Is Upwork losing the battle against scammers?

[creativedigit]

I haven't posted in months, and I'd hate to be ranting on my first one. After closely monitoring the scammers who are posting on the platform on a daily basis, I figured out that it's one entity behind this form of attack. 5 out of each 10 job posts on average are coming from scammers, at least in my category and at the time I am checking on new gigs. If Upwork won't take immediate action, it will be a matter of time before Upwork will lose everything. If Upwork is not aware of how serious the situation is, I highly recommend that they think twice.

Failing to take immediate action means that Upwork does not respect its members' time. Think about all the time we're losing on a daily basis because scammers are freely posting on the platform. I reached a point where I know before clicking on a job whether it's legit or not.

I suggest the following workarounds:

• For the immediate future, have an employee manually review each job post, and simply reject the posts that contain contact information or links for external communication. While it doesn't stop all scams, it will drastically decrease their number.
• Have your developer build logic for handling job posts. Check if the person who is posting has at least hired one freelancer in the past, and if they did, allow their job post immediately. Otherwise, for new clients (since all scammers have new accounts), simply pause the job from being posted until an employee manually approves their job post (or rejects it).
• Ask your developer to create a Regex to detect if the job post contains emails, phone numbers, or other contact information in the title and the description of the job (on the server-side). If it does contact information, stop them from posting the job until they resolve the issue (removing the contact information in this case, since this is a mistake even legit clients may do sometimes).
• Ask those who create new accounts to confirm their identity with email confirmation and two-factor authentication.

I am considering quitting the platform temporarily in the next few days until this issue is resolved. I can no longer afford to waste my time reading proposals of scammers. This used to be a great platform, what happened?

[gilbert-phyllis]

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Ashley M wrote:

Thank you for this post...

I also suggest that Upwork limit or stop the client submissions whose payments are not verified.

If I may share with you an experience of an unverified payment client I have encountered.

I submitted a proposal to a request and the client requested to contact me via email.

I thought I'd "entertain" this request just to see what the potential scam was.

The client accepted my proposal, via email, and offered to pay a very lucrative amount for my service.

The client said that her bank suggested she not to use Paypal, as I have requested, and offered to pay me via check. After which I have googled check payment scams and came across this scam...

Needless to say, I've declined the work because this client would've been long gone and untraceable with the service for free and left me paying for it.

Please do not accept check payments, no matter how lucrative the payment sounds, and let's only work with verified clients. This will protect us all in the long run and in doing so, we limit the amounts of scams happening on this platform.

Let's continue to be vigilant and do our part to keep this platform as safe as possible, for ourselves, until Upwork decides to not allow offers from unverified clients.

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Which we can only hope will be never. Many of us have made lots of money and developed lasting relationships with clients who had not verified their payment method when posting their first jobs. They verified it when they decided to hire us, which was fine. It's ludicrous to advocate shutting down that part of the revenue stream (for UW and for FLs) simply because of this persistent misunderstanding that (1) lack of verified payment method suggests a client is a scammer, and (2) a verified payment method ensures a client is not a scammer. Neither is true.

If you don't want to see job posts by clients without verified payment methods you can use the filter to exclude them from your searches. 

[sparkesusan]

How about not allowing job postings that do not have a verified payment method? That would filter out a lot of the repeated jobs that are clogging the list.

[a_lipsey]

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Susan S wrote:

How about not allowing job postings that do not have a verified payment method? That would filter out a lot of the repeated jobs that are clogging the list.

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Because that would drive clients from the platform. Do you want to put your credit card info into a website where you are online shopping BEFORE you have even decided you want to purchase something? Clients, and rightly so, don't want to hand over their credit card information until they've actually decided to hire someone, and requiring them to do so would KILL new client acquisition by Upwork and by us, as freelancers. Aside from the fact that verified payment method can still be a scam - plenty of freelancers have reported here that they were scammed by a client with payment method verified. Unverified payment method is not a red flag to a scam. There have to be other factors present. 

That has been discussed ad nausem here. 

[sparkesusan]

"That has been discussed ad nausem here." 

Yes, I get that, but there was no detailed reason. So, now I know. Thanks for that.

[m_terrazas]

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Susan S wrote:

How about not allowing job postings that do not have a verified payment method? That would filter out a lot of the repeated jobs that are clogging the list.

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If you are not interested in seeing the jobs without verified payment, you can already do it from the feed.

[sparkesusan]

Thanks Maria, I found it.

[creativedigit]

Glad you found it, Susan.

I highly recommend you never use this filter in your life 🙂 unless you want to cut like 50% of your potential earnings.

[pgiambalvo]

Yeah, sad trade-off and awful it's come to this.

[researchediting]

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Peter G wrote:

Yeah, sad trade-off and awful it's come to this.

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Nope. No trade-off. There's a disadvantage to filtering out payment method unverified jobs, and no advantage to doing so.

[pgiambalvo]

The advantage is simply not having to see them and therefore annoyance avoidance.

[researchediting]

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Peter G wrote:

The advantage is simply not having to see them and therefore annoyance avoidance.

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That's a pretty poor trade-off for lost income.

