People are asking me to use my account

[merigliano_v]

Hello,

it has happened to me on more than one occasion that people from other freelancing websites ask me to give them my UpWork account. I have never agreed to it as I do realise it could, and probably is, a scam.

I would like to understand why they do this. I'm curious.

[BojanS]

Hi Tara,

Thank you for flagging this to us. Could you please click on my name and send me a PM with more information about your report? I’ll be sure to escalate it accordingly.

[ezjacob]

This just happened to me. Someone approached me on conference slack for it.

[BojanS]

Hi Ezbon,

Could you please click on my name and send me a PM with more information about your report? I’ll be sure to escalate it accordingly.

Thank you.

[oneflower0116]

Hello.
I sue an upwork freelancer to the Upwork support team.
As ukraine, he posted an article on **Edited for Community Guidelines** that he would sell his account.
I wanted to work at Upwork and had a relationship with him on skype.
His conditions were as follows:
50usd prepaid, 50usd after video verification, 10% of the profit I earned from working in upwork from next month was to provide.
At that time, I didn't have money and couldn't accept it, and I prepaid 50usd by payoneer on May 21st. There is no news after the prepayment.
He is a scammer and a scammer.
He currently deals with Chinese developers.
I am a Russia developer.

[a_lipsey]

---

One T wrote:

Hello.
I sue an upwork freelancer to the Upwork support team.
As ukraine, he posted an article on playerup.com that he would sell his account.
I wanted to work at Upwork and had a relationship with him on skype.
His conditions were as follows:
50usd prepaid, 50usd after video verification, 10% of the profit I earned from working in upwork from next month was to provide.
At that time, I didn't have money and couldn't accept it, and I prepaid 50usd by payoneer on May 21st. There is no news after the prepayment.
He is a scammer and a scammer.
He currently deals with Chinese developers.
I am a Russia developer.

---

So you're committing fraud with another person on Upwork and what exactly would you like Upwork to do? The only thing that is bound to happen is that you both will be banned. "Buying" someone else's account and trying to work through it is a violation of Upwork's TOS. Upwork will likely ban the account in question, but the only thing you can do in the future is not commit fraud. 

[oneflower0116]

Of course, it is a policy violation to work with someone else's account.
I will never do that again.
Upwork punishes the scammer.

Thanks.

[a_lipsey]

---

One T wrote:

Of course, it is a policy violation to work with someone else's account.
I will never do that again.
Upwork punishes the scammer.

Thanks.

---

No, you won't, because you're also the scammer, ie. the person committing fraud, and Upwork will hopefully ban you for it too. 

[PradeepH]

Hello One,

Thank you for reporting this to us. As it is against Upwork TOS to share or "rent" an account, we will forward this to the appropriate team to review and take action. Thank you for helping us keep Upwork a safe and trusted marketplace. For more information about our efforts, please see this Community announcement. 

Thank you.

Pradeep H.

[nuajen]

Already happened to me with someone from Ukraine.

Gave me this account and asked me to talk via Skype

This is his account he gave me:

**Edited for community guidelines**

[JoanneP]

Hi Juan,

Could you please send me a PM with more information so I can look into this for you? You can click on my name to send your PM. 

[3d92d4bc]

Hello,

Someone got in contact with me about a web development job and I talked with the person about it. He mentioned he has a Chinese account and that Upwork doesn't really allow for higher paying jobs with Chinese accounts. Because of that, he wants access to my account so that he can find the higher paying jobs and make my account look good. I exchanged Discord info with him so I can post the conversation here. It does seem like he's legit in terms of education and work, but the method to what he wants to do isn't too appealing. But it sounds a tad risky and I'm not totally buying his story about the account; any opinions or suggestions?

**Edited for community guidelines**

[BojanS]

Hi Franklin,

Thank you for reporting this to us. As it is against Upwork TOS to share or "rent" an account, we will forward this to the appropriate team to review and take action. For more information about our efforts, please see this Community announcement.

Feel free to click on my name and send me a PM with more information about your report. 

[m_terrazas]

---

Franklin S wrote:

Hello,

Someone got in contact with me about a web development job and I talked with the person about it. He mentioned he has a Chinese account and that Upwork doesn't really allow for higher paying jobs with Chinese accounts. Because of that, he wants access to my account so that he can find the higher paying jobs and make my account look good. I exchanged Discord info with him so I can post the conversation here. It does seem like he's legit in terms of education and work, but the method to what he wants to do isn't too appealing. But it sounds a tad risky and I'm not totally buying his story about the account; any opinions or suggestions?

**Edited for community guidelines**

---

Just out of curiosity, have you read the TOS? And the help? And all the information about scams in the forum?
Because, in addition to being an old, very old scam, you have broken the TOS by communicating outside of Upwork before having a contract.

[prestonhunter]

re: "He mentioned he has a Chinese account and that Upwork doesn't really allow for higher paying jobs with Chinese accounts."

Also:
He's just lying about this.

[carolinazmb]

Hi all,
I just received this email out of the blue. It looks like a scam to me.
I'm just sharing this with you so you're aware of the situation.

Have you ever received an email or a message similar to this?

**Edited for community guidelines**

[e825750a]

Hello,
Thanks for sharing. This may probably be a scam. It's against upwork terms of services.

[jr-translation]

---

Eurys Z wrote:

Hi all,
I just received this email out of the blue. It looks like a scam to me.
I'm just sharing this with you so you're aware of the situation.

Have you ever received an email or a message similar to this?

