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axman1413
Community Member

Need to report a Fraud Client.

I need to contact Upwork to tell you about a client that is scamming freelancers by sending them fraudulent checks. But I can't seem to be able to open a ticket.

 

Seems Upwork only allows themselves to create tickets now. Ridiculous platform, is really starting to become more of a haven for dirtbags than it is a source for viable work. yet the freelancers are still being penalized an extra 10% for the first $500, of which most clients don't even reach that. 

 

Start setting a minimum budget of $500 for clients to begin with...and then no job posting until their Payment Method is VERIFIED. 

 

You keep panering to the crappy clients, and wasting the time of valuable contractors. Nice new website, serves no purpose if the clients are no good. 

 

**Edited for Community Guidelines**

ACCEPTED SOLUTION

I would just like to point out that many clients have stated (Including a client who is a frequent forum contributor) stated that they would have never posted a project if they had to verify their payment method or put down a deposit. 

 

If you walk into a store and they make you verify your payment before you shop, are you going to continue shopping with them?  Most people would say no thanks and go somewhere else. You just have to learn what to look out for. It takes time, but you can eventually tell if it is a scam within the first few lines of a posting or the first few minutes of an interview.  

 

Point is, if you follow the TOS of the site, there's no reason to get scammed. 

"Fairness is giving all people the treatment they earn and deserve. It doesn't mean treating everyone alike-Coach John Wooden"

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26 REPLIES 26
kochubei_valeria
Community Member

Hi Johnny,

 

Sorry you feel this way about Upwork. We don't plan to require clients to verify their payment methods before posting their first job as we want to give them a chance to familiarize themselves with the platform and freelancers' profiles before they enter their payment information. Majority of clients verify their payment method right before they hire freelancers. We also don't expect to increase a budget limit for fixed-price contracts to $500. There are a lot of small jobs posted on Upwork that later turn into long-term relationships.

 

We will continue to improve our internal processes that identify questionable jobs. The job you are referring to has already been actioned.

~ Valeria
Upwork

What about the client? You just let anyone come in the platform without any type of verification to waste the time and energy of quality freelancers, possibly putting them at risk of fraud, just because you want someone to get familiar with your platform? 

 

Create a Client Oriantation section. Stop making us do your filtering work for you. It is not our jobs to filter through the bad clients and frauds for you. You are a multi-million dollar, internationally operated business. You trying to tell me you have all these hoops for Freelancers to jump through, but you can't do anything to Qulify and Validate Clients on your own platform? 

 

And you want to charge the Freelancers MORE, to do all this work for you. How is charging the Freelancers an extra 10% up to $500 incentivize the CLIENT to have a longer relationship? That's backwards. You need to be charging them the extra 10% on how much they have spent on the platform. 

Scale out the riff-raff and give us quality clients that actualy want to pay a fair amount for the work they are in need of. This platform is just becoming a place for Angencies to collaborate and maximize profits through underpaying labor. Shameful. Once again, big corporate thinking prevails in the world of Capitalizm. 

 

When will business finally look at the value that labor really is. Without the people doing the work, NOTHING would get done. People with ideas and money, are just people with ideas and money. If they can't put those ideas into reality, then their money means nothing to them. Labor is responsible for creating those realities, from the dreams. Once you start putting more value on the TALENT, than you do on the pocketbook, this plaform may strat showing signs of success again. 

 

Till then, it is only a tertiary, at best, solution for quality clients. 

Johnny,

 

We review reported jobs and clients' accounts and, if a violation of Upwork ToS is confirmed, we take appropriate actions. The client's account you reported has already been closed.

~ Valeria
Upwork

True, but it is so easy to post jobs on upwork.  All they need to do is create another account with another e-mail address.  It seems that Upwork does not have good handle on client vetting process the way they do for freelancers.  May be there are more freelancers than customers and Upwork does not want to annoy them.  

