Another job invitation that looks like a scam.

[#1]

After this client responded to my proposal I received from him PDF file which contained a link to Google Forms that I had to complete to continue with the "hiring process". It includes this question which is highly suspicious. 

Kindly provide your primary wallet address for ETH/BSC/SOL to receive your monthly (weekly, daily) salary.
This information is necessary as, in the event of your satisfactory performance, we plan to cover the UpWork fee for hiring and establish a direct contract with you. To ensure smooth processing, please include your primary address with transaction history. This helps build trust, as newly created addresses might result in potential payout delays from our payout team.

Please fill in only the wallet address.

It is hard to beleive any client will pay over 10K fee just so they can "establish a direct contract".  

Upwork is asking for "feedback" for for so many things but kindly ignoring what many freelancers say: There is absolutely zero verification of client's identity which is like flashing sign welcoming all kind of scammers.

[#2]

Hi Radoslav,

Any payments outside Upwork is against ToS. We have shared all your feedback and made sure these are being look into by the relevant team. At the moment, I can see an increase in posts about scam/spam invites and the reports for scam/spam job posts have relevantly decreased.

What this tells us is scammers are changing their methods once they see that their previous methods and patterns have been recognized and are already being blocked.

We encourage you to continue staying vigilant of suspicious user activity on the platform and send us a flag whenever you encounter one so our team can review it too.

[#3 · Accepted solution]

If you're seeing a decrease in freelancer flags, I'd bet anything Upwork is misunderstanding the reason.

I no longer flag unless a posting is SO egregious I truly fear for other freelancers. There are two reasons I have stopped flagging in the last few months:

1. Flagging has close to zero apparent effect. Serial scammers are back with their exact same scam in minutes or days... word for word, for months on end. Why flag, if UW doesn't care to automate dealing with them so that at least I don't have to see the same ones over and over?

2. (And way more important) UW and I used to be partners in my making an income here. I felt that I was helping UW (flagging, giving you good word of mouth off site, etc.), and UW was helping me (connecting me to jobs). I was invested in your success. Since UW has allowed the site to become completely useless to my income in 2023, I discovered that I don't give a hoot about helping UW. I can't spend my time here doing free work when I don't get any paid work anymore either. Connects cost 4x what they did a few months ago, and my view rate has plummeted to close to zero... as have my new UW jobs. I'm close to paying YOU to be here, while UW keeps the fl floodgates open to make things worse for your long-time professional users by the day. So I no longer feel that warm, fuzzy sense of mutual helping.

If anyone at UW thinks fewer flags has something to do with scammers, and not with freelancers being sick of doing something for less-than-nothing, they don't understand user behavior very well.

[#4]

Lately, the focus seems to be on these pointless coaching webinars, and attempting to push AI everywhere because it is trendy and shareholders probably will see it as a good thing, which ironically increases the problem with scammers. Now, they can produce coherent text using GPT. Previously,  most them struggled to write even 2 sentences in English.

[#5]

Hi,

Lately, I have noticed that the same job offer is being posted several times, just with another client country, and sometimes different of amount of payment. And the payment method unverified. Upwork should have people supervising this!

[#6]

Hi 

Received a message from the client asking me to fill out the form and at the end for the pdf form, i saw below, luckily i saw this community discussion, about the same several people received, please investigate the client who sent me these details to me .

Kindly provide your primary wallet address for ETH/BSC/SOL to receive your monthly (weekly, daily) salary.

This information is necessary as, in the event of your satisfactory performance, we plan to cover the UpWork fee for hiring and establish a direct contract with you. To ensure smooth processing, please include your primary address with transaction history. This helps build trust, as newly created addresses might result in potential payout delays from our payout team.

Please fill in only the wallet address.

[#7]

Hi Ramesh Babu,

If you see a job that seems suspicious, please feel free to flag it so that our team can review it and take action appropriately. This article has more details on how to report job posts and clients.

[#8]

I just received the same pdf. Will you take action? I have attached enough evidence.

**Edited for Community Guidelines**

[#9]

Hi Sohail,

I went ahead and forwarded all of the information you shared here to the appropriate team. They will review and take appropriate action as per our processes.

[#10]

What about connect that we lost  for submitting this proposal . How to get connects back as this is scam and I am victim of this lost connects for this proposal ??? 

[#11]

Hi Shubham,

If a job post violates our Terms of Service, it will be removed, and the Connects used to submit the proposal will automatically be returned to your account. You may validate this by visiting your "Connects History" page. You can also find more information here.

[#12]

Hi, please get me my connections back. 

**Edited for Community Guidelines**

[#13]

Hi Annie,

Thank you for the update and for sharing this important information. It's reassuring to know that the team is actively addressing these issues and adapting to the ever-changing tactics of scammers.

I appreciate the reminder about staying vigilant and the importance of not engaging in any payments outside of Upwork,

as it goes against the Terms of Service. It's crucial for us in the community to be aware of these rules to protect ourselves and maintain a safe working environment.

I'll definitely continue to flag any suspicious activity I encounter. It's great to see that our feedback and reports are making a difference. Let's keep supporting each other and stay alert.

Thanks again for your efforts and for keeping us informed!

Best regards,

Dr.Mansour

[#14]

Yeah, I recently experienced the same thing as well. The account is called **Edited for Community Guidelines**and this person sent me a Google Doc survey and asked for my wallet address, which I'm not sure what it is. Luckily, I saw this post so I reported this account. 

[#15]

More and more job posts are scams these days. Either completely scams, or posts that want world-class, bestest, number 1, Google rankings, while offering $7 to $40 an hour. No wonder nobody applies to them and the job is sitting there for like 28 days with 0 activity.

[#16]

I just received the same message in the Google form that was shared by the client. I have reported the message to Upwork.

[#17]

Today I received a  PDF that has a link asking to fill up the form where the job poster is asking about wallet.

**Edited for Community Guidelines**

[#18]

Hi SamimBadshah,

Thank you for reaching out to us. I would like to clarify that a real client will never ask you to give them money to start working, cash a check for them, work for free, or provide your personal information. I encourage you to let us know if a TOS violation has happened by using the Flag as Inappropriate option throughout the platform. You can learn more about user reporting here.

Additionally, you may want to check this help article and this thread to help you stay safe on Upwork. 

[#19]

I would like to clarify that a real client will never ask you to give them money to start working, 

Yes, real client - not. Upwork - yes. Unfortunatly.

[#20]

I received the same thing yesterday and just opened the form, lo and behold I noticed the wallet thing when scanning to the very bottom of the form and thought it seemed suspicious. Also what's with the DISABLE_POSTING shown at the bottom? See attached. Thanks

**Edited for Community Guidelines**

[#21]

Today I received a PDF that has a link asking to fill up the form where the job poster is asking about wallets.

[#22]

When it comes to money or funds every time before you complete your job, it should be 100% the scammer knocking at your door. 

[#23]

Hello Radoslav! I happen to receive the same message with the Google form. I found it strange and didn't complete it. I'm new to Upwork and this feels very disappointing being my first experience. What did you did, how did you proceeded?

[#24]

even i got the same thing they have asked me to fill out a google form with this

[#25]

I just received a response with attachment - it opens google form asking about "Kindly provide your primary wallet address for ETH/BSC/SOL to receive your monthly (weekly, daily) salary."

Scammer name is: 

**Edited for Community Guidelines**

Position: Solution AWS Architect

I'm so keen to find my remote work opportunity by Upwork, and was glad that I got my first response - Alas!!!