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merigliano_v
Community Member

People are asking me to use my account

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.

ACCEPTED SOLUTION

Hi Dioneda,
 
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 post.
~ Nikola
Upwork

View solution in original post

322 REPLIES 322


Eve L wrote:

No one has ever asked me to use my account, and I've never gotten any invites from scammers. I feel left out. 😞 


Well, your chance is passed, no matter how painful your FOMO is. You have a great JSS, a long upwork history, and seem to be a serious professional. You don't even live in the US, so they won't even send you checks! 


Martina P wrote:

Eve L wrote:

No one has ever asked me to use my account, and I've never gotten any invites from scammers. I feel left out. 😞 


Well, your chance is passed, no matter how painful your FOMO is. You have a great JSS, a long upwork history, and seem to be a serious professional. You don't even live in the US, so they won't even send you checks! 


Lol. Checks. Smiley LOL

Considering banks in Norway don't have any cash, I'm not sure what I could do with a check, other than frame it and hang it on the wall. 

________________________
Freelancing is a gamble - To win you need skill, luck and a strategy


Eve L wrote:

Martina P wrote:

Eve L wrote:

No one has ever asked me to use my account, and I've never gotten any invites from scammers. I feel left out. 😞 


Well, your chance is passed, no matter how painful your FOMO is. You have a great JSS, a long upwork history, and seem to be a serious professional. You don't even live in the US, so they won't even send you checks! 


Lol. Checks. Smiley LOL

Considering banks in Norway don't have any cash, I'm not sure what I could do with a check, other than frame it and hang it on the wall. 


Banks don't need to have cash to accept checks... as long as they have money. 

Eve L,

I can share two linkedin profiles with you who are time to time spamming me with exactly the same proposal "gimme your account and I'll pay you"

I got approached today on Freelancer.com 
BY 6 DIFFERENT PEOPLE to register an account on Upwork for them. 
I investigated further each offer. It starts with account request, then they want to remote access your computer and then you'll learn you only get paid if they get work xD. 
They offer 200+ usd for the service HOWEVER they only will pay after at least 2 weeks, because they want to video-verify the account and get the orders to pay you. 
So basically you need to do all the work and risk for over two weeks blindly hoping that:
1. They're really after the work 
2. They will manage to get orders
3. They will pay you in the end. 
But they don't say that right away. 
I offered them to set-up a dedicated remote computer connected to a separate network in my location.
I asked (as an experiment) for a very reasonable payment upfront for the connection fee and then weekly fee until they get the verification at which point they can start paying monthly. 
None agreed. 

They say the reason they contact you specifically is because you're based in Western Europe. 
One of them told me that his account was blocked because he's from Russia and because my location is more trustworthy for buyers (I'm flattered). 
I told him about VPN and google computing instance services - which enable to achieve the same results as using my computer remotely, but he was not interested, so clearly this isn't what's he was after. 

Banks, paypal and other highly secure financial aplications use IP and MAC identification for verificaiton. If someone has access to your computer they can hack your accounts by just having email and passowrds (which de facto are very easy to extract once you're on the same machine). 
For example - if I log in to my Paypal from a computer I haven't used before I get text message with specail two-step authentication code. If I try to log in to PayPal from the same computer and the same network but different browser or different windows account, it doesn't require two-factor verification. 

Moreover by having access to your account they will know your name, surname, address, phone number and preffered payment method. So if you're going to agree to this offer you might as well give them your moms maiden, your first school, school friend name and pet name too xD.

These scammers are most likely after YOU and not really about scamming people on Upowrk. It just seems more belivable this way. 

Don't get tempted.

And finally - me having account here (and few other people as I see in this thread) is actually result of these scammers contacting me about Upworks.
So I have also a conspiracy theory that the scammers are actually upwork forum moderators trying to do some unconventional brand awareness. 

Hi Lael,

 

I'm sorry to hear you were contacted by somebody asking you to share your Upwork account. Sharing or accessing somebody else's account is a violation of Upwork ToS and we, Upwork Community Moderators, would never encourage anybody to do that.

 

Could you please click on my name next to this post and send me a private message with more information about the request you got? Did they share any names or contact information? We do have internal system to identify such violation as well as our ID Verification Badge program but would also like to investigate the request you received. 

 

Thank you!

~ Valeria
Upwork

So I was approached about the same offer that everyone else has been getting. I added this individual on discord and for (experimental purposes), I let him set up an account while I watched him through AnyDesk(a website that allows someone to work on your computer through theirs) he created the account and as he had previously told me. I would be paid $50 for giving him some info to create the account.

Fast forward a few hours later, he starts sounding a little sketchy, so I unfriend him on discord and he proceeds to message me on Fiverr(the app where he originally contacted me) and told me to add him back. So I did and we talked and I told him I would not let him back on anydesk to work on upwork until he payed me the $50 he promised.

