If it's reasonably common, there might be a place for a "reputation protection" service in the tech community - a service that watches various contracting and hiring sites for its members names, then notifies the real person when their name is used.
I could see it being a real issue in the future if someone's professional reputation is tarnished this way. If a prospective employer searched for a candidate and found multiple profiles with very different skills listed, that would be a huge red flag. Worse, if the fraudulent person was hired and then fired, that information could find its way to places where the real person is applying.
If they were able to successfully land a job like this, I could also see that messing with the real person's tax situation.
... I'm off to look for my name on Upwork, I guess.
I had a similar experience back in 2008 when I started a fully remote digital agency.
One of my first employees was doing fantastic work, until his performance fell to 0 - no communication, no deliverables, nothing. Turns out, he stopped paying the subcontractor that was doing his job for him.
The subcontractor contacted me months after I fired the employee and confessed. Apparently, the long-pauses and loud typing during my conversations with the employee was the employee messaging the subcontractor asking for help answering my questions.
So, in my case, the employee was still the front. In this case, they're attempting to eliminate that bottleneck by just having the subcontractor impersonate the employee.
If it's reasonably common, there might be a place for a "reputation protection" service in the tech community - a service that watches various contracting and hiring sites for its members names, then notifies the real person when their name is used.
I could see it being a real issue in the future if someone's professional reputation is tarnished this way. If a prospective employer searched for a candidate and found multiple profiles with very different skills listed, that would be a huge red flag. Worse, if the fraudulent person was hired and then fired, that information could find its way to places where the real person is applying.
If they were able to successfully land a job like this, I could also see that messing with the real person's tax situation.
... I'm off to look for my name on Upwork, I guess.