We Got Catfished….AGAIN!

So, we got catfished again. Again. And it’s just so frustrating.

One of the challenges of hiring remotely is that you can’t always see who is actually doing the work. In a traditional office, you may not know how productive someone is at their desk, but at least you know they showed up. You can physically see the same person coming in every day. But when you hire people from around the world using platforms like Upwork, it introduces a whole new level of uncertainty.

Now, don’t get me wrong—hiring remotely has so many pros. I remember the first time I hired an admin assistant. I gave them tasks, went for a hike, and when I came back, the work was done. That was a huge unlock for me. It was the realization that I could delegate and keep things moving even when I wasn’t actively working myself. It’s an incredible feeling when you wake up and see that things have been organized, research has been completed, and projects are progressing—all without you having to micromanage every step.

But of course, there are challenges. Hiring remote workers isn’t all smooth sailing. Just like hiring in person, it takes time to train people, provide access to tools, and establish a workflow. However, once you get past that initial effort, the payoff is incredible. It allows for deep focus time without constant interruptions, and it gives me the flexibility to structure my day in a way that works best for me.

For example, my mornings typically start with a 7 AM meeting, followed by checking Slack and Jira for any critical issues. This usually takes 30 minutes to an hour—sometimes even less. After that, I have breakfast, take the dog for a hike, and ease into my workday knowing that the team has what they need to keep moving forward.

The downside? The catfishers.

Despite having a well-established hiring process, we still run into situations where someone misrepresents themselves. They might claim to be an individual freelancer, but in reality, they’re an agency farming out the work to a team of unknown people. Sometimes, they use remote desktop tools to have others do their work while they remain the point of contact. This is especially common with developers and designers.

We don’t work with agencies because the quality tends to suffer. They always present their best team member during hiring, but that’s not usually who ends up doing the work. We value building direct relationships with our team members, offering bonuses, and ensuring that both our success and theirs are aligned.

So, how do we avoid getting catfished?

1. Check for agency affiliation – Many profiles will openly state if they are part of an agency. If you scroll down in their work history and see multiple agency roles, that’s a red flag.
2. State explicitly in job posts that agencies will not be hired – This doesn’t stop agencies from applying, but it gives us a quick way to filter them out.
3. Use Upwork’s tracker – If a freelancer resists using it, that’s usually a sign something is off. If they claim it’s not working, we use Hubstaff as an alternative.
4. Look for odd email addresses – If their email is something like “evtl600.602.3,” that’s usually a sign they aren’t a legitimate individual.
5. Watch for too many open jobs – If someone has 80 active jobs, they’re likely outsourcing the work.
6. Check screen recordings and screenshots – Remote trackers like Upwork’s or Hubstaff’s show you what’s happening on their screen. If the name on their screen doesn’t match the person you hired, you’ve got a problem.

Even with these precautions, we recently got caught again. This person—let’s call them a “person” in quotes—had been working with us for a long time. We trusted them, so we didn’t enforce our tracker rules at first. That mistake came back to bite us. Despite years of experience hiring remotely, it still happened.

Hiring will always be a time-consuming and sometimes frustrating process. It’s draining to spend hours reviewing resumes and doing interviews, only to find out later that someone misrepresented themselves. But despite these setbacks, I still believe remote hiring has been one of the best things for our business and my personal productivity.

If you stick to the guidelines above—no matter how strict or “mean” they may feel—you’ll save yourself a lot of headaches. The catfishers will always be out there, but with the right approach, you can minimize the risk and build an amazing remote team that actually delivers the results you need.