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bojan68
Community Member

Scam client with Upwork Plus badge

Hello.

About two days ago, I sent proposal to one job and the client had Upwork Plus badge and I trusted that.

But after some hours, client replied with a text file and there is a Skype id and wrote to contact him. The suspicious thing is the client was woman but skype id was named with man. 

And why do they need to send skype id via secret.txt file?

If he was already qualified as Upwork Plus client then he must passed something like verification as freelancers do.

Anyway, I reported this client and after about hours, the job was closed.

But I would like to know how to avoid these scammers with trustable Upwork Plus Client badge maybe. Or badge is not trustable?

Please let me know what is Upwork Plus client exactly and how to avoid such these scammers with badges?

Thank you

Bojan Stojanovic

ACCEPTED SOLUTION
g_vasilevski
Retired Team Member
Retired Team Member

Hi Bojan,

 

I`m sorry to hear about the bad experience you had. I would recommend checking out this Post for more tips on how to avoid questionable jobs.
I would also like to clarify that communicating outside of Upwork is not a violation. But for security reasons, we are recommending to keep your communication on Upwork. Thank you.

~ Goran
Upwork

View solution in original post

26 REPLIES 26
g_vasilevski
Retired Team Member
Retired Team Member

Hi Bojan,

 

I`m sorry to hear about the bad experience you had. I would recommend checking out this Post for more tips on how to avoid questionable jobs.
I would also like to clarify that communicating outside of Upwork is not a violation. But for security reasons, we are recommending to keep your communication on Upwork. Thank you.

~ Goran
Upwork

Hi Goran.

Thank you for your answer.

And I have read the post you sent me and still I have a question.

Payment unverfied client can have Upwork Plus client badge?

 

petra_r
Community Member


Bojan S wrote:

 

Payment unverfied client can have Upwork Plus client badge?

 


Yes.


Bojan S wrote:

Hi Goran.

Thank you for your answer.

And I have read the post you sent me and still I have a question.

Payment unverfied client can have Upwork Plus client badge?

 


Anyone can have an Upwork Plus badge. It's nothing you have to work for but pay for. It's a membership. Just like freelancers can pay a monthly fee to have a freelancer plus badge. Also, it's not unusual for clients to want to chat on Skype. I've done it a few times myself. You'll know when something's fishy if they start asking for things that go outside the job description. 


Alexis A wrote:

Bojan S wrote:

Hi Goran.

Thank you for your answer.

And I have read the post you sent me and still I have a question.

Payment unverfied client can have Upwork Plus client badge?

 


Anyone can have an Upwork Plus badge. It's nothing you have to work for but pay for.


To pay for it, they would have to have a verified payment method...


Upwork sometimes gives a month free Plus membership as a free trial to new clients.

That's why there are so many "Plus" members who don't have a verified membership.

Thanks for chiming in with your experience. I'm new to upwork and I was receiving many skype requests which I thought was a little strange but still went along - most just text in skypy anyway and red flags I've seen are a questionnaire they send that is asking for too much personal information upfront that I wasn't comfortable giving - they dont need my ss. 

Such a shame, so many scammers on here. 


Tammy T wrote:

Thanks for chiming in with your experience. I'm new to upwork and I was receiving many skype requests which I thought was a little strange but still went along - most just text in skypy anyway and red flags I've seen are a questionnaire they send that is asking for too much personal information upfront that I wasn't comfortable giving - they dont need my ss. 

Such a shame, so many scammers on here. 


What do you expect? It would not make sense for scammers to operate on small, unknown platforms, right? 

There is an easy way to steer clear of scammers: Don't skype. It seems you haven't read the terms of service which you agreed to when you signed up, because if you had, you would have known that communicating outside of upwork before hire is strictly forbidden. Why? See above. (Also you can lose your profile when you do that.)

I would expect a large, well-known, and BTW awesome, platform like Upwork to have more robust, effective, and proactive methods for preventing scam posts than relying on freelancers as the first line of defense.

re: "I would expect a large, well-known, and BTW awesome, platform like Upwork to have more robust, effective, and proactive methods for preventing scam posts than relying on freelancers as the first line of defense."

 

But how would that be accomplished?

As a freelancer, I want clients to easily be able to post jobs, hire me, and pay me money.

 

That means we need to keep it easy for people to be clients. Scammers will always be able to take advantage of that easy access to the platform.

I have no idea how that would be accomplished. But I imagine it would have to involve better vetting of client posts both by AI and actual human beings BEFORE freelancers are exposed to them. These scams are not that hard to spot. At all.

re: "These scams are not that hard to spot. At all."

 

They are easier to spot for a human than they are for an automated algorithm.

 

Upwork actually has a lot of automated algorithms in place to flag and block problem jobs.

