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Lesli's avatar
Lesli W Community Member

Freelancers Posting as Clients??

Does anyone know what Upwork is doing to mitigate the issues with freelancers posting their services as client job posts? I'm so tired of scrolling through my job feed and seeing ad after ad from freelancers. I report them every time I see them, but starting to feel like I really shouldn't be having to do this. 

23 REPLIES 23
Kamarudheen's avatar
Kamarudheen A Community Member

Exactly,  I used to report it at the beginning, but after few days I used to see more freelancers posts as clients, that is not only a distraction, reporting them also ruin my time from delaying finding and applying for the right job that may be made me losing the chance for getting the right job, I have already informed the issue and they said due to a high volume of jobs they cannot follow up each job for filtering.

 

My humble request to the Upwork team is if there is a high volume of jobs, find more resources to solve the issue, please approve only the genuine clients, it is ok for us even if the job is posted hours ago, because there are only very few jobs that say 'I need it done in an hour', and if I look into that particular job after hours, I see they didn't hire anyone even after hours for the one-hour deadline job.

 

Petra's avatar
Petra R Community Member


Kamarudheen C wrote:

My humble request to the Upwork team is if there is a high volume of jobs, find more resources to solve the issue, please approve only the genuine clients, 

 


Clients aren't "approved" when they post a job post. Would you like to pay much higher fees to pay for the staff it would take to manually check every job post? Because I absolutely would not.

 

Just flag them as inappropriate and be done with it and move on.

 


Kamarudheen C wrote:

... reporting them also ruin my time from delaying finding and applying for the right job that may be made me losing the chance for getting the right job,


Then don't flag them. But the chances of you losing out on a job just because of two or three mouse-clicks are slim to non-existing.

 


Kamarudheen C wrote:

I have already informed the issue and they said due to a high volume of jobs they cannot follow up each job for filtering.


There is no reason to waste support's time with stuff they already know. That, too, is something our fees pay for. 

 

Lesli's avatar
Lesli W Community Member

I think it is more of an issue with clarity at the beginning of the sign-up process. I am wondering if they changed some aspect of that, because I've seen a huge influx of these types of posts in the last several months. Before that, it was rare to see one. If there's some reason people are confused on which account to sign up for (client or freelancer) then I do think it is worth the time for Upwork to look into that. It could save them a lot more time in the end, because when people flag those jobs Upwork ends up going in and removing them eventually. Less jobs flagged = less time spent on removing jobs.

 

As a note, I have been a freelancer on Upwork since 2016 and have not ever really looked at their "sign up" process since then, so I am not sure what that looks like now but when I signed up it was very clear that I needed to sign up as a freelancer.

 

 

Amanda's avatar
Amanda L Community Member

This problem seems to be on the rise though. I haven't seen it in my feed, but I never saw this many reports about it before. I suppose nothing can really be done, but I am curious why it's become more prevalant now. 

Jamie's avatar
Jamie F Community Member

I've definitely noticed it lately. 

It doesn't cause a problem (yet), but one is left wondering why it's happening so often now when it was rare before. 

Petra's avatar
Petra R Community Member


Lesli W wrote:

I think it is more of an issue with clarity at the beginning of the sign-up process.


It isn't.

 

Covid is driving unprecedented numbers of people online. Upwork are rejecting a big percentage of new wannabe freelancers, so they get the not so smart idea to try it with a client account.

 


Lesli W wrote:

I am wondering if they changed some aspect of that, because I've seen a huge influx of these types of posts in the last several months. Before that, it was rare to see one. If there's some reason people are confused on which account to sign up for (client or freelancer)


The majority of them aren't confused, they're desperate to find work and earn money.

 

 

James's avatar
James O Community Member

I quite agree with you. Upwork should have a means of filtering genuine clients from fake ones. All they do is to post and leave without hiring. A lot of freelancers apply for these fake jobs using their hard-earned connects. Those fake clients generate money for Upwork. It's all business. I don't see any radical changes happening anytime soon.
Ivan's avatar
Ivan T Community Member

For last three or four months I'm founding a lot of freelancer ads in my feed instead of the real jobs. Some of them even "invited me to the job". So please, upwork, save us!

Petra's avatar
Petra R Community Member


Ivan T wrote:

For last three or four months I'm founding a lot of freelancer ads in my feed instead of the real jobs. Some of them even "invited me to the job". So please, upwork, save us!


Skip them or flag them as inappropriate.

Ivan's avatar
Ivan T Community Member

It doesn't help. Ads are not removed after flagging. I scroll my feed every day to check for new jobs and this trashy "jobs" take my attention and time for nothing.

Nikola's avatar
Nikola S Moderator

Hi Ivan,

 

Could you please click on my name and send me a PM with more information about the job posts you are referring to? I will be sure to look into your report and escalate it accordingly.

