New to Upwork - soooo many scammers

[#1]

Hello Upwork Community,

I'm Angela and I am new to Upwork and was genuinely excited about gaining freelance work that I potentially would not have had acess to otherwise. However, I have been so disappointed that projects have turned out to be scammers (both clients reaching out to me and me reaching out to clients). I have reported those that were still active, but it has left me with such a bad feeling that I am wondering if there is legitamate work to be found. 

I would love any feedback! 

[#2]

Upwork used to be a great freelancing platform. I spoke well about it for years. Then things abruptly changed in the last 2 years or so, and Upwork became the natural habitat for scammers and so-called freelancers with no skills whatsoever.

Quality dropped, and good clients became a mirage. Nowadays, even skilled and successful freelancers are having trouble in finding work - and things are even harder for new freelancers with no past experience and reviews.

That said, you can keep trying, but I would recommend taking the Academy courses first and working on your profile. Your profile description is not enticing, you have no portfolio, and your hourly rate is too high for now. Best of luck.

[#3]

Hi!

I work here for 13 years. It is real that some years ago it was much easier to find good jobs, but also it took 2–3 months to find the first job. Upwork changed in these last years, there are more freelancers and there are many scammers.

Some suggestions to avoid scammers and search for real clients and jobs: 

• Don't search jobs only directly at “Find Work”.
• Go to the “Search for job” space to apply “Filters”.
• One of them is “Payment verified” (although today there are scammers with payment verified and Upwork is not checking it, it could help).
• Other Filter is “Client history”. Check if he posted other jobs, if he hired other freelancers, feedbacks, etc.   
• Check the Date since the client is a member. Usually the scammers are members from the same day they post their jobs, and they didn't hire anyone. 
• DON'T BID for jobs that ask for +20, +40 languages translation, or they publish a list of 15 languages, or invitations too good to be true, even when they have their payment verified. They verify their payment from different countries every day. 
• DON'T APPLY and don't connect if they publish a link (telegram, mail, skype, etc.). DON'T contact them outside Upwork. 
• DON'T BOOST YOUR BIDS. If you do it, you are paying to Upwork for finding a job instead of earning money from your work. Serious clients will find the best options according to your skills and not the amount of bids you use.  And, Upwork will not do a business with the connects, so maybe they will care about scammers and avoid them. And we will find more real and good clients. 

I hope this could help...