Scammers

[jeremiah-brown]

Are we allowed to reverse scam the scammers?  Or no?


EDIT:  ****POST MEANT IN SARCASTIC JEST****

[6cfe9be7]

it's just a waste of time and effort, just ignore those people and report their posts

[prestonhunter · Accepted solution]

re: "it's just a waste of time and effort, just ignore those people and report their posts"

Presumably the original poster already knows that reverse scamming scammers doesn't get rid of the endless supply of scammers.

The purpose of reverse scamming scammers is personal entertainment. And if one records and reports on one's exploits, there is the potential for educating and informing others. And also such reports are consumed as entertainment by others. Reverse scamming scammers is a very popular genre on YouTube.

[jeremiah-brown]

I wish we could do it here.  Sadly we cant and I understand why.  Last thing this site needs is an army of people reverse scamming scammers who arent actually scammers.

[spectralua]

Which way are you going to scam scammer? I see none without ToS violation.

[prestonhunter]

You phrased this as a single question. But this is actually a whole set of questions.

Under Upwork's rules, are we allowed to reverse scam scammer?
If we reverse scammed scammers, would Upwork penalize us?
Will Upwork post an official policy statement about reverse scamming scammers?

Is it morally acceptable to reverse scam scammer?
Is it morally acceptable to NOT reverse scam scammers?
Is it legal to reverse scam scammers?

[244b2e1e]

I would recommend that Upwork could simply block their IP addresses at least we can rid of them. I can see that they keep on posting the same job postings.

[prestonhunter]

IP addresses are rarely assigned to single individuals. More commonly, IP addresses are used in pools by internet service providers, and any individual may obtain any IP address from a pool of addresses when they log in from that location, and they'll obtain an address from a different pool when logging in from a different location.

Trying to block people by IP address would not work, and you would end up blocking large numbers of legitimate users.

Upwork is not the IP address police.