 

~ Nikola
Ivan's avatar
Ivan T Community Member

Once again some totally unprofessional freelancer posted a stupid ad and then invited me to this "job"
Upwork definitely needs to change the job posting policy.
I think simple credit card verification will reduce the number of such "job post", they always are with "payment unverified"

**Edited for Community Guidelines**

Nichola's avatar
Nichola L Community Member


Nikola S wrote:

Hi Ivan,

 

Could you please click on my name and send me a PM with more information about the job posts you are referring to? I will be sure to look into your report and escalate it accordingly.

 


___________________________

Nikola, 

 

I am getting them too (lots of them) and I am flagging them.

 

I daresay many other freelancers are experiencing the same thing, so unless you want literally thousands of people PMing you I would suggest that you ask Upwork to find another solution such as finding a way of preventing new freelancers from making this very annoying mistake. 

Ivan's avatar
Ivan T Community Member

this freelancer ads pandemy wasn't a real problem just several months ago
it's not an issue to flag such a thing once a month but it becoming an issue if I got this almost every day.
I want to use my time for more important things
Please Upwork do something!

Aaqilah's avatar
Aaqilah I Community Member

Sigh! Is it just me or is the marketplace filled with freelancers offering their services as client ads this past week?

We refresh pages a million times only to find out it's not from a Client but a freelancer 😪

I've flagged as many as I can, but still .......
Nikola's avatar
Nikola S Moderator

Hi Aaqilah,

 

Thank you for reaching out to us. I am sorry to hear bout this. I will share your report with our team for further review. 

 

Thank you, 

~ Nikola
Aleksandr's avatar
Aleksandr S Community Member

These freelancers don't advertise themselves. They are dumb. A client checking job feed in search of freelancers is a nonsense.

 

You even don't need to click the job or refresh the page, to understand that this is a freelancer. They say it in the first lines.

 

To be honest, I see no problem here.

Nichola's avatar
Nichola L Community Member


Aleksandr S wrote:

These freelancers don't advertise themselves. They are dumb. A client checking job feed in search of freelancers is a nonsense.

 

You even don't need to click the job or refresh the page, to understand that this is a freelancer. They say it in the first lines.

 

To be honest, I see no problem here.


______________________

It isn't so much a problem as irritating to have so many freelancer 'ads' in one's job feed. I am sure Upwork could find a way of making this  sort of mistake impossible for new freelancers. And I sometimes wonder if it is stupidity/ignorance rather than deliberate. 

 

I have certainly flagged a good number of these inappropriately placed posts in the last few weeks, which seem to be more and more frequent.   

Samuel's avatar
Samuel N Community Member

Of late, there have been series of works posted by some clients typically those in **Edited for Community Guidelines**. They will post "I am a developer, I am good and I can your work bra bra bra" meanwhile they should be posting job rather not seeking for job. If mistakenly you don't take note it well and apply you will just waste your connect. So I want to get an answer for such job posts by clients. Is upwork aware of that?

 

Thanks

Samuel's avatar
Samuel N Community Member

Sorry it freenlencers rather not clients

Jelena's avatar
Jelena R Community Member

Hi guys,

I just wanted to share something with you and check if you're experiencing the same issue. Smiley Indifferent

Sometimes when I'm looking for a job I come across some wierd posts from freelancers with strange content. Those are not clients (I think) but they keep popping up very often.

Do you flag those or just ignore? And how do you even make a post like that as a freelancer?

 

Nichola's avatar
Nichola L Community Member


Jelena R wrote:

Hi guys,

I just wanted to share something with you and check if you're experiencing the same issue. Smiley Indifferent

Sometimes when I'm looking for a job I come across some wierd posts from freelancers with strange content. Those are not clients (I think) but they keep popping up very often.

Do you flag those or just ignore? And how do you even make a post like that as a freelancer?

 


_________________________

 

It is happening more and more frequently (there have been other threads about this). Flag them (in the dropdown menu you will see a heading that says 'freelancer ad').  As to your last question, we have all asked the same thing, and so far, no one from Upwork has supplied an answer. 

Petra's avatar
Petra R Community Member


Jelena R wrote:

Hi guys,

I just wanted to share something with you and check if you're experiencing the same issue. Smiley Indifferent

Sometimes when I'm looking for a job I come across some wierd posts from freelancers with strange content. Those are not clients (I think) but they keep popping up very often.

Do you flag those or just ignore? And how do you even make a post like that as a freelancer?

 


They either created the wrong account type (client instead of freelancer) or added a client profile and posted the job. It is obviously entirely pointless because the job will be taken down and they never get hired that way, but that is "how" they do it.

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