**edited for Community Guidelines**

The computer that he was using was an old laptop that I haven’t used in years and in fact only has windows 7. This laptop has no personal information on it. The only thing I am worried about is if he could access other files from other computers connected to the same WiFi.

**edited for Community Guidelines** What are your thoughts?

AveryO
Community Manager
Community Manager

Hi Ahston, 

 

As a gentle reminder, please know that users are not allowed to share their accounts with another user, or have another person use their Upwork account, or create an account for another user as this is a violation of the Upwork User Agreement. The team will reach out to you with more information. 


~ Avery
Upwork
penguinpete
Community Member

This thread explains a lot! I've had this situation: Old clients' accounts from years back that were dormant and long-forgotten suddenly re-activate and invite me to proposals again - but it's nothing like the work I was doing for them and now it's spammy marketing tasks. The personality switch is jolting.

 

amraodesk
Community Member

Be aware of this kind of scams! Just received today. 

 

**Edited for community guidelines**

BojanS
Community Manager
Community Manager

Hi Amar,

 

Could you please click on my name and send me a PM with more information about your report. I'll escalate this to the correct team for further investigation and will take action as per our internal processes. 

 

Thank you.

~ Bojan
Upwork
jdvelez
Community Member

Thanks so much for this. I Just got a message in my Fiverr account from a scammer asking the same thing! I am really enjoying messing with them before i report them.

pfisherlcsw
Community Member

Hello Everyone,

 

I have been approached, via LinkedIn by this character named "Jin" who states that he works for Upwork and lives in China! He asked me to use my profile and he said that he would give me 20% of his income for using my profile. I knew something was off and I researched and came to this blog! Beware everyone of these scammers!

 

 

I was approached by someone claiming to be from Singapore who wanted to use an American account to bid on US-only jobs, and offered to share the pay. They asked to remotely log into my computer or a VM to do it.

Thank you for sharing this here, Clinton. 

If you can send me more information through a private message (by clicking on my name), I will go ahead and look into this further.


~ Avery
Upwork
sergei191
Community Member

Hey Avery,
I have an example of this but the forum is saying I don’t have enough privileges to message you. Where should I send it?

Best,
Sergei
BojanS
Community Manager
Community Manager

Hi Sergei,

 

Could you please click on my name and send me a PM with more information about your report. I'll check that and escalate this to the correct team for further investigation.

 

Thank you.

~ Bojan
Upwork

Just got one from Laos... it's pretty tempting. It seems to me more than a partnership than scam. According to his information he wants to reach markets of US and Europe but, I don't know if it is true or not, connecting through their IP address either won't work, not allowed or they don't make money out of that... Im not silly but I have doubts.
AveryO
Community Manager
Community Manager

Hi Joao, 


I would like to confirm that Upwork users are not allowed to share their accounts with other users, or people outside of Upwork as it is a violation of the Upwork Terms of Service. Users are not allowed to rent/lease their accounts, and only the registered the user is allowed to access and use their account.

 

You may also want to read up on this support article for more information about what actions may temporarily or permanently put a hold on your account. 


~ Avery
Upwork

re: "It seems to me more than a partnership than scam."

 

Fortunately, you don't actually need to make a determination about whether such a person is trying to scam you, or wants to be your "partner in crime."

 

Either way, it isn't something Upwork allows.


Joao B wrote:
Just got one from Laos... it's pretty tempting. It seems to me more than a partnership than scam.

Joao, you have *no* idea.....  Your details are attached to your Upwork account, when those people who are actually not in Laos have screwed clients over for a few tens of thousands of Dollars, **YOUR** Upwork account has been suspended, **YOUR** funds taken to refund their clients and Upwork releases **YOUR** details to the authorities, you'll see what a great partnership that was.

 

How did it work out for you

hi, I've just received the proposal from Guru com,

in a message,

and than went to skype conversation.

instead of talking about projects, the person named the same

to use my Upwork account, and to pay for it.

what should I do further?

thank you

 

regards

 

re: "what should I do further?"

 

Read the previous posts in this thread.

I'm going through the same thing right now. We might have the same guy.

 

**Edited for community guidelines**

679d2824
Community Member

This just happened to me. A "**Edited for community guidelines**" asked for a LinkedIn connection asking if I was interested in PT or FT remote web development work. As soon as we connected, he wanted to know if I was interested in making money for almost no effort. (alarm bells). He wanted to use my Upwork account because his was blocked by a client. Uh, no.

 

**Edited for community guidelines**

 

I reported this account as a scammer to LinkedIn.

BojanS
Community Manager
Community Manager

Thank you for bringing this to our attention, Troy. We'll share this with our team for further investigation and appropriate actions will be taken according to our internal processes.

