A contractor sabotaged my site!

[drzorba]

So, the perils of hiring on a site like this.

I hired a contractor to work on my site, I had to terminate the contract becasue of poor performance.

I had anticipated revenge, so I changed several access PW, but apparently he found another way to access and sabotage my website.

Have others had similar experiences? And how did Upwork respond?

[prestonhunter]

re: "I had anticipated revenge, so I changed several access PW, but apparently he found another way to access and sabotage my website."

I hope that you or your project manager had appropiate back-ups of everything in a place unaccessible to that freelancer.

re: "Have others had similar experiences?"

Have other had similar experiences?

Yes.

Such incidents are very rare. But they have happened.

re: "And how did Upwork respond?"

Upwork responds within the limitations of their processes and responsibility. Upwork is not a back-up or recovery service, nor are they a software development service. They provide a convenient way for clients to find, hire and pay freelancers. But client contracts are with freelancers, not with Upwork itself.

You already did the important thing, which is to fire the freelance and leave appropriate feedback when you closed the contract.

[petra_r]

Was the freelancer actually paid for their work?

[drzorba]

Yes, he was paid. But I actually got zero benefits in terms of code or product.

I am pursuing legal action is his home country, and have contqacted a lawer. Will make sure that this person is exposed.

[prestonhunter]

re: "I know there are other way of paying for the overtime if agreed with the client"

How much money did you pay in total?

re: "I am pursuing legal action is his home country, and have contacted a lawyer."

What country is that?

re: "Will make sure that this person is exposed."

Pursuing legal action and contacting a lawyer have nothing to do with exposing a fraudulent freelancer. If you want to expose a fraudulent freelancer, the main way of doing so is providing an accurate description of your experience when you leave feedback.

It is also possible to contact Upwork Customer Support and work with them to take appropriate action. They may be able to remove the freelancer from the platform. Which is something a lawyer would not be able to do. If you were actually able to succeed in doing some kind of legal action (which is unlikely), then that would not "expose" a freelancer. Upwork freelancer profiles do not contain links to legal proceedings, and when clients hire freelancers on Upwork, they do not also check any kind of publicly available database about legal decisions against freelancers.

[keenwebdesigns]

Wow, that is insane. I'm sorry that happened to you and I hope that you are able to recover your website. I can vouch that I am a highly ethical designer and developer and would never take revenge on a clients website no matter how much I disagreed with my interactions with a client. I really hope you find justice in this.

[ryonwhyte]

I am really sorry to hear that your website got sabotaged. I have worked with clients who have had similar experiences. Like I would get hired and while working I notice subtle changes which I would then realize is the past freelancer still tinkering around. 

I hope you do not let this experience affect your relationship with future freelancers though. I say this because, in my experience, clients who have had bad freelancer experience tend to be timid, and that fear can lead to unnecessary issues. For example, I am working on the site and in the process of coding. So the site is down, the client tried to access the website at that time and see it down, then assume I am saboteur #2. Which, though I understand, in a way, then creates a bad experience for me. 

Most freelancers here are great people. The occasional "bad apple" eventually falls. You can help that along by detailing it in your feedback to the freelancer and making a report with Upwork. 

In the meantime try to lift your spirits and ONWARDS!

[jswaringen]

Sam,

This may sound harsh but you have to do due diligence.  If you are looking for the lowest price then sometimes this happens.  If the developer has no history on UpWork you're taking that chance.  I've been on the other end of that not having any history.  If it's a small job you might take the risk on someone who has no history.

I would take a chance on someone when they are new to UpWork (check the profile) but can show examples of their previous work.  I wouldn't take a chance if it were likely to affect things like SEO rankings or sales.  

Probably the biggest indicator is how they answer the proposal.  Do they sound like they really understand what you're looking for?  You have to do some work on you job posting if you want a good understanding.  You can't just put "need someone to build my website" and expect to get any good proposals.

Communication is a two way street, the more the better.  Make sure you have good communication with the person doing the proposal BEFORE you give th3m th2 contract.

Yes it sucks that someone would do this after getting pwid to do the work.  I've had to clean up messes like this in the past.  If it's an hourly job be sure they are using the UpWork time tracker.  And if possible have the development done on a staging server before you give them the keys to your production site.  

I really hope that you get your situation resolved.

Sincerely,

John