busy keeping an eye on other more important things, like making sure our profile are set to private immediately on the 30-day mark, because we've yet to be paid for the jobs we're  working. You have to wonder how they prioritize ... oh, wait, they don't.

BojanS
Community Manager
Community Manager

Hi Jessica,

 

Could you please click on my name and send me a PM with more information about your report, including the profile link of the reported user. I'll check that and escalate accordingly.

 

Thank you.

~ Bojan
Upwork
lysis10
Community Member

wow I would feel so much rage. OP, you have my sympathy although that's cheap and useless. If this dude has made money, there is a good chance Upwork won't do anything and it makes me rage.


Jennifer M wrote:

wow I would feel so much rage. OP, you have my sympathy although that's cheap and useless. If this dude has made money, there is a good chance Upwork won't do anything and it makes me rage.


Even if he hasn't made any money, it's unlikely that Upwork will take this seriously. Remember the guy with the portfolio full of stolen logos who posted in the forum on Monday, then brazenly lied when we called him on it, then deleted his lies to try to cover his tracks? I reported him - along with links to the stock websites where he'd gotten three of his logos - but four days later, he's still here and the stolen material is still in his portfolio. He's only done two low-paying jobs on Upwork, so I fail to see what possible reason Upwork could have for wanting him to remain on this website, lying to clients and giving them stolen designs? However, the comments where we confronted him about the stolen logos were all quickly deleted. So the message from Upwork is clear: stealing, lying and plagiarising are totally fine, but if you try to confront someone about their dishonesty, Upwork will censor YOU instead.

 

We keep hearing that Upwork has too many freelancers, and yet they refuse to ban the thousands of liars, scammers and fakes on their website. I don't know how they can hope to attract more serious, big-spending clients as long as this website is filled with such terrible freelancers. There's no way that anyone "accidentally" steals somebody else's work or copies their profile text, so this should result in an automatic ban. Instead, they just sweep it under the rug.

 

Also, this forum is filled with complaints from freelancers about how clients post jobs and then don't hire anyone, but if I were to post a project and saw a bunch of fake and incompetent freelancers blatantly lying about their skills, their location, their English-speaking abilities etc., then I would leave here and not hire anyone either. So instead of blaming the clients, you should blame the freelancers who are damaging the credibility of this website and undoutedly scaring clients away; they're the real problem.

 

Applause, applause and more applause !!!


Christine A wrote:

Jennifer M wrote:

wow I would feel so much rage. OP, you have my sympathy although that's cheap and useless. If this dude has made money, there is a good chance Upwork won't do anything and it makes me rage.


Even if he hasn't made any money, it's unlikely that Upwork will take this seriously. Remember the guy with the portfolio full of stolen logos who posted in the forum on Monday, then brazenly lied when we called him on it, then deleted his lies to try to cover his tracks? I reported him - along with links to the stock websites where he'd gotten three of his logos - but four days later, he's still here and the stolen material is still in his portfolio. He's only done two low-paying jobs on Upwork, so I fail to see what possible reason Upwork could have for wanting him to remain on this website, lying to clients and giving them stolen designs? However, the comments where we confronted him about the stolen logos were all quickly deleted. So the message from Upwork is clear: stealing, lying and plagiarising are totally fine, but if you try to confront someone about their dishonesty, Upwork will censor YOU instead.

 

We keep hearing that Upwork has too many freelancers, and yet they refuse to ban the thousands of liars, scammers and fakes on their website. I don't know how they can hope to attract more serious, big-spending clients as long as this website is filled with such terrible freelancers. There's no way that anyone "accidentally" steals somebody else's work or copies their profile text, so this should result in an automatic ban. Instead, they just sweep it under the rug.

 

Also, this forum is filled with complaints from freelancers about how clients post jobs and then don't hire anyone, but if I were to post a project and saw a bunch of fake and incompetent freelancers blatantly lying about their skills, their location, their English-speaking abilities etc., then I would leave here and not hire anyone either. So instead of blaming the clients, you should blame the freelancers who are damaging the credibility of this website and undoutedly scaring clients away; they're the real problem.

 


Sorry I missed that one ... this is why everything they're doing re ID verification is a waste of everyone's time. Being identified does not identify whether or not you're a fraudulent liar; and when it's pointed out that you are, Upwork (usually) does nothing.

Now I am wondering if "the Aussie voice" case Rene and Petra mentioned some months ago got any resolution or was lost in limbo as most of the time happens when someone speaks up.

 

Upwork definitely must put some efforts here. Years ago before using this platform I was in the F site. It was a horrible experience from the beginning, everybody copying each other and using celebrities for profile pics, etc. I ran away totally discouraged. Now it seems that site has changed for the best and the scammers are coming here where control has become lax. And as Christine said, this could be the reason why clients are posting and not even getting back to their own posts. Why to come back if the proposals are mostly from scammers and good freelancers are lost in the crowd? In fact, scammers force us to switch our profiles private to avoid being plagiarized! Just how it happened to the OP, the client received proposals with identical portfolios, therefore the client didn't know which one to choose. This is terrible. Obviously clients will opt for a place with honest people. Upwork should do something about. If they don't care their company is losing money, not only us.

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