Fake Click for Boosted profiles.

[#1]

Dear Upwork Support Team,

I won't complain about fake job posts since I understand they can be avoided by choosing to apply or ignore them.

However, the new issue of fake clicks on Boosted Profiles is unavoidable and feels like a scam. I boost my profile, and within 20 minutes, I receive several fake job invitations, resulting in charges for nothing.

The bots or teams posting these jobs are now also clicking on boosted profiles which they want to eliminate, scamming us in the process. 

This is stat of client who invited me for a job:

16 jobs posted

0% hire rate, 1 open job

Please address this issue. It would be fairer to charge us only if we accept an invitation for an interview.

Otherwise, why shouldn't we use alternative platforms like Google Ads to get genuine boosts instead of paying for fake clicks?

Please take this post serious and do something about it.

Thank you!

[#2]

The Boosted profile system seems way too easy to game or scam.  What is stopping freelancers from opening client accounts and draining top Freelancers of "clicks?"  Or sending fake invitations?

This is why I never bothered with the Boosted profile system - seems like an obvious scam to me.  

[#3]

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 wrote:

The Boosted profile system seems way too easy to game or scam.  What is stopping freelancers from opening client accounts and draining top Freelancers of "clicks?"  Or sending fake invitations?  

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Another conspiracy theory. Pretty much every skill category has thousands of freelancers, so you'd have to be extremely dedicated and post jobs from a client account all day, every day in order to drain your competitors' connects, and most of your top competitors would probably be busy and not have their profile boosted in the first place. You'd have to be pretty stupid to think that it would give you any advantage as a freelancer. But if you did notice the same client account repeatedly clicking on your profile, I'm sure that you could report this and have Upwork investigate. 

[#4]

But that doesn't answer my question.  What is stopping freelancers from draining competitors' Connects in this way?  UW does not show you which client is viewing your profile (as far as I'm aware?), so there is no way for freelancers to safeguard against this.  

[#5]

I did answer your question, you just didn't like the answer. And if you read the OP's post again, it sounds like he CAN see who clicked on his profile - 16 jobs posted, 0 awarded isn't going to "drain" anyone's account. He's yet another person who calls jobs "fake" whenever the client doesn't hire someone.

I agree that it's a problem that when you boost your profile, you have no control over what kind of client actually sees it - not just low-hire clients, but low-rated clients, low-budget clients, clients with jobs that you have no interest in doing - which is why I have never bothered with it, and never will. Luckily, we're all able to make choices about how and where we spend our connects. It's difficult to call something a scam if the way that it works has been explained to you but you decide to go ahead with it anyway.

OP's suggestion of "It would be fairer to charge us only if we accept an invitation for an interview" is obviously not going to happen (he's not going to get a no-risk deal like that from Google or anywhere else, either). 

[#6]

Incorrect, Christine - OP is referring to a specific JOB INVITATION that was received.  UW does not show you the identities of the clients who clicked your profile (for which you are charged Connects).

[#7]

I stand corrected; however, with Clark's clarifications, it's even more unlikely that vengeful freelancers are responsible for "fake clicks". Not only would a freelancer have to post multiple fake jobs and hope that their targets have boosted profile and show up in the results, they'd also have to create around 200-300 client accounts per month from which to post the jobs as well, which would mean that their account would easily get flagged and banned.

[#8]

There is so much bot activity on the platform, it would not surprise me if someone was using bots to do exactly this.  It's possible beacuse there isn't any transparency or oversight.  

[#9]

I'm not sure if this type of scam could be stopped, but it's not very likely to happen, in my opinion. A boosted profile only appears when it matches a client's job. The client must post a job and hope his/her potential victim has a boosted profile so the client can drain their Connects.

Plus, outside of a job post, freelancers are only charged once every 30 days if the same client clicks the profile multiple times.

[#10]

It certainly could happen,  because there is no transparency the process.  It's like a corrupt lead generator where you are paying for leads that you cannot ever see or verify.  

[#11]

Someone would have to be pretty naive to think these job posts are made manually. Any average developer knows that with 200-300 lines of code, you can create a bot smart enough to register and post jobs at scheduled intervals.

What is the point of trying to appear pleasant to Upwork? This is a serious problem for both freelancers and Upwork, and it can be solved with proper feedback. There should be some new logic implemented, maybe charge only if the inviter has already spent at least > $100 or something other logic.

[#12]

It's still the case that a freelancer would have to be pretty dumb to think that they'd be able to reduce their competition by doing this. You're going to have to a hard time convincing Upwork to spend time and resources fixing a problem that you can't prove exists. It's difficult enough to get them to fix the obvious problems on the site.

[#13]

From Christine A: It's difficult enough to get them to fix the obvious problems on the site.

Exactly.

Upwork has many problems with several recommended solutions, but bots fake-clicking boosted profiles doesn't seem to be a big enough problem for them to address.

I can tell you the types of problems Upwork considers "serious." When Upwork started charging clients fees to post jobs and clients began to disappear, it was a serious problem. The solution? Upwork quickly removed job posting fees.

After running a unprofitable freelancing platform for years, it was considered a serious problem. The solution? Upwork removed skills tests and quality barriers to give more freelancers access to the platform--even the unskilled ones. Monetize everything, reduce the workforce, and increase fees.

Boosted profiles being click-bombed by clients, whether real or fake, isn't a major issue. If it were, Upwork would address it because it impacts them—not because it affects freelancers.

[#14]

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 wrote:

I won't complain about fake job posts since I understand they can be avoided by choosing to apply or ignore them.

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Same with boosted profiles, they can be avoided by choosing not to enable them. Like Thomas said, it's an obvious scam to me also.

[#15]

You actually get job invitations on boost? I've been spending a lot of connects weekly for boosting only to have my ad shown 4 times with 13 paid views in the last 30 days.
To top that I've spent a lot bidding on proposals. 15- 20 at a time only for most of them to just close and vanish.
The price of connects is quite a lot In my currency and let's not even talk about the service fee, withdrawal fee and additional fee my bank charges.
I have stopped buying connects because if I have to pay for work opportunities, the least I expect is for it to be organic and fair game. We shouldn't have to sift through scammers and pay for it. It's a professional freelance platform, not a casino.

[#16]

You should try to check job history in addition to viewing the hireing rate, there is a known issue of hiring rate being reported incorrectly!