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Ask HN: Anyone experienced Upwork accounts changing hands?

9 points by scandox ↗ HN
I've had two experiences recently with Upwork that gave me a lot of pause. In both cases it was clear that the people I was talking to had nothing at all to do with the record of work, feedback and billing that I had reviewed. In both cases there were also strong signs that the person was not located where they claimed and were not fluent speakers of the principal language of their locality. In one case I'm pretty sure they were using a Text to Speech engine once I demanded a Skype interview. Both wriggled out of video interview for different reasons.

I know that there are simple ways to avoid these traps. However, I also know that once these trends set in, the approaches become more sophisticated. So I'm concerned that Upwork may really no longer be safe to do business on.

After all, if someone who seems reasonably legitimate and has real feedback is willing to sell their Upwork credentials, then what else would they be willing to sell?

8 comments

[ 2.5 ms ] story [ 30.7 ms ] thread
triage4
Why are you posting this here? Go ask in Upwork forums.
scandox
Thought I might get a more objective answer from people who actually employ lots of programmers and who would have a better perspective on the security aspect of this. But perhaps you're right. Certainly lack of response suggests I'm in the wrong room.
tempupwork
Yes. I had exactly this happen for some low level editing work. It was clearly a scammer at the end of the day.
gspetr
IIRC Upwork prohibited simultaneous logging of hours on different projects (i.e. you could have different machines setup and log hours on project A and project B, running 2 clients with your 1 account, i.e. doing simultaneous work on both) a few months ago.

That was a silent change in the client update.

Now thanks to your info I believe we can connect the dots - people are using Upwork for undisclosed subcontracting.

EDIT: Out of curiosity, what kind of work were you hiring for?

scandox
JS Developers. The projects are short term. I only use Upwork for MVP type work. Afterwards we take everything in house. I've always strived to deal fairly on the site, but I generally find the terms rather unfair to the devs.

But this disturbed me. I think possibly since they put up the fees some freelancers are ditching it and some of them are getting paid in cash for their review history.

gspetr
Have you read this piece?

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12773282

I've read multiple stories last year from devs trying to establish themselves on Upwork (Some I heard firsthand) and getting 0 leads even if they applied for jobs that were like 20% of their usual rate.

Doesn't sound all that implausible that under these conditions people will just straight up buy or rent established Upwork accounts because you won't get any responses from clients otherwise.

scandox
Yeah I saw that article at the time, though I didn't read the comments carefully. Good reminder.
jitendrac
My upwork account was just suspended without any prior notice. I was mostly inactive on my upwork profile and have made few bids when i had spare time. Appealing against suspension turns to nothing but another formal email they will not uplift the suspension.