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knowthyself72
Community Member

Feeling disillusioned by too many scammers (my experience)

Hello to all,

 

I hope everyone reading this is doing well and feeling healthy.

 

My name is Raphael and I'm new to the Upwork platform. Unfortunately, my experiences here so far have left me with more questions than answers and I'm unhappy about what's going on. 

 

Today was the fourth time in two weeks that I was interviewed by a person who turned out to be someone other than whom they claimed to be. In every instance, the entire posted project was a sham meaning the actual company or entity being mentioned/used in communications, documents, and attachments had no idea of what was going on. 

 

To make matters even worse, today's scammer had the labels "Upwork Plus Client" on their posted project along with a "Featured Job" banner that appears in the job feed. 

 

People can say what they will about terms and conditions, terms of service, and who is ultimately responsible if a person falls victim to whatever these scammers are actually chasing after. However, there are much larger issues that need to be considered. Is anyone thinking about the following?

 

  • The amount of time lost/wasted in interviewing for projects that don't actually exist.
  • The long-term (or even short-term) effect of so many of these instances on Upwork's reputation.
  • The potential fallout (including collateral damage) of someone becoming a victim of whatever these people are trying to accomplish.  

As a professional who has worked in cybersecurity, commission sales, and mortgage lending, I'm well versed in the importance of due diligence. However, it would be nice to feel like freelancers here on Upwork were getting more support from those in charge when it comes to the vetting process for clients looking to hire. 

 

Seeing "Upwork Plus Client" and "Featured Job" on a listing that turned out to be 100% fraud has left me feeling disillusioned and disappointed. I'll get over it, but this is a situation that definitely needs more (and immediate) attention. 

 

Thank you for reading. Your consideration is appreciated. 

11 REPLIES 11
BojanS
Community Manager
Community Manager

Hi Raphael,

 

I'm so sorry to hear about your experience. It's definitely a great call to keep an eye out for fraudsters out there who may try to take advantage of professionals like you.

Please check this help article for crucial information that will help you have a safe and successful journey on Upwork. If you see a violation of the Upwork Terms of Service, we encourage you to use the Report Suspicious User Activity feature.

 

Good luck! 

~ Bojan
Upwork


Bojan S wrote:

Hi Raphael,

 

I'm so sorry to hear about your experience. It's definitely a great call to keep an eye out for fraudsters out there who may try to take advantage of professionals like you.

Please check this help article for crucial information that will help you have a safe and successful journey on Upwork. If you see a violation of the Upwork Terms of Service, we encourage you to use the Report Suspicious User Activity feature.

 

Good luck! 


___________________________

 

It is so easy to say "sorry" and to add a blithe "Good luck!" in answer to a genuine concern. How difficult is it to read a post from start to finish? - in particular ...   

 

Seeing "Upwork Plus Client" and "Featured Job" on a listing that turned out to be 100% fraud has left me feeling disillusioned and disappointed. I'll get over it, but this is a situation that definitely needs more (and immediate) attention. 

 

I daresay the OP will get over it, but I wonder if Upwork will get over it if it continues to ignore the frequent complaints of "Upwork plus client fraud"?  

Hello Nichola,

 

I just wanted to take a moment to say Thank you. It feels good to see that at least one person understands exactly what I've been trying to point out about this serious, ongoing problem. 

 

And, it will, in fact, negatively impact Upwork's ability to grow and prosper as a platform (and potentially its very existence) if someone doesn't get a handle on what's going on. 

 

As of now, it has become abundantly clear (to me) that the platform is being used for victim hunting by an unknown number of scammers and fraudsters. Those in charge have the ability to make such activities impossible if they want to. And, it could be done with little to no increase in operating expenses. 

 

Thanks again, Nichola. Have a fantastic weekend.

Raphael - Upwork Plus only means that the client has paid for certain privileges; it doesn't reflect anything good or bad about the client.  And Featured Jobs are featured only because the client paid to have it featured.  And yes, scammers and frauds, both freelancers and clients, are rampant.

 

You can, of course, always flag a job post and maybe it will be removed, maybe not.

 

Here's a hint that I learned the hard way.  When you are new, any unsolicited invitation you receive will more than likely be a scammer.  Valid invitations don't happen for quite a while.  They prey on the newbies.  Hang in there - it will get better.  The scammers also prey on the freelancers with low rates.

Hello moderator,

While I appreciate your words of support, they don't make me feel any
better about the lack of proper oversight or vetting of clients who are
signing up to "hire" freelancers like me. Since writing my original post
(which was less than 3 hours ago) I've already been contacted by another
scam artist who quickly steered his questioning to whether or not I have a
credit card and what the limit on the card is!

If Upwork was simply a place where people went to post jobs like
craigslist, I wouldn't have anything to say about these jokers I seem to be
running into left and right. However, I was under the impression that
Upwork was a platform (worthy of trust) where people could feel reasonably
assured of not encountering blatant, thinly disguised attempts at
committing felonious acts against them.

And, I'm starting to get the impression that if someone *does* fall for one
of these scammers' tricks, they are going to be told, "Sorry that happened
to you, but we posted this article or this paragraph about what to look out
for."

Have we not all seen enough real-life examples of the disastrous results
following companies taking the position of, "Well, we put a warning about
that danger somewhere on our website, so..." in response to something bad
happening to someone???

I have a background that involves both risk mitigation and damage control,
so please forgive me if I sound a bit alarmist. But, I've encountered five
serious (elaborate) attempts of some type of scam or fraud with less than
10 proposals submitted! That *should *be getting someone's attention.