 

Freelancers would have to live with loitering clients, scammers, and stealers.

Hi, I would also like to report a client who is asking me for a linking fee of $80 to process the payment. They are under kings review job, 

Did you get your payment?, cause they had asked me for $80 dollars just now for linking the account..just want to know if it is a scam 

Did you get paid? 

I just had a terrible experience with a similar situation. There is no place to report this issue - Up Work needs to address this poor business practice ASAP - you get a cut you need to take responsibility. 


Stephanie H wrote:

I just had a terrible experience with a similar situation. There is no place to report this issue - Up Work needs to address this poor business practice ASAP - you get a cut you need to take responsibility. 


The only way for a FL to get scammed with a fraudulent check is to violate the ToS by agreeing to accept payment off platform. 

Hi Stephanie, 

I checked your account, and while I'm unable to identify the job post that you are referring to, please know that actions have been taken against the two clients that have reached out to you regarding their jobs. Their job posts have also been actioned as they were found to be violating the Upwork Terms of Service. 

As a gentle reminder, please know that users are not allowed to offer, and/or, accept payments off Upwork. Accepting payment off Upwork is a violation of the Upwork Terms of Service as noted in Section 7 Non-Cirumvention of the Upwork User Agreement. 

 

Since you are new to Upwork, I highly recommend that you read up on the freelancer resources we have compiled, for great tips and insights on how you can work successfully on the platform. Please don’t forget to read the Safety First! section of the resources, and these tips for avoiding questionable jobs for more information about working safely through Upwork.


~ Avery
Upwork
abf58479
Community Member

There is a lady scammer on Upwork who claims to be a Wix expert but she is not. Please ban her from your site.
Her name: **Edited for Community Guidelines** 

Hello Sherie,

 

I'm sorry to hear about your experience with a Freelancer. Could you please click on my picture next to this post and send me a private message with more info so I could forward this to the appropriate team to review and take action? Click here to read on how to report a suspicious user activity directly to our Trust and Safety team for investigation.

 

Thank you.

Pradeep H.

Upwork
r2streu
Community Member

Easy way to avoid clients sending fraudulant checks:

DO NOT VIOLATE UPWORK TOS. 

 

If you're getting checks, you're violating Upwork's terms of service. Full stop. And so are the clients. 

Listen here smart guy Randy, I never said I took the check. But I’m not an idiot. When a client tells me they want to send me a check to use to purchase software, I know it’s a line of crap. 

 

My my point is that if Upwork cared more about QUALITY than they do Quantity, they would vet the clients as well to make sure they are worthy to be on the platform. GOOD CLIENTS will not have an issue with validating their business account to get QUALITY help. 

 

This is platform used to be so that I was beating off clients with a stick. I could pick and choose which ones I wanted. Now it’s full of cheapskates and phishers. 

 

This platform has been nothing but pocket change, at best, every since about mid 2015. Hasn’t been worth much more than that since. At least not for solo freelancers. 

I would just like to point out that many clients have stated (Including a client who is a frequent forum contributor) stated that they would have never posted a project if they had to verify their payment method or put down a deposit. 

 

If you walk into a store and they make you verify your payment before you shop, are you going to continue shopping with them?  Most people would say no thanks and go somewhere else. You just have to learn what to look out for. It takes time, but you can eventually tell if it is a scam within the first few lines of a posting or the first few minutes of an interview.  

 

Point is, if you follow the TOS of the site, there's no reason to get scammed. 

"Fairness is giving all people the treatment they earn and deserve. It doesn't mean treating everyone alike-Coach John Wooden"

First of all, your rationale is not sufficient for this scenario. Walking into a store to buy something is not the same as hiring someone.the truth of the matter is that Upwork is lazy and they don't want to do the extra work it takes to make sure the platform is not a haven for scammers. 


@Johnny A wrote:

 

[. . .]