[gilbert-phyllis]

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Douglas Michael M wrote:

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Peter G wrote:

The advantage is simply not having to see them and therefore annoyance avoidance.

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That's a pretty poor trade-off for lost income.

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Works out OK for the rest of us, though, right? 😉

[nhansen]

I've had a number of clients that were payment unverified and new users of Upwork to boot. It's really a matter of reading the ad itself to be able to tell if it is legit or not.

If they are looking for someone to edit a book on insect pests that target strawberries and want someone with a PhD in entomology to do it, then regardless of whether they are new or verified or not, their job is likely legit because that's not a job ad that is going to attract a lot of fools who will fall for a scam.

If they say: I need someone to edit my ebook call me on WhatsApp, then yeah, it's more likely a scam. Even if it isn't, because the job ad is so vague there will be 50+ applicants and one of them may be more qualified to edit the book in question than you. So either way, it's not worth your time.

[pgiambalvo]

I agree. Even though that wouldn't mean the clients were legit, at least the scammers would have to use a different stolen credit card everytime they signed up using a new email address. If you aren't going to stop them, at least make them jump through some hoops.

[a_lipsey]

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Peter G wrote:

I agree. Even though that wouldn't mean the clients were legit, at least the scammers would have to use a different stolen credit card everytime they signed up using a new email address. If you aren't going to stop them, at least make them jump through some hoops.

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This is a terrible idea. Why are you interested in destroying business for so many freelancers who do take on new-to-Upwork clients? 

[roberty1y]

This is suggested over and over again here, and people try to explain what a bad idea it is. All the most experienced freelancers are against it, and it's out of self interest, not because they want to make life easier for clients. They know a certain portion of clients would be driven away by this, and we need all we can get. Freelancers outnumber them by at least five to one - and that's just those freelancers who have got at least one job here.

Anyway, making it harder for clients to sign up doesn't solve the fundamental problem that permits scammers to operate, i.e. the incomprehensible gullibility of some freelancers. They need to learn, and be given a test before being let loose on the site.

[researchediting]

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Robert Y wrote:

Freelancers outnumber [clients] by at least five to one - and that's just those freelancers who have got at least one job here.

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Not according to the latest Upwork statistics I'm aware of (26 September, 2019).

Upwork GSV, freelancers, clients 2021

[lysis10]

Oh, Michael, that's really interesting. Only 375k freelancers earning. Interesting. I wonder what constitutes an active client though?

[roberty1y]

Good question. It could mean someone who posts a job once a year or more. I probably exaggerated in saying they outnumber five to one the freelancers who have got at least one here, but there is undoubtedly a huge imbalance. Upwork can't afford a policy that will drive away clients, even a small percentage of them.

[researchediting]

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Robert Y wrote:

Good question. It could mean someone who posts a job once a year or more. I probably exaggerated in saying they outnumber five to one the freelancers who have got at least one here, but there is undoubtedly a huge imbalance. Upwork can't afford a policy that will drive away clients, even a small percentage of them.

---

I found it interesting that Upwork happily published stats showing fewer freelancers and agencies than clients. I believe the criterion is likely the same as for account verification: you earn, you count.

Regardless of the ratio, freelancers are expendable to Upwork; clients are not. Which is one more reason why it's baffling that they've been coddling and promoting wannabelancers who are statistically likelier, if not absolutely certain, to provide unsatisfactory service and promote client attrition.

We are essentially in agreement with the professional consensus on not unnecessarily deterring clients. Too bad Upwork continues to turn a deaf ear to our reading of how their latest "freelancer-centric" initiatives erode their marketplace, and inevitably their most profitable clientele.

It would be nice to see an update on the figures, but they're not that relevant to the issues at hand.

[pgiambalvo]

What are their their latest "freelancer-centric" initiatives?

[researchediting]

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Peter G wrote:

What are their their latest "freelancer-centric" initiatives?

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Primarily these monstrosities, along with a few others as clueless, if not as harmful:

https://community.upwork.com/t5/Feedback/Boost-Your-Proposal-to-the-Top-of-List-March-2022-Update/m-...

https://community.upwork.com/t5/Feedback/Availability-Badge-is-Now-Available-to-All-Talent-Feedback-...

https://community.upwork.com/t5/Feedback/Guidance-to-Help-New-Talent-Craft-Cover-Letters-Feedback-an...

[pgiambalvo]

Agree 100%. Those are all indeed monstrosities, clueless, and harmful.  I wish I could wish them all away into a cornfield.

[roberty1y]

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Douglas Michael M wrote:

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Regardless of the ratio, freelancers are expendable to Upwork; clients are not. Which is one more reason why it's baffling that they've been coddling and promoting wannabelancers who are statistically likelier, if not absolutely certain, to provide unsatisfactory service and promote client attrition.

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It could be because these wannabelancers (nice word!) keep buying connects, and need far more of them than successful freelancers. Even when you allow for the free connects given out for responding to messages from clients (another awful idea and an invitation to abuse and fraud), no-hoper freelancers can contribute a lot in connects payments at no cost to Upwork. If you have tens of thousands of freelancers spending a dollar a week each on connects, it contributes a lot to the revenue of the site. It doesn't matter if they never get a job.

