Plagiarized project - Upwork refuses to take down

[dylangarity]

I was informed by a client recently that another freelancer had plagiarized the entire description of my project. It led the client to confusion over whose was the original, though I was luckily ultimately able to convince them that it was mine.

I immediately reported both through a message to Upwork support and through the direct "Report This Project > This project template is plagiarized" option. Upwork support has reviewed and refused to take action. If anyone can offer help here, it'd be much appreciated. While the plagiarist has managed to incorporate numerous unprofessional errors and samples in their description and has a fairly low success rate in general, there's still a strong potential of me losing clients here or appearing to be the plagiarist myself.

Details:

By my understanding, I cannot include links here because apparently sharing a publicly accessible project page is some serious violation, while them plagiarizing is not.

I will include my project text, and then theirs. Note, even the specific descriptions of the various tiers after this are plagiarized.

My Project Title: You will get a thoroughly edited novel, ready for publication

My Project Description: As an avid reader and writer since childhood, I love diving into a book and helping get it in shape so that readers can experience the story without any distractions. Whatever stage your book is at, I can help ensure that the final version will be error-free, engaging, and compelling. My favorite genres to work with are sci-fi, fantasy, thriller/mystery, romance, and literary fiction, but I enjoy working with pretty much any novel 🙂

NOTE: PLEASE contact me before directly hiring. Pricing is based on word count, and it's always best to discuss details before officially starting the project. The tiers have a default setting of 50,000 words. Obviously, novel length varies widely, and we can set up a custom contract for your word count. Just get in touch!


Their Project Title: You will get a meticulously edited and proofread book manuscript ready for publishing

Their Project Description: As an avid reader and writer since childhood, I love diving into a book and helping get it in shape so that readers can experience the story without any distractions. Whatever stage your book is at, I can help ensure that the final version will be error-free, engaging, and compelling. My favorite genres to work with are sci-fi, fantasy, thriller/mystery, romance, and literary fiction, but I enjoy working with pretty much any novel.

NOTE: Pricing is based on word count. The tiers have a default setting of 50,000 words. Obviously, novel-length varies widely, and we can set up a custom contract for your word count. Just get in touch!

[colettelewis]

It is beyond belief that Upwork refuses to take any action (if unsurprising). The site is riddled with scammers, and yet no action is taken when a genuine freelancer's profile is not plagiarized,but stolen by an unscrupulous fraudster who can just carry on unpunished and who no doubt will steal from other people as well. 

[LuiggiR]

Hi Dylan,

I'm very sorry to hear about your experience. Upon checking your support ticket, I can confirm that your concern has been further escalated for review. You can rest assured the relevant team will be following up with you.

[dylangarity]

Hi Luiggi,

Glad to see it's now been taken down, but unclear why it took anything more than the original report, and why at first there was a refusal to deal with obviously plagiarized content. In fact, how was that not auto-flagged in some way by Upwork in the first place?

[dylangarity]

I recently reported another project for word-for-word plagiarizing nearly the entirety of mine.

After repeated attempts to get in touch with someone from support who would take that seriously and being denied, the plagiarized project was finally taken down after I raised the issue in the forums here: https://community.upwork.com/t5/Freelancers/Plagiarized-project-Upwork-refuses-to-take-down/m-p/1074...

A couple days later, I now got an email that "my project was not approved", saying it requires revisions because the "nature of the project violates Upwork TOS by violating another entity's policies". There are no details or explanation of what this refers to. My project has been up without issue for a year and a half, and it seems unlikely that this is a coincidence given the recent plagiarism report. At a loss as to what to do.