What is odesk work diary

Lizzie had only worked a few jobs, but she had perfect reviews on all of them. Upon receiving my job offer, Lizzie readily accepted. I assigned her three reports and provided instructions on how to write them.

The next day, Upwork reported that Lizzie billed me the full five hours, but the Google Doc was empty. Work Diary creeps me out. I never require freelancers to run it, but Lizzie chose to run it instead of simply invoicing me for her hours. In early screenshots, she was writing a document about mantras in Hinduism. It definitely had nothing to do with my project, but she was charging me for it.

Later, she switched gears and started writing an article about tarot cards. Then, things got a bit more interesting. It confused me at first because it showed two people talking, but neither of them was Lizzie. Sure enough, it had the exact same text and hourly rate as Lizzie:. That explained why she had four different web browsers pinned to her taskbar. She probably used a separate browser for each Upwork identity. The full name was unique enough that Google had only a single matching result: a Facebook profile of a schoolteacher in Kenya:.

I took another look at the Upwork profile that led me to hire Lizzie in the first place. A few Google searches showed that Lizzie had plagiarized the whole thing — it was a mashup of a LinkedIn profile and another profile right from Upwork. The scam seemed so clumsy and obvious that I feared it was step one of a more elaborate con.

And then why bill me and withhold the reports? Naturally, that would prompt me to check the screenshot history. Was there another layer of deceit here? Now he can never heist me! It struck me that Upwork forces freelancers to install invasive spyware, presumably to catch fraud, yet they ignored many huge indicators of fraud:.

As soon as I saw the screenshots, I closed the contract and reported the fraud to Upwork. Lizzie saw the contract end but was not privy to any of my comments about her.

The next day, Lizzie messaged me asking why I closed the contract. She made no mention of the unusual hours she billed me, but she attached a Word document containing my three completed reports. According to the nutritional value of Coca Cola, it is not keto-friendly. It has So invasive. Workers can delete screenshots if the tracker does accidentally capture personal information, but if they do, they lose the minutes worked associated with that screenshot.

The consequence is that taking breaks can be anxiety-inducing for freelancers. In an email, a spokesperson for Upwork said freelancers who need to delete a screenshot or who were marked inactive erroneously e. Digital sociologist Karen Gregory felt similarly. Contact Caroline O'Donovan at caroline. Got a confidential tip? Submit it here.

A BuzzFeed News investigation, in partnership with the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists, based on thousands of documents the government didn't want you to see. Lisk Feng for BuzzFeed News.