 

But it is a moving target. Scammers mimic real job posts. I appreciate your sincerity and interest on this topic, but what you are suggesting is not as simple or achievable as you may think it is.

All I know is that I’ve been on Upwork for years and have never seen the amount of scam posts (mostly for proofreaders) that I’ve seen in the past month. Not even close. Usually, I might flag a few a week, but I’ve been flagging like 30 or more PER DAY recently. And Upwork then removes those posts a few hours later and sends me an email that they have taken action, so I’m definitely flagging the right ones. I guess all we freelancers can do is to remain vigilant and NEVER communicate outside of Upwork.


Goran V wrote:

Hi Bojan,

 

I`m sorry to hear about the bad experience you had. I would recommend checking out this Post for more tips on how to avoid questionable jobs.
I would also like to clarify that communicating outside of Upwork is not a violation. But for security reasons, we are recommending to keep your communication on Upwork. Thank you.


Just to clarify - according to ToS, it is a violation if it happens before a contract is set up and approved by both parties (section 7.2). Could you please confirm so everybody's on the same page? 

petra_r
Community Member


Piotr O wrote:

Goran V wrote in May 2020:

I would also like to clarify that communicating outside of Upwork is not a violation.


Just to clarify - according to ToS, it is a violation if it happens before a contract is set up  


It is now. It wasn't when the post you pulled out was written. At that time it was allowed. 

roberty1y
Community Member

There really needs to be a test for new members to pass where they have to answer questions on the terms of service. If you say you can contact anyone offsite before a contract is started, you shouldn't be allowed to be a freelancer here till you get it right.


Robert Y wrote:

There really needs to be a test for new members to pass where they have to answer questions on the terms of service. If you say you can contact anyone offsite before a contract is started, you shouldn't be allowed to be a freelancer here till you get it right.


That is a strange solution to the scam problem in Upwork, but nothing beats shutting down the platform. If effectivity is what counts, there's nothing more effective than that.

Sure, and also have Upwork prevent scammers from being to post in the first place. Maybe have a test for clients that proves they actually are a new client and not someone who posts over and over again pretending to be new so that they can scam people.


Peter G wrote:

Maybe have a test for clients that proves they actually are a new client and not someone who posts over and over again pretending to be new so that they can scam people.


How would you "test" that?

How happy would you be for the fees we pay to sharply increase to pay for that, and the decrease of genuine job posts that would come with clients not wanting to jump through hoops?

 

It's all well and good to keep saying "Upwork should do this and Upwork should do that" without considering that 1. every action has a reaction, meaning when Upwork does something, it has consequences and side effects and 2. those "this" and "that" things cost money that has to come from somewhere. With Upwork to this day not making a profit, the only place such money could come from is from us freelancers. I'd rather continue to weed out the scammers and time wasters as I have been all along than face less genuine clients and higher fees.

 

Okay, got it -- Upwork should do nothing more to prevent scammers from posting for fear of alieninating legitimate clients. What they do already is sufficient. Thanks for your perspective.


Peter G wrote:

Okay, got it -- Upwork should do nothing more to prevent scammers from posting 


I never said that. Passive aggressively twisting someone's words around is at best unhelpful.

I asked you how what you ask for could be achieved without having unwanted effects that hurt freelancers. 

 

I don't think it was passive aggressive at all. Just my interpretation. As for as being helpful, what do YOU think should be done by Upwork, if anything, to lessen the amount of scams that are posted?

tlbp
Community Member


Robert Y wrote:

There really needs to be a test for new members to pass where they have to answer questions on the terms of service. If you say you can contact anyone offsite before a contract is started, you shouldn't be allowed to be a freelancer here till you get it right.


The readiness test should be improved and Upwork should stop handing out Upwork Plus badges free. Freelancers rely on the badge to indicate that the client has invested in using the platform when that is not always the case. 

roberty1y
Community Member

Scammers aren't a big deal if you can spot them. It's those who don't know they're scammers that can be harmed by them. I just flag them and forget about them. 

roberty1y
Community Member

If someone grabs your wallet at knifepoint, there's not much you can do about it. But no fraud is committed against freelancers here that couldn't be prevented by the victim. The site is specifically designed to avoid it, with the hourly payment, milestone, and escrow system. 

 

Don't contact anyone offsite if no contract has been started and never pay money for anything - not for non-existent "equipment", not to buy cryptocurrency, never for any reason - and you won't be ripped off.

sassy_programmer
Community Member

I experienced the same thing a while ago. A client from canada with a female identity was actually a guy and he have me whatsapp to contact. Surprisingly he asked me that he wanted me to work onsite for him and he would pay me outside of Upwork.

Hi Humza,

 

Could you please click on my name and send me a PM with more information about the client you are referring to? If possible please share the screenshots of the messages you received from the client. I will be sure to look into your report and escalate it accordingly.

 

~ Nikola
Upwork
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