Contact via WhatsApp scam

[n_sritharan]

Recently I have been noticing a lot of clients sending me invitation for interview and they're asking to connect with them via WhatsApp and also providing the WhatsApp contact number. For those clients payment method is also not verified. 

[75f7010a]

They are not real buyers. 

[JoanneP]

Hi Nisha,

Please feel free to flag these jobs so that our team can review and take action on the said job post. Communicating outside of Upwork before a contract is placed is a violation of Upwork TOS. You can read more on this help article and also, please check out Tips to avoid questionable jobs. You might also want to check out the information here to learn more about staying safe on Upwork. 

[n_sritharan]

Thank you Joanne for your reply. Recently most of the invitations which I have received from upwork are scam. They all asking me to provide the what's app contact number and I do not get any quality clients. Not sure what's going on with the platform as there are rising scammers. Hopefully, upwork will consider our feedback and will take necessary actions against those clients. 

[2141ee21]

It's happening with me as well for the past few days. I am tired of flagging scam jobs but they keep on showing everywhere in my jobs feed. I rarely see a genuine job ad these days on Upwork.

[pgiambalvo]

Yes, flag them. And then they will reappear over and over again anyway.

[melaniekhenson]

It may be because each of you has only a handful (7-8) jobs. Scammers tend to go for people they think they can fool (i.e. newer freelancers), as far as I can tell. Not universally, and some are obviously less discriminating (or not discriminating at all - the throwing spaghetti at the wall method), but this is something I've noticed newer freelancers report more often.

I also think some industries lend themselves much more to scammers than others.

I have heard people here who have worked for quite some time also say that they get loads of scam approaches. I don't know what it is about me or my profile but I almost never get invites to obvious scams, and I have never gotten one that outright asked for contact via WhatsApp or anything similar. 

[2141ee21]

The actual problem is these scam job postings are hindering us from reaching out to genuine jobs. I hope Upwork will soon find a way to get rid of these scammers.

[melaniekhenson]

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Amir M wrote:

The actual problem is these scam job postings are hindering us from reaching out to genuine jobs. I hope Upwork will soon find a way to get rid of these scammers.

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I know. ☹️  I hear you.

[n_sritharan]

You are absolutely right. Recently my friend has joined with Upwork as a Freelancer. She received an invitation for her first project which she showed me and immediately I recognized it a scam. Since then she keeps on getting only to scam clients and it's hard for her to believe Upwork right now which is a pathetic situation 😞 

[9ef1d1d4]

Hi