Thank you for reading.

As long as Upwork freelancers understand that "Upwork Plus Client" and "Featured Job" don't mean anything, this won't be such a problem.

 

Maybe Upwork can check for any place that these phrases are displayed to freelancers, and add a note: "(This does not mean anything.)"

Hello Preston,

 

I hope you're doing well today.

 

If those badges and labels are meaningless, then they shouldn't be used in the first place!

 

The only true purpose of such things is to build and project the idea of trustworthiness OR the idea that whatever is carrying said label is actually better than others that are similar. 

 

Anyway, vetting people or entities who say they want to hire someone on your platform is the exact opposite of rocket science these days. It's not about proving you have money or guaranteeing that you're going to hire someone from the platform. But, freelancers shouldn't have to worry about being "catfished" on Upwork and that's exactly what's happening right now. 

 

Thank you for reading. Hope you have a great weekend.

Rapheal

After a while, you'll develop a spidey sense and automatically know which one's to keep clear of. 

I'm not saying that excuses anything (it doesn't) but at least your own experience will improve. 


Raphael L wrote:
Hello moderator,

While I appreciate your words of support, they don't make me feel any
better about the lack of proper oversight or vetting of clients who are
signing up to "hire" freelancers like me. Since writing my original post
(which was less than 3 hours ago) I've already been contacted by another
scam artist who quickly steered his questioning to whether or not I have a
credit card and what the limit on the card is!

If Upwork was simply a place where people went to post jobs like
craigslist, I wouldn't have anything to say about these jokers I seem to be
running into left and right. However, I was under the impression that
Upwork was a platform (worthy of trust) where people could feel reasonably
assured of not encountering blatant, thinly disguised attempts at
committing felonious acts against them.

And, I'm starting to get the impression that if someone *does* fall for one
of these scammers' tricks, they are going to be told, "Sorry that happened
to you, but we posted this article or this paragraph about what to look out
for."

Have we not all seen enough real-life examples of the disastrous results
following companies taking the position of, "Well, we put a warning about
that danger somewhere on our website, so..." in response to something bad
happening to someone???

I have a background that involves both risk mitigation and damage control,
so please forgive me if I sound a bit alarmist. But, I've encountered five
serious (elaborate) attempts of some type of scam or fraud with less than
10 proposals submitted! That *should *be getting someone's attention.

Thank you for reading.

Upwork has chosen to address the issue by disclaiming liability in their Terms of Use. Usually, these scams involve one or more steps that are a violation of policy either by the client or freelancer (or both) at which point Upwork will wash its hands of the matter. Given the levels of fraud on other freelance sites, this position is, at the moment, sustainable. 

Upwork used to offer a one-month free trial of Upwork Plus.

There was talk a while back about them discontinuing the free trial - dunno if they actually followed through on that.

Against this backdrop I can say that scammers of the sort you refer to are not generally paying for a membership.

Of course this is not to say that you can never get scammed by a client paying for a membership.

 

As an FYI, Plus clients are entitled to 1 free featured job per month, without prejudice to whether they are the actual paid Plus clients or the free trial Plus clients.

kinector
Community Member

Raphael, as you've quickly learned, Upwork doesn't screen clients at all. Anyone can join and post a job. Anyone can join, pay for the subscription, post a job, and send a lot of invites too. There's no limit. Nowadays, many scammers even seem to have the wits to calculate the profit on paying for the subscription as the benefits cover that cost multiple times over (I'm just assuming, otherwise this doesn't make any financial sense). They make money out of work that gets done for free or for peanuts.

Not long ago I got invited to an "expert level" job with 2,865 invitations sent. 🤨 (Just imagine your forefinger doing all that clicking! I just hope it was some bot program. 🤭)

I was just guessing that perhaps they were not after a true expert. 🤣 Upwork took down that post the same day, as I recall, so I don't think anyone suffered. 👍👍

As you're new to this platform, I just give you PRACTICAL advice that helps you avoid the negative impact of this unfortunate phenomenon:

- We know many scammers target new freelancers. So, you should get out of the $0 earnings class ASAP. And get Top Rated soon after. Then you'll be a less likely target then. (But occasionally you'd get some strange invitations, still. Just report and ignore them.) It would be good to out some full-time focus in making your track record here to look great, and once it does, you can choose how much work you do over here. Start strong and serious! 💪

- Keep trying, but skip the worst clients. They are easy to spot. Send proposals to jobs where the payment method of the client is confirmed and there is a long track record of hiring good freelancers with OK rates and most feedback is around 5 stars. Skip others to stay safe in the beginning.

- Go through all the available guides for freelancers AND clients as well. It doesn't take that long to read them all through, but by doing that you can avoid most of the trouble, I'm sure. You might even want to be a client first to see how things look on that side of the table.

- Think of Upwork as a Doctor Strange movie. The warnings come AFTER the spell. 🤣 Act accordingly.

But most importantly, don't leave, don't stop, take these experiences as a useful learning. It may take a good long while to get things going over here, but once you do get things really going, this platform does most of your marketing for you automatically!

These are tips from a guy who doesn't send proposals anymore as the invitation system works so well for those of us longbeards with strong profiles that the second best client types don't even need to be considered. It's totally worth the initial struggle if you're into playing the long term game here. 🤑

Short term hobbyists lose by default anyway... Regardless of the platform. 😬

Hope this helps. Now, go Raphael! ✌😁👍
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