**Edited for community guidelines**

---

If you seriously were wondering if the email was a scam, I highly suggest you re-read the ToS.

[carolinazmb]

I'm convinced it's a scam, and I'll never share or rent my account.

I only want to share it so that others are aware of similar situations.

[BojanS]

Hi Eurys,

Thank you for helping us keep Upwork a safe and trusted marketplace. As it is against Upwork TOS to share or "rent" an account, we will forward this to the appropriate team to review and take action. For more information about our efforts, please see this Community announcement.

[lffrtech]

Hi, Community.

My account was suspended last week and I have received an email from Upwork Risk & Compliance Team that asks me to upload documents.

I did it on Friday and it said it would take 24 hours to review.

**Edited for Community Guidelines**

Now how can I complete the request and restore my account?

Please help me.

Regards.

[AndreaG]

Hi Luis,

I can see you were able to reply to your support ticket with our team regarding this. Please allow some time for our team to review and they will update you directly via ticket as soon as possible.

[pablogravielseo]

happened with me now, someone from Australia asks me to use my upwork account.

[LuiggiR]

Hi Pablo,

As Bojan previously shared,  it is against Upwork TOS to share or "rent" an account. Can you please click on my name and send me a PM with more information about your situation so I can assist you further?

Thank you,

[6106ab34]

I started on upwork fairly recently, and got an invite for a certain job. I'm not all too sure how much I should specify in this post, but the client here Never actually mentioned any details to the job, just asked for the conversation to move to email, and sent me this:

**Edited for Community Guidelines**

[grimesr]

Did you allow hime to email you? If so, the damage may already have been done. He has your email account now. You probably know now that is a TOS violation. I hope you didn't do any more. BIG SCAM here. Many TOS violations. Run away as fast as  you can.

[6106ab34]

I doubt giving someone my email can do any damage, unless they have some magic way to get my password/ip. 

[grimesr]

Wait until they sell it to 1000 other scammers who want to send you their bogus stuff.

[martina_plaschka]

Flag the job posting for fraud and move on. 

[roberty1y]

Is there anyone on the planet insane enough to turn over their Upwork account and  access to their computer to a complete stranger on the Internet?

[martina_plaschka]

---

Robert Y wrote:

Is there anyone on the planet insane enough to turn over their Upwork account and  access to their computer to a complete stranger on the Internet?

---

Yes.

[lysis10]

---

Robert Y wrote:

Is there anyone on the planet insane enough to turn over their Upwork account and  access to their computer to a complete stranger on the Internet?

---

Yep, lots. And then the NO REASON comes around.

[AndreaG]

Hi Zaher, thank you for reporting this to us. As it is against Upwork TOS to share or "rent" an account, we will forward this to the appropriate team to review and take action. Thank you for helping us keep Upwork a safe and trusted marketplace. For more information about our efforts, please see this Community announcement.

[mihalucasergiu]

Hello! I am concerned about that already 2 Chinese people ask for my account on upwork and to get full acces via team viewer 24/7 of my  PC. As a reason they are saying that the pay rate from China is more less than Europe or America. I am sure this is a scam but  i want to find out why they are doing this and if i can find a way to report them. Thanks in advice.

[prestonhunter]

Yes, of course this is a scam.

re: "i want to find out why they are doing this"

Because they want to defraud people and get money.

re: "if i can find a way to report them"

You can report here, as you have done.

Ideally, you should click on the "Flag as inappropriate" link in the top right corner of their job posting or freelancer profile.

[mihalucasergiu]

They contacted me via Freelancer app, so i have no personal data ID,name IP or anything. But they can make money using my account because i'm new here. 

[prestonhunter]

re: "They contacted me via Freelancer app, so i have no personal data ID,name IP or anything."

Yes. We have heard many reports about scammers and scoundrels doing that, operating out of the Freelancer.com website.

There is NOTHING FURTHER for you to do at this point. Upwork is already aware of this matter, and you do not have any additional information to report that could be useful. There are no Upwork accounts or job postings involved, so there is no specific action Upwork could take.

Just be aware that getting involved with those people in any way would be a mistake. Upwork DOES have many procedures in place designed to catch people who are trying to circumvent its systems in this way. If Upwork caught you working with those people, then your account would be terminated.

[b9d3d991]

Tomorrow I got this message from someone i don't know. He told me that he is from china and his account is blocked by upwork due to some reason and he wanted to access my upwork accout saying that client needs indian people for there work and he will give me 10% commission to access my account. He told me that he does not need password but Instead he wants me to give hime access to my computer via anydesk or team viewer.

When i got this message i instantly knew that this is fraud and i also want everyone to please be aware of this scams and they are so clever that they will trap you in there scam.

Please be carefull from this scamers.

[prestonhunter]

Thank you for your report.

You are correct in realizing that this is a person who should be avoided and reported.

We have read about these people before, here in the Forum.

For the record, Chinese freelancers ARE allowed to work on Upwork.

So that part of this scammer's story isn't true.

I see no reason at all to even believe that the person actually lives in China. He could be anywhere in the world.

You already know that it is a serious violation of Upwork ToS for any user to "share" his Upwork account. So it really doesn't matter if this person's story is true or not. It would be a violation of Upwork ToS to go along with such a scheme no matter what.

[martina_plaschka]

I see nothing clever about this. Anybody who has read the ToS knows that sharing your account is strictly forbidden. 

[b9d3d991]

yes but the new upwork freelancers are not aware of TOS due to excitment and also they need money so this is important.