Scammers, July 2023 - Avoid them!

[debi-f]

Hello,

As during the past months, I once again report that the platform is full of scammers.

Today, I flagged several times, several jobs, some of them repeated, some of them I flagged twice, jobs posted 1 to 5 hours ago, including links to Telegram, emails, etc. 

The jobs I flagged are still there, posted one after the other. 

At this hour, today, most of them are from Kenya and with payment method verified, or not. But, it changes day after day.

Is anyone working there at Upwork? Or have you given up? 🙈 🙉 🙊 

[celgins]

For a while, I considered the idea that Upwork is using scam jobs as a twisted manner to rid the platform of freelancers. Instead of culling 2 million freelancers for no reason, get rid of those who respond to spam jobs. This way, Upwork has a legitimate reason to remove those freelancers from the platform, and Upwork makes a little cheddar in the process.

But then I realized that Upwork never really removes freelancers who violate the ToS.

[debi-f]

Maybe they use the scam jobs as a way to “sell” connects, and get money from people that respond to scammers? Moreover, there are freelancers that boost their bids up to 50 connects.  I guess they are the newest freelancers that are searching for their first job, and they think that boosting their bid give them more chances to be hired. 

But, how much money can Upwork get from selling connects?  I think that it is better to have good clients and interesting jobs. Anyway, Upwork will then earn a 10% fee… 

[debi-f]

No one from the Upwork Team takes care. 

We have to identify them and not sending proposals. Maybe it will not be anymore a good deal for Upwork, and they will decide to stop them. 

[celgins]

According to their financials, Upwork generates more revenue through freelancer fees, but they make quite a bit selling Connects and other items. I guess they make enough from Connects to maintain the travesty.

[hoyle_editing]

---

Débora F wrote:

But, how much money can Upwork get from selling connects?  I think that it is better to have good clients and interesting jobs. Anyway, Upwork will then earn a 10% fee… 

---

Quite a lot actually....

Doing the math from some numbers upwork gave in a press release suggesting more than 10000 jobs are listed daily...

so lets say for some easy math, each job costs an average spend of 10 connects per application....

so, thats 10000 * $1.50 = $15,000

then if we say an average of 30 proposals per job?

30*$15,000 = $450,000

yearly thats just shy of $165 million!

We all know that in actual fact lots of jobs have 50 or more proposals and most jobs cost way more than 10 these days. 

Obviously these are very rough figures, but it does show that Upwork stand to earn considerable amounts by not removing the scams and thus having to refund connects!

[debi-f]

Sure. That's why they maintain the scam jobs even when we flag them. 

So, the only solution (??) will be NOT to apply to them! 

[debi-f]

In fact, you pay $1.5 for 10 connects. So, 10000 connects = $1500

[hoyle_editing]

yes, but its not 10000 connects, its 10,000 jobs at 10 connects per application 😉

[debi-f]

Ok, sorry! I misunderstood... 

[06966447]

These last few days I put red flag on several. But it seems that after placing the red flag, several others already appear. Very disappointing, even more so for those who are starting on the platform

[debi-f]

My basic suggestions: 

• Don't search only directly at "Find Work".
• Go to the bar "Search for job" and 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, even when they have their payment verified. They verify their payment from different countries every day. 
• Don't bid and don't connect if they publish a link (telegram, mail, etc.). 
• DON'T BUY CONNECTS, and 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. I only buy 10 connects if I used my 10 free connects, and if I find a real job that is a good fit for me. 

[06966447]

Thanks for the tips Debora.

[godswillvitus]

To balance the scale, client's should buy coonects as well if they want to post a job, maybe more cheaper, in that way its a win win. It will help curb scamm jobs.

[fd1a3637]

Any additional barrier to new clients joining the platform means less clients, and less jobs. Scammers will pay pennies to post scam jobs if they get a return on their investment, which they do. 

[debi-f · Accepted solution]

My basic suggestions: 

• Don't search only directly at “Find Work”.
• Go to the bar “Search for job” and 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, even when they have their payment verified. They verify their payment from different countries every day. 
• Don't bid and don't connect if they publish a link (telegram, mail, skype, etc.). 
• 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. 

[aaadd152]

I just started a contract with one of these people from**Edited for Community Guidelines**, so I want to expose what their scam is: 

1. they ONLY post hourly jobs, that they never pay, so Upwork has to pay the freelancer, I asked them to use a project based contract where they have to pay upfront and of course they refused
2. they ask you to "test" the payment of some subscription using a Binance account: 
   1. so you go to some scam site, that has NOTHING but ways to pay them, no description, nothing, just a wordpress template
   2. they ask you to contact support so they can guide you through the payment process
   3. the support asks you to send some ridiculous money $400 to some othere binance account. 

Is there nothing the police can do against these people????

[759e32fa]

Hi Andra,

I'm sorry to hear that you've encountered some scammers while using Upwork. It is against ToS to do any financial transactions outside Upwork and we highly recommend sending us a flag as soon as you see any suspicious user activity. That way, our team can investigate and take action as needed.

I can see that you already opened a support ticket regarding this issue. Please allow our team 24-28 hours to respond to your request. Feel free to also update the ticket should you have further questions or concerns.