Upwork Global a US freelance site appears to not trust Australians, with the freelance work business, demanding confidential or Government backed documentation, before they will allow you to use their site, which is being slammed on the Product Reviews website by former customers.

The San Francisco based site is not saying where they are storing the confidential data they are collecting or what problems they have had in the past, that has resulted in the move to obtain proven Australian Government ID such as a passport, drivers licence or even GovID identification.

The business formerly Elance-oDesk, is a US freelancing platform who 4Square Media, opened an account with recently.

When other management went to log on after initially sourcing coders for an online project, paying the account upfront and completing the project they demanded Government identification when other management tried to set up an ID.

What’s not known is whether this information is being provided to the US IRS who would be keen to know how much money freelancers are paid when using the site for freelance projects.

The company was formed in 2013 as Elance-oDesk after the merger of Elance and oDesk the merged company was subsequently rebranded as Upwork in 2015.

For freelancers looking to earn extra cash or are running an online side hustle selling their services the site offers work or to match a supplier with a buyer.

The Company does admit that Upwork makes it easier to look for jobs and make money.

What they demand is that people produce a government-issued photo ID claiming “We’ll check that the country where your ID is from to see if it matches the country in your profile”.

You also have to take an automatic selfie or join a video chat and if that is accepted by the Company before you can log into their site.

If not, they will start a manual review process despite people looking for suppliers paying up front as 4Square Media has done in the past.

A visit to the Product Reviews web site reveals several complaints about the Company, in fact it was hard to find any favourable reviews.

Click above image to visit Product Reviews web site. 

 

Richard M. from Sydney, NSW claims that users should not “waste one second with this site”.

He claims they are phishing users for your personal details and credit card info.

“I didn’t give them my CC details and they just suspended my account. No way to properly communicate and when you are able to send them a message, they place 48hrs later “Resolved” but it isn’t. Scam? No Scam? you make your own decision, and I’ve made mine”.

He gave them 1 star “This should say it all!” he concluded.

One user of the site wrote “Fake job proposals created by AI, ChatGPT It’s really frustrating that all of the proposals that I receive for my job are generated by ChatGPT and they come from newly created accounts.

It seems like as soon as I pay to make my job listing featured, UpWork immediately creates some fake ChatGPT populated accounts to show that making a job featured would increase the proposals.

It’s disgusting, frustrating and annoying and this is why no one is using Upwork anymore, and no one is trusting it”.

Another user wrote under the headline ‘Warning to Anyone Using Upwork”

‘Anyone considering using Upwork please be very careful and tread with caution. You are not protected when using their services in anyway shape or form’

Another wrote ‘A Site Full of Non-Talented Scam Artists!

Hiring from this site has been one of my worst experiences.

They then go on to claim that people mostly in India and Pakistan will deceive and mislead potential customers attempting to get hired. One person that I hired to do work on my e-commerce website I found was purposely setting up things incorrectly and then charging me extra to fix these new problems he had purposely created.

Another former customer accused them of zero Customer Support️.

Hayden Brown the CEO of the Freelance Company.

Karl W wrote “Horrible customer support CEO Hayden Brown should be hanging her head in shame over what this site has become. NO customer service whatsoever. A bot that goes in circles is frustrating to deal with.

He concluded “Worst site I have ever, under all circumstances”

ChannelNews has asked the Company to explain their policies and above all why there are so many complaints about the Company and their services.