Concern about a provider with a twist
december2k 1 post
I hired provider Shiraz Ahmed the other day. He has done good work for me. Today, another provider Tamara Bentzur contacted me with the following message...
I would like to inform you that Shiraz has stolen my identity on oDesk. Everything in his profile is from me. I am Tamara Bentzur, owner of Outsource Transcription Services (www.outsourcetranscriptionservices.com) - my picture is on the website and is the same that is on oDesk, as well as everywhere else you can find Tamara Bentzur on Google. He also claims to have been owner of Bentzur Enterprises (no longer operating but that is my family name.) Sterling Press is a publishing company in the United States that I worked with when I was 18 - 25 years ago. Everything on his employment history is mine.
He claims to be an English as a Second Laguage teacher yet his oDesk English Test score is 10%. The Global English Certifications are mine.
ALL 11 ITEMS on the portfolio are mine. (The client ecomm is still a current client of mine and contacted oDesk yesterday about another provider who has also copied my profile).
I see that your project is ongoing with him but would recommend you thing twice. If he is as unethical as this I wouldn't want him working for me.
What steps should I take? He is doing a good job, but I can't stand liars.
Please advise.
Aaron
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doreenmartel
Would you please file a help ticket and discuss this with us privately please. I would encourage you at the moment to not take any action regarding your provider if he is doing a good job for you. Thank you Doreen - oDesk Support
pkalimuthu 474 posts - India - Joined Mar 07 2008
Forward the e-mail that came from Tamara to Shiraz. Give him a chance to tell you his side of the story.
tbentzur 147 posts - Israel - Joined Oct 29 2007
Well thankfully I had a nice rest day. I would like to ask pkalimuthu how he/she would think there could be "his side" of the story. Although he has finally cleared all information out of his profile, I documented everything with screen shots to verify that he claimed to be ME with MY COMPANY, MY CERTIFICATIONS, AND MY PORTFOLIO ITEMS. There is NO OTHER SIDE. I can verify each and every item on my employment record, each certificate I earned, as well as produce statements from each of the clients whose items I uploaded in my portfolio.
I am not sure at this point what steps I may take legally for the fraud he committed. Although he has removed the plagiarized items, thus leaving his profile EMPTY other than his oDesk assignments, I am not happy that he has not been removed as a provider. His actions do nothing but hurt the image of fellow buyers and providers on this platform, which I have been very happy to be a part of.
Again, I urge providers, especially those with high hours on oDesk to Google snippets of your profile to see if there may be others out there posing as you. I am not saying this is a problem just on oDesk, but I am sure it is indicative of any similar platform on the Internet. Information is just too easy to copy/paste. But be aware of this so you can take appropriate measures if necessary.
I have updated my profile, again public with a few additions. I have added to each of the categories a disclaimer that although there are many honest freelancers in the marketplace, I have recently been victim of identity theft and if they come across a similar profile to mine to please contact me - all of my information is accurate and true.