~ Bojan
Upwork

I havent even fully had my Upwork profile approved - nad have had two approaches by people on freelancer to pay me a monthly retainer to use my account to win work... im assuming this is against TOS.

hope this doesnt get my account banned - any tips on what should do next with these new "friends" ?

AveryO
Community Manager
Community Manager

I'm sorry to learn about your experience, Tim. 

You can send me a private message with more information about the messages your received so that I can look into this further, and report it to the team. 


~ Avery
Upwork
nullfix
Community Member

Yes got allready 2 requests for the same thing.

 

At first i was under the impression that they where hackers.

 

Thank god if they are just scammers never give any of your info out guys.

 

Thanks for this post.

AveryO
Community Manager
Community Manager

It's good to know that you recognized it as a red flag, John. You can send the profiles, and some screen grabs of the messages you received to me through a private message, and I will look into this further.


~ Avery
Upwork
anderson-jacob
Community Member

I just wanted to thow in that I received an offer this mornig for 200/month for my Upwork account (which i haven't been on in years) from a message on Fiverr. Not going with it, but apparently they're coming from more places than Freelancer.com

Hi Jacob Ammon,

 

Thank you for bringing this to our attention. Could you please send me a PM with more information about your report. I'll gladly escalate it to the team for the investigation.

 

Thank you!

~ Bojan
Upwork

re: "I got approached today on Freelancer.com

BY 6 DIFFERENT PEOPLE to register an account on Upwork for them."

 

Don't go to that website.

Problem solved.

davidgerrells
Community Member

Scam Alert!

 

It all started with some random person through LinkedIn hitting me up for access to my Upwork account. They claimed to be a Paris based top notch React and back end master with 12 years of industry experience despite having ZERO proof. Names through LinkedIn and Skype were totally different, their grammar was abysmal, clearly a con artist to say the least.

 

The claim made was that they would get $50-60 an hour programming gigs and pay me 10% just for the privilege of using my account. What a deal, right?! Just give them complete remote access to my laptop through TeamViewer, review my Upwork account, check out the payment methods through Paypal, you get the point.

 

I asked for references, an Upwork account url, anything at all to further vet their identity other than what was clearly a scam LinkedIn profile. Pretty lazy effort if you ask me. They even claimed to be migrating to China forever! Come on man!

 

Anyways, this is clearly rampant and a real threat to legitimate people so watch your back and DO NOT TRUST anyone wanting to share your account! Not only can they hack your personal info but get your account deleted.

David:
I appreciate your taking the time to share your first-hand account of what happened.

 

But why do you start out your story by saying you were the "victim" of a scam.

 

It sounds like you pretty much knew right from the start that this was a scam. And you didn't go along with any of this.

 

You already clearly know that participating in this sort of activity - in any way - is risky and also a serious violation of Upwork ToS.

 

You were the "mark." But you didn't fall for the scam. So you were not a victim in any way as far as I can tell from your story.


David G wrote:

Ive been a victim of an online scam and hopefully can relay the experience to other decent Upwork professionals so they dont suffer the same fate.

 

It all started with some random person through LinkedIn hitting me up for access to my Upwork account. They claimed to be a Paris based top notch React and back end master with 12 years of industry experience despite having ZERO proof. Names through LinkedIn and Skype were totally different, their grammar was abysmal, clearly a con artist to say the least.

 

The claim made was that they would get $50-60 an hour programming gigs and pay me 10% just for the privilege of using my account. What a deal, right?! Just give them complete remote access to my laptop through TeamViewer, review my Upwork account, check out the payment methods through Paypal, you get the point.

 

I asked for references, an Upwork account url, anything at all to further vet their identity other than what was clearly a scam LinkedIn profile. Pretty lazy effort if you ask me. They even claimed to be migrating to China forever! Come on man!

 

Anyways, this is clearly rampant and a real threat to legitimate people so watch your back and DO NOT TRUST anyone wanting to share your account! Not only can they hack your personal info but get your account deleted.


How were you a victim?

Thanks for the warning. Something very similiar happen to me today. 

 

He got my email address fron LinkedIn, and worte this email to me:

 

**Edited for community guidelines**

Hi Federico,

 

Thank you for reporting this to us. If you have any additional information, please click on my name and send me a PM and will update our team with it to help their investigation.

 

Thank you.

~ Bojan
Upwork
chaelyc
Community Member

Are you still looking for cases of people trying to remote into poeple's computers? I wasn't able to send a PM, but I just had someone reach out on Fiverr from europe claiming to be "wong from china" who provided a bunch of contact info in  **Edited for Community Guidelines** He says they have an Upwork profile. I reported the message as spam on Fiverr, but I suspect they're creeping around this platform, too.

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