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c4695349
Community Member

Freelancer emailed me at my work email

I posted a project yesterday on Upwork and I got a lot of responses, I've yet to even go through them all. However this morning I received an email to my work email (an email that I did not use when setting up this account) about the project I posted. This is not something I'm working on for work, totally something outside, so why on earth and how did this freelancer get my work email? It's very concerning to me that someone would do this. 

17 REPLIES 17
hodgesh
Community Member

Did you give any identifying information in the job post? Have you hired on Upwork before? Your previous freelancers may have used your name when they gave you feedback, and people viewing your job post can see that feedback and search online for your information. It could have been a freelancer you worked with previously.

c4695349
Community Member

No identifying information was given and this was my first time posting on
Upwork, so I hadn't worked with any freelancers before. I asked the person
how they got my email and they replied they just googled me and found that
email so just decided to email me. 😞
BojanS
Community Manager
Community Manager

Hi Qiana,

 

I'm sorry to hear about your experience. Looks like you did include the name of the company in the attachments of the Job Post. Please note that you shouldn't include contact info, links with contact forms/info or any sensitive info in the post. Please see this help article to know how you can edit your job post.

 

Additionally: Check this help article and this blog for more information on how to post a job. Please read more about Simple & Safe hiring through Upwork.

 

Let us know if you need any further assistance.

 

Thank you.

~ Bojan
Upwork
c4695349
Community Member

That's the thing the attachments don't include my WORK email or the name of
my WORK. The info provided in the attachments are actually something I'm
volunteering to do, so the info attached would not have led to my actual
full-time work/job or the company I work for. This person actually went
out into AL Gore's Internet and found AN email for me and emailed me there
- which has absolutely nothing to do with the project I posted. 😞


Bojan S wrote:

I'm sorry to hear about your experience. Looks like you did include the name of the company in the attachments of the Job Post. 


Bojan - So there are no repercussions for freelancers who contact clients outside of Upwork like this? 

And I just want to reiterate the information on the post and attachments is not my actual job or the company I work for. That info is the school I'm volunteering to project manage a website for. 

BojanS
Community Manager
Community Manager

Qiana, could you please send me a PM with the name of the freelancer you are referring to and a screenshot of the email they sent to you? I'll try to locate their account on Upwork if they have any.

 

Thank you.

~ Bojan
Upwork
c4695349
Community Member

Sent info. Thanks so much!
gilbert-phyllis
Community Member

It's often not that difficult to figure out who a client is. I do it all the time, if I can, before creating a proposal (or even deciding whether or not to submit one). The FL broke protocol and violated common courtesy by contacting you at an address that you had not voluntarily provided. In your shoes, I would have messaged the FL via Upwork and told them that by doing so, they'd instantly taken themselves out of the running for this project and any other one I might post in the future, and that would be the end of it. If they contacted me again--via UW or outside email--I'd block them. 

 

In this global marketplace, we are going to encounter boors and ignoramuses. We can't expect UW to police every little thing. We need for them to concentrate on issues of real security and issues that make the platform work better and more profitably for everyone, not spend time and resources trying to enforce etiquette and common sense.

a74141f5
Community Member

Totally agree with @phyllisG. The same thing has happened to me recently at least twice.

 

We have a short company profile here on Upwork that we've completed deliberately so that freelancers can be confident they're applying to a real company that will pay them and work with them repeatedly. But this outside contact initiation is new and disconcerting. Upwork needs to do something about what freelancers see when applying to jobs.

 

This doesn't happen on LinkedIn.  People just message you through the site. Then if you want to talk off site, you can.

 

The last thing I want to do is hire some random unknown freelancer outside of Upwork.

 

BTW, I looked through the list of applicants and compared it to the emails we received and there are no matches.

Hi Toli,

 

I'm sorry to hear about this, please note that it is against our TOS for freelancers to do this. Could you please click on my name above this post and send me a private message with more info about the emails you received?

 

As a best practice, we recommend you don't include any identifying information in your job posts, so other users can't find you outside of Upwork.

 

~Andrea
Upwork
a74141f5
Community Member

Thanks Andrea. I'll paste the email to you in a DM. At this point I'm accepting it as an occupational hazard. When you have a company that's been in business as long as mine has, you're bound to end up in all kinds of databases. I accept that now. 🙂 Thanks!

939fcde3
Community Member

Hi Qiana

I think, this might be occured either you already worked with that freelancer some times ago or you shared some info through links that shows your business identity thereof.

 

 

Not the case at all. These are totally new people. I know every freelancer we've ever worked with. These people are probably going to our website or searching some kind of database that has executive contact info.

re: "Not the case at all. These are totally new people. I know every freelancer we've ever worked with. These people are probably going to our website or searching some kind of database that has executive contact info."

 

If they are doing that, then this is a serious violation of Upwork ToS.

 

You may take time to report them to Upwork if you want to.

Or you may simply delete those email messages as soon as you see them.

You do not owe those people your time or attention.

Thanks Preston. You're absolutely right. I've sent Upwork a copy of the most recent email through DM.

a74141f5
Community Member

I also think that part of the "problem" could be if a job post is spiderable by search engines. It's great for there to be more access to a job which can help bring users to Upwork. I supposed we Buyers will just have to be more vigilant about how we handle those who try to skirt the system - a system which works quite well when used properly. 🙂

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