Does my client need to approve our contract before I start?

[exalpe20]

I'm very concerned about how I will get protected by upwork since my status is still on proposal. Does he need to do something on his end like accept my offer?
I started working an hour yet it still on proposal status

[roberty1y]

The client first has to offer you the job and then you accept. You're either paid by the hour or an agreed price for each milestone of the contract. You need to stop working on this, because there's no contract and no guarantee of payment. It may be that the client didn't mean that you got the job, otherwise they'd probably have set up a contract with you. An "active proposal" only means that a) a client replied to your proposal and b) the job posting has not been removed yet.

[petra_r]

That job post looks suspicous.

There are currently no less than 9 Job posts with the same wording (slightly altered to try and avoid being flagged as exact duplicate) and questions, from seemingly different client accounts in different countries.

[petra_r]

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Petra R wrote:

There are currently no less than 9 Job posts with the same wording (slightly altered to try and avoid being flagged as exact duplicate) and questions, from seemingly different client accounts in different countries.

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...and literally dozens more with slightly different titles, most with 0 hires and 0 money ever spent.