Potential Identity Theft Scam 'flagged': UW failed to take it down.

[ericaandrews]

I flagged one of these yesterday and Upwork did absolutely nothing with it and left it up. Please take these down before more people get victimized.

Potential Identify theft: A 'new' unverified client offering outrageous hourly rates asking people to send in ID cards/passports , resumes, and copies of high-value certification credentials as part of the 'hiring' process.  Client does not appear to be actually 'interviewing' anybody  and is likely simply getting copies of people's passports / certifications through 'proposals' for the purposes of identity theft and impersonation.

**Edited for Community Guidelines**

[AndreaG]

Hi CJ,

Thank you for bringing this to our attention. I've gathered all of the information you shared in your post and forwarded it to the appropriate team for investigation.

[roberty1y]

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CJ A wrote:

 Client does not appear to be actually 'interviewing' anybody  and is likely simply getting copies of people's passports / certifications through 'proposals' for the purposes of identity theft and impersonation.

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If the client isn't interviewing anyone, it would mean people are sending them scans of their passports or other identification in their proposals, so no further contact is necessary for the identity theft. I hope people aren't that stupid.

[ericaandrews]

I understand that.  That is why I mentioned that the person wasn't even interviewing. I already mentioned that the PROPOSALS being sent is how the identity theft is occurring.  Got it.  That still doesn't answer the question of why Upwork LEFT these posts up for so long after they were reported.

[petra_r]

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CJ A wrote: That still doesn't answer the question of why Upwork LEFT these posts up for so long after they were reported.

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Because they're drowning in scam posts and especially at the weekend it takes some (yes, too much) time to remove job posts.

[pgiambalvo]

UW is a 24/7 global company so there are no such things as weekends or business hours.

[ericaandrews]

I would believe that if I didn't also notice that they seem to be able to very RAPIDLY review and "edit for community guidelines" any post that goes up on the UW Community discussion boards within minutes: Easily thousands of posts a day.  Now imagine if they reallocated some of that personnel, time, and energy to monitoring the Job Board as effectively and as aggressively as the  'discussion' boards.  If they can monitor and 'screen' what people are SAYING about Upwork on the boards 24/7, they can monitor and screen what's being posted to the job boards 24/7.   Instead of wasting personnel hours editing the comments ABOUT the scams, it would make more sense to use that same manpower to edit/remove/screen the actual scams, then people wouldn't be 'discussing' them so much 😊

It speaks volumes that the 'flagging' was ignored for over a day until the links to the job scams were posted here today, and within minutes - boom!, it was 'edited for community guidelines'. If they watched the job board the way they watch these forums, I wouldn't have to report scams in the forum.

[pgiambalvo]

Agreed. If they can do it here, they can do it there. Takes 1 second to see "Telegram" in a job post.

[petra_r]

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Robert Y wrote: I hope people aren't that stupid.

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I hope the Easter Bunny is real.

And out of the two of us, I am the more realistic.