This platform has been nothing but pocket change, at best, every since about mid 2015. Hasn’t been worth much more than that since. At least not for solo freelancers. 


 _______________________________

Many solo freelancers on this site would not agree with you!

I hear you.

 

The sad reality is, there's simply an uptick in fraudulant activity everywhere. I get scammers sending me emails from pretty much every avenue available.  WE are a necessary part of Upwork's ability to track down the scammers. They just don't have the manpower necessary to police every single job post -- that's why there's a flag option. 

 

Ultimately, Upwork is a vehicle to connect freelancers and clients. Offline and off Upwork, we have to be willing and able to parse the real clients from the frauds, and it holds just as true for Upwork. 

 

My point in the earlier post was simply that Upwork's TOS is one of the ways they DO, actually, protect users from scammers. If users follow the rules, scams like the one you mentioned are a non-issue. 

pwork doesn't pay me to be a client filter for them. 


@Johnny A wrote:

doesn't pay me to be a client filter for them. 


 Nope, so don't "be a client filter" for them. Just apply to contracts with "safe" clients if you don't want to do any filtering, and leave the new clients without verified payment methods and without history to those who don't mind filtering for themselves (not "for Upwork")

 

The scammers are generally easily spotted, and it's almost impossible to get scammed without breaking the terms of service.

 

Storm in teacup.

ayeshaahafeez
Community Member

I applied to a job posting with my resume on utilizing your platform then got a message opened requesting me to set up a online interview on Telegram msg system , meanwhile I googled your client and found out they are scammers, they already have my name and information.

this is what I found on Google. You should confirm companies before allowing them to post for safety reasons. With this said I am Beyond disatisfied with your website. Look in the messaging for the attachment they sent and also google them yourself

 

 

**Edited for community guidelines**

Hi Ayesha,

 

I'm sorry to hear about your experience. Thanks for flagging this job to us. I've checked and it looks like the job has already been taken down because it was in violation of Upwork TOS and action has been taken on the client account. 

 

Please, check this help article for more information on how to use the flag option found on each job post or message to report any suspicious or inappropriate content. Also, check out this post for more tips on how to avoid questionable jobs.

 

Thank you!

~ Bojan
Upwork

Good Morning
I am sure they took it down right away after I told them I was reporting
that it is Fraud my concern is now that they have my information what can I
expect from using your website. I thought your company would screen these
types of ppl before allowing them to create an account. Wouldn't you have
an IEN number of some sort that they are registered to with the Secretary
of State? I am very reluctant to use your site and feel I paid money to
your site just to set myself up to get frauded, Who knows how many more ppl
are going to get scammed especially since COVID happened. If fraud starts
happing at least I will know where it started FROM.


Ayesha H wrote:
Good Morning
I am sure they took it down right away after I told them I was reporting
that it is Fraud my concern is now that they have my information 

Why would you have given them any of your details?

It is actally really difficult to get scammed on Upwork without violating the terms of service or safe practice and common sense.

 


Ayesha H wrote:
Good Morning
Wouldn't you have
an IEN number of some sort that they are registered to with the Secretary
of State? 

No, because they were not in the US. Those scams are as old as the hills and are all over the Internet.

 

If you stick to some very basic rules, you are quite safe here.

 

Real-Job-Or-Scam.jpg

 

29cc30d3
Community Member

I did a work recently and it was for Kingsreview. I didn't know how upwork worked since I am a student and I worked for three days straight and they are not paying me and asking me money for some account linking. I already saw two people commenting about the same problem. I would like to report mine too. I will attach the proofs here. I wasn't aware of these scams. He kept pestering me to send the money. 

 

**Edited for Community Guidelines**

Hi Akshara,

 

I checked the job post you were referring to and it appears that it's already been taken down because it was in violation of Upwork TOS.


Please check out this course for more tips on staying safe on Upwork and please use the flag option found on each job post or message anytime you’d like to report a violation.

 

- Pradeep

Upwork
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