Empty job offer scams

[thalitamilan]

Hi everyone,

I've been receiving suspicious job offers here on Upwork and would like to know if this is happening with anyone else.

It started more or less 2 weeks ago. A company sends me a job offer without an actual job description. Once or twice I contacted the company and asked what the job was about. They then would copy and paste a job description from a public online page. This is odd, why would a company want to hire me without telling me what the job is?

The offers are all for advertising (which is not my field), but they are all for the same hourly rate and amount of work hours. I had at least 8 come my way with these exact same characteristics. 

I contacted Upwork support, and they said that they took measures and blocked the profiles of some of these offers. But IT KEEPS HAPPENING! I got another one now in the morning.

Should I be concerned about my profile safety? Does anyone know why this is happening?

[hoyle_editing]

I dont think you need to be concerned about your profile safety per se. However, you do need to be concerned and aware of scams as they are particulary prevelant on Upwork at the moment. As a new user I think you would be a likely 'target' of these scammers as they want to try and hook new inexperianced users that dont neccesarily know how to use the platform properly.

[thalitamilan]

Funny enough, I am not actually a new user. I have completed a few projects for clients already here. I just thought this was weird because it hasn't happened to me so far. Then, out of the blue, I had 8 or 10 of these offers in less than 2 weeks. 

[spectralua]

Your profile is safe until you contacted that scammers with link provided or telegram messenger.

Keep rejecting them. Rejected offer didnt affect your jss or so.

[letavia]

I have been seeing this kind of job ads flying around on social medias. Its like theres a network of these people. The recruitment is like MLM. I think most of them are just job brokers. If my hunch is right they want you to post ads for their products on certain platforms. I did that as a "Virtual Assistant" and didnt get paid at the end of the day. Beware of them.

[joduxbury · Accepted solution]

I've lost count of how many of these offers I've received over the last few weeks. All for Facebook ads (which I don't do), and this week it's stupid 'Work with Valentino/[insert designer brand name here]' stuff. All offering my hourly rate, with zero correspondence prior, and if I Google the client's name there is no trace of them online. 

Super annoying to have to decline and block every time. I'd ignore them but I guess that would affect my response rates.

Upwork - how about applying a setting on our profiles where we can choose to disable offers without prior correspondence? That would help a LOT with this rubbish. 

[thalitamilan]

I got the Valentino one at least 3 or 4 times as well. Totally agree with you! A simple feature like for blocking offers without correspondence would be the best thing!