[louise-odonovan]

ouch!

[researchediting]

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Peter G wrote:

I agree. Even though that wouldn't mean the clients were legit, at least the scammers would have to use a different stolen credit card everytime they signed up using a new email address. If you aren't going to stop them, at least make them jump through some hoops.

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There is no significant and unique correlation between unverified payment method and scamming. None.

[pgiambalvo]

I wasn't implying that there is, at least not significant and unique, not do I believe that there is. But I think you'd have to agree that all other related issues aside as how that would impact legitimate clients signing up, it would make it more difficult for scam clients to sign up.

[researchediting]

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Peter G wrote:

I wasn't implying that there is, at least not significant and unique, not do I believe that there is. But I think you'd have to agree that all other related issues aside as how that would impact legitimate clients signing up, it would make it more difficult for scam clients to sign up.

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No. I don't. If that's the trade-off you have in mind, it's a *bites fingers* one.

This is what we call cutting off one's nose to spite one's face. And didn't you argue earlier that a scammer would just move on to the next stolen credit card number they have?

[pgiambalvo]

The amount of stolen credit cards they have access to is much more finite that the number of emails they can use.

[lizablau]

Doubt it. They probably have sophisticated software that can create an infinite number of email addresses. 

This was a reply to Peter -- but ended up in the wrong place.  

[pgiambalvo]

Yes, that's what I meant. Email addresses are infinite, credit cards are not.

[noshihom]

We are losing more connects everyday but upwork can't try to understand it.

[m_terrazas]

Nikola o cualquiera de los mods que esté por aquí

Nikola or any of the mods around here.
(I wrote it in Spanish 😁)

Can also check these.
- https://www.upwork.com/nx/jobs/search/?q=%22Whatsapp%22&sort=recency
- https://www.upwork.com/nx/jobs/search/?q=%22t.me%22&sort=recency
- https://www.upwork.com/nx/jobs/search/?q=%22tabishHaider%22&sort=recency

The number of results will not be real, because there will be legitimate jobs, I have not reviewed all the pages.

By the way, in some of the searches, the first job appears without marking the searched word. Because? Is it because it's an "interesting job"? Because if so....

[m_terrazas]

Another search.
- https://www.upwork.com/nx/jobs/search/?q=%22good%20day%22&sort=recency
Spam spiced with off-platform contact.

[renata101]

Hi Wassim,

While it's great to see some of these posts are finally coming down, it took a lot of work to finally get there. And it's important to mention that, as is usually the case, it took a lot of unpaid work by people who are not employed by Upwork to bring it to their attention.  It's a little discouraging in a way too. The scam posts just keep going up and they will continue to go up due to Upwork's failure to seek a more comprehensive solution (I've noticed 50-100 posts go up in the last hour).

And the scammers will just keep getting better at it because Upwork makes their jobs easy and convenient by continuing to pretend they don't need to deal with it. Like the fake devs with Rising Talent status, Upwork even bumps their posts so that they get more prominent placements at the top of the search.

I get the sense that all the wrong people find that embarrassing.

[d_samuel_udokpok]

The keyword "contact me " with quotation returns overwhelming results with mobile numbers. Upwork needs to implement a simple keyword filtration on jobs posted in the marketplace. 

[pgiambalvo]

Yes, they do.

[debi-f]

Today, in the Job search page for Translation jobs (Spanish)  only 1 job is not a scam. All the other jobs have contact information (Telegram, whatsapp)

https://www.upwork.com/nx/find-work/

I'll not waste anymore my time reporting them. I did it for some days, and it didn't work. 

[m_terrazas]

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Débora F wrote:

Today, in the Job search page for Translation jobs (Spanish)  only 1 job is not a scam. All the other jobs have contact information (Telegram, whatsapp)

https://www.upwork.com/nx/find-work/

I'll not waste anymore my time reporting them. I did it for some days, and it didn't work. 

---

Débora, the link only takes you to the job search page, not to the search you made.
I have already put it in several places, but once again. You can filter searches for certain words, so they will disappear from your feed.

If it works for you, you can save the search.

ETA- In the area indicated by the arrow, between the parentheses, you can add OR xxxx if you want to add any more words and save the search again.

[janrozs]

That is not the solution. The scammers are well aware of these things. They change the wording very creatively on a regular basis. You would need to adjust your filters regularly too. Moreover, it doesn't help with invitations from scammers. The whole point is why waste half an hour or one hour of time of tens of thousands of people every single day when a simple software solution implemented by Upwork can do the thing? Noone became a freelancer to end up in a twisted version of a rat race where one needs to spend a considerable amount of time every day just to stay safe and keep their profile clean. This is TIME we are talking about, the time we could use to make more money or to recover our bodies and minds. There is no point in finding excuses and alternative solutions that every freelancer could use. Also, it definitely doesn't give more chances to newcomers. They may be willing to work for less and spend more of their time (some yes, some not), but in this situation, they are the ones that are affected the most by the scammers (either getting scammed or demotivated).