Scammers, Scammers and Scammers

[2550676e]

Upwork Team, can you please do anything against spammers and scammers. My news feed is full of scam jobs and I am unable to find legitimate jobs. Please do something.

[petra_r]

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Asad U wrote: My news feed is full of scam jobs and I am unable to find legitimate jobs. Please do something.

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Filter them out

[renata101]

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Petra R wrote:

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Asad U wrote: My news feed is full of scam jobs and I am unable to find legitimate jobs. Please do something.

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Filter them out

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What she said. I posted some instructions for it here. Upwork does need to address the problem, but this should make it easier to filter through the postings to find legitimate jobs.
https://community.upwork.com/t5/New-to-Upwork/Filtering-Scam-Posts-How-to-use-the-Upwork-Advanced-Se...

(Note: I am not part of the Upwork Team).

[albert_dw]

Filter them out..... much more easily said than done. I have filtered out about 20 terms that commonly come up in these scam posts. I still get about 60% scam posts on my searches. Anything containing an email, phone number or telegram link should automatically be blocked. 

And, I will say it again, perhaps a deposit should be put down by anyone posting a job. Or at least require them to verify a payment method. If you're worried about fiverr, don't be. I wouldn't create a profile there if they put me on a retainer.

[petra_r]

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Albert d wrote:

And, I will say it again, perhaps a deposit should be put down by anyone posting a job. Or at least require them to verify a payment method.

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That would  be commercial suicide. Truly.

[m_terrazas]

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Albert d wrote:

Filter them out..... much more easily said than done. I have filtered out about 20 terms that commonly come up in these scam posts. I still get about 60% scam posts on my searches. Anything containing an email, phone number or telegram link should automatically be blocked. 

And, I will say it again, perhaps a deposit should be put down by anyone posting a job. Or at least require them to verify a payment method. If you're worried about fiverr, don't be. I wouldn't create a profile there if they put me on a retainer.

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Maybe you're doing the filtering wrong. See the link posted above.
I have filtered all the words that you have commented and no job appears with them.

[carol_thompson]

I don't understand why freelancers have to jump through hoops to prove who they are, yet anyone can post a job without so much as payment verification. There are more scams than legitimate jobs. I get invites from Upwork's Talent folks that are scams. 

I've reported scams and they don't get removed. It shouldn't be up to us to police the community. They need to hire people to better monitor. If a scammer is removed, they just come back under a new user name. 

Much of this could be avoided if they vetted those posting jobs the same way they vet freelancers. Legit people would have no problem doing so.

[roberty1y]

Freelancers supporting client verification would be like turkeys voting for Christmas. If verification is introduced, thousands of honest, legitimate clients will turn to other sites, where they can post a job without any such hindrances.

You could say this isn't a logical attitude - you have nothing to lose by verifying a payment method, and you're going to need to anyway if you hire someone. But people don't think logically. They don't want to do business on a site that wants their payment details before they make any transaction.

The underlying problem is that clients are scarce, while freelancers abound. There are hundreds of thousands of them on the site who never even get a job. You may think clients don't deserve such favourable treatment, but it's not a question of what they deserve. It's just a matter of being realistic in order to stay in business.

[financemark]

Carol,

The answer is easy - and applies to almost every issue in the world right now: $ -- always ask: who has the $ and then you will know who it is that the service (any service or company) bows to.  Won't ever change b/c UW knows clients have the $, and they will never do anything to offend clients. 

I work in tech consulting to many online, saas-based, services companies: their entire business plan is rooted in winning the demographic with the $.

[e_skoldebring]

This is horrible. My entire feed is full of spam, I am getting 2-3 spam invitations per day and it seem most legitimate clients have abandoned the platform. 

It would about time Upwork made an official announcement on this matter and how it will be resolved. Hearing that it's being discussed with "the team" does nothing to reduce my stress levels. 

Clean up your platform Upwork! I have paid you 15-20K in fees, use that money to fix this. 

[pgiambalvo]

But, but, it's been reported to the team! The team, I say! I don't understand your frustration!

[abinadab-agbo]

If only Upwork would start suspending accounts who violate multiple times.

But no, they just close the job and leave the scammer free rein to rinse and repeat.

All these scams are coming from the very same accounts.

Upwork is directly responsible for any scamming victims have suffered on this site. Am I out of order in saying the day of reckoning might come soon?🤔

Cos somewhere on the planet I'm being told Facebook was recently taken to task over all the scams they gave nodding acquiescence to on their platform.

[financemark]

The client population has the money (vs the freelancers) -- so don't hold your breathe Asad.

The ONLY way UW would make changes here is if its "enterprise reputational goodwill" is at risk of being damaged.  If the rampant fraud on this network were reported, say on CNBC, or in other financial press (UW is public afterall), or if it had an impact on their internal metrics (whatever they might be), then they might throw a few Rupees at the issue.  

The company is run like a Saas business: develop the app (they purchased Elance/O-Desk), buy/build the subscriber base, turn on the autopilot -  oh and offshore the service component to someplace cheap.  You have to understand that UW is managed for profit and quarterly earnings, not for freelancer relationships. 

Still not a terrible place to work - despite it all.