What is Upwork's policy on freelancers who hire themselves ?

[mkhambadkone]

We met a freelancer outside of Upwork and asked him to set-up an account on Upwork, so as to make the contracts, payments and general administration process easier.

He mentioned that he cannot work on Upwork as he was banned.  When I asked him why, he said he had hired himself, and Upwork banned him.

I assume he hired himself to improve his ratings.  Upwork must have collected commissions on his payments to himself.

Can Upwork clarify its' policies on freelancers who hire themselves ?  Is it an outright ban, or is there a process that is followed?

[petra_r]

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@Mahesh K wrote:

He mentioned that he cannot work on Upwork as he was banned.  When I asked him why, he said he had hired himself, and Upwork banned him.

I assume he hired himself to improve his ratings.  Upwork must have collected commissions on his payments to himself.

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 Of course he is banned and it would be an outrage if he had not been banned or was ever allowed back.

Hire someone else. You would not want to work with dishonest people like that, anyway.

[ladyelexia]

Sadly Petra only gave an opinion, not an answer to your question.  I suggest that you contact client support to get a reliable answer to their policies. In general, users who violate the terms of service are not allowed to the platform, this is done to keep the platform ethical and fair for all who use it. 

If you are satisfied with his work and you met him off of the platform your option is to keep your contracts in their original form. If you want an on platform contractor, there are a lot of reliable top-rated contractors available to help you complete your project, and finding them is as easy as configuring your search parameters. 

[prestonhunter]

Of course such activity is banned outright. And of course Upwork works very hard to detect such behavior.

Upwork bans anybody involved in this sort of thing, as they should.

There is something genuinely missing from a freelancer who thinks this is a good idea.

[bobafett999]

I have heard of friends hiring friends, but this is a new one.  How can I hire myself?

[petra_r]

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@Prashant P wrote:

I have heard of friends hiring friends, but this is a new one.  How can I hire myself?

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 Friends hiring friends on fake contracts is just as forbidden.

You hire yourself the dumb (immediately obvious) way or the smarter (not as obvious) way... Not going to give a step by step description as I don't want to give people ideas.

Suffice to say there was a profile of a fairly prolific poster not so long ago who has had a VERY loyal client who hired him (and only ever him) 50 (!) times over the space of a few months for many, many tiny ( $ 5 to $ 20, mainly $ 5) contracts when that freelancer's normal contract values were in the hundreds and thousands. Luckily that "client" needed all those tiny jobs doing whenever that freelancer had a really poor feedback...

That client was also supposedly half a world away but conveniently shared the exact same time zone. Lucky, huh?

[bobafett999]

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@Petra R wrote:

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@Prashant P wrote:

How can I hire myself?

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That client was also supposedly half a world away but conveniently shared the exact same time zone. Lucky, huh?

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 I really don't need to know.  I am sure there is some convoluted way.  My mind can't handle that. I thought it was funny.

May be one of them lived in north or south pole and other one on equator?