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Tell HN: Upwork has an impersonation problem

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Tell HN: Upwork has an impersonation problem

#1

Post by aarbor989 »

The past few days I started getting interview invites from companies and people I had never heard of. I initially shrugged it off as aggressive spam, but after declining one of the invites, one of the emailers followed up to confirm that I was the same person that they were talking to on Upwork.

I had never setup an Upwork profile before so I said no, after which they responded with a link to a profile of someone that was completely impersonating me. They had scraped my LinkedIn page for information and were interviewing under the guise of being someone they were not (they were even using my picture). I talked to Upwork support, and after about 36 hours they deleted the impersonator. However, I just did another search and there is already someone else impersonating me again (this time they changed the face on the picture).

I only discovered this because the first impersonator was too lazy to change my resume they downloaded from my website and kept my real email on it, so some companies had used that email to contact me instead of their Upwork registered email.

I would recommend everyone search for their name on Upwork (I had to wrap mine in quotes to find the matches) and make sure they aren't being impersonated.

In the meantime, Upwork really needs a better validation mechanism. As engineers we really have no recourse, and there is absolutely nothing we can do to prevent this from happening.

Re: Tell HN: Upwork has an impersonation problem

#2

Post by cestith »

A small company I worked for years ago had a similar problem on one of the gig work sites. Someone listed a dozen or so web sites they had designed, programmed, and provided to clients complete with links. The problem was eight to ten of them were from our portfolio. We got their portfolio updated to not include our work and an assurance the account would be closed if the perpetrator did the same heinous thing again.

So, yes, your accomplishments in multiple different forms can be claimed by someone else. It can pay to be aware of this, but there's a cost to staying on top of it. Make sure to balance the two.

Re: Tell HN: Upwork has an impersonation problem

#3

Post by bdcravens »

I'm not sure what triggers it, but they do identity validation at some point (probably tied to receiving funds) - I recently had to do this. They ask for an ID scan, and then do a video call with a staff member. Once you're in the validation needed phase, you cannot take on more projects or withdraw funds.

Re: Tell HN: Upwork has an impersonation problem

#5

Post by mtlynch »

I ran into this a few years ago and wrote about my experience:

https://mtlynch.io/upwork-scammer/

tl; dr - I caught an Upwork freelancer blatantly copying other freelancers profiles. I reported it to Upwork, who said they'd handle it but couldn't tell me the details I reached out to the freelancer's other clients to tell them the freelancer was a fraud, and they said Upwork had never notified them.

Re: Tell HN: Upwork has an impersonation problem

#6

Post by hash872 »

mtlynch wrote: post #5

I ran into this a few years ago and wrote about my experience: https://mtlynch.io/upwork-scammer/ tl; dr - I caught an Upwork freelancer blatantly copying other freelancers profiles. I reported it to Upwork, who said they'd handle it but couldn't tell me the details I reached out to the freelancer's other clients to tell them the freelancer was a fraud, and they said Upwork had never notified them.

How did you find the freelancer's other clients? Upwork keeps that pretty locked down so that they can serve as the middleman. (Maybe you have a hack?)

Re: Tell HN: Upwork has an impersonation problem

#8

Post by tmikaeld »

hash872 wrote: post #6
mtlynch wrote: post #5

I ran into this a few years ago and wrote about my experience: https://mtlynch.io/upwork-scammer/ tl; dr - I caught an Upwork freelancer blatantly copying other freelancers profiles. I reported it to Upwork, who said they'd handle it but couldn't tell me the details I reached out to the freelancer's other clients to tell them the freelancer was a fraud, and they said Upwork had never notified them.

How did you find the freelancer's other clients? Upwork keeps that pretty locked down so that they can serve as the middleman. (Maybe you have a hack?)

At that time, I believe you could see previous work by default, now you have to choose to share it.

Re: Tell HN: Upwork has an impersonation problem

#10

Post by nvr219 »

tmikaeld wrote: post #7
jayzalowitz wrote: post #4

For a while: https://medium.com/hackernoon/someone-stole-my-identity-on-u...

Oh god, I can't even read that page because of the amount of eye-watering green.

Option+cmd+R for reader mode!

Need to find some way to automatically do reader mode whenever opening a Medium or Substack page.

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