Spam levels increasing?

[#1]

Hi, is it just me or are the number of spam / scam job postings on Upwork increasing?

My feed is full of jobs with similar wording, each seeking "99 freelancers", from accounts with zero contract history and typically created on today's date.  I flag them occasionally but don't invest too much time doing so because there are too many.

Has anyone noticed an increase in these type of posting?

[#2]

I cannot say if it increased since I am pretty new here and am not able to make any comparison to the "old times". One thing's for sure - it's better here than on Freelancer.com. But it is far from perfect - there are times in a day when my job feed seems to be populated up to the level of 60-70% with fake/scam jobs. Hence my suggestion is that (since apparently most of the fake jobs come from clients who did not verify their payment) may be asking clients to verify payment before posting would help. The response from the community has been negative, and I can understand the reasoning behind it. A couple of hours ago, even I managed to land a job with a client who did not verify his payment method upfront but was very quick in funding the milestone once we agreed on the terms. So, this may be the wrong direction, IDK. 

A scam job equals lost connects, lost time for reading and writing a proposal, or lost time when being interviewed. I do not even talk here about lost money if we let them rip us off. 

I believe that UpWork is more interested in having a high volume of clients and job offers than actually filtering them - such an approach would make business sense to me, although I would be sad to see UpWork following Freelancer.com footsteps. 

[#3]

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Piotr O wrote:

I cannot say if it increased since I am pretty new here and am not able to make any comparison to the "old times". One thing's for sure - it's better here than on Freelancer.com. But it is far from perfect - there are times in a day when my job feed seems to be populated up to the level of 60-70% with fake/scam jobs. Hence my suggestion is that (since apparently most of the fake jobs come from clients who did not verify their payment) may be asking clients to verify payment before posting would help. The response from the community has been negative, and I can understand the reasoning behind it. A couple of hours ago, even I managed to land a job with a client who did not verify his payment method upfront but was very quick in funding the milestone once we agreed on the terms. So, this may be the wrong direction, IDK. 

A scam job equals lost connects, lost time for reading and writing a proposal, or lost time when being interviewed. I do not even talk here about lost money if we let them rip us off. 

I believe that UpWork is more interested in having a high volume of clients and job offers than actually filtering them - such an approach would make business sense to me, although I would be sad to see UpWork following Freelancer.com footsteps. 

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When upwork takes down scam jobs, you get your connects back. 

[#4]

I believe that any trend you are seeing in terms of spam levels increasing is going to be idiosyncratic: specific to you or your niche.

As a long-time Upwork freelancer, I have not noticed any such trend.

[#5]

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Preston H wrote: As a long-time Upwork freelancer, I have not noticed any such trend.

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Maybe your niche is small enough to escape their attention.

scam and spam levels have increased dramatically and it's getting worse with every week.

[#6]

I can't agree more. I came here today, searching about an increase in trash jobs, because over the past 3 months or so, I've noticed a big increase in garbage job invitations. Most job invitations I have gotten this year (Jan to March 2022) have been obvious scams. One today was:  This job will take less than 15 minutes, contact me if you're interested. No job description. And flat rate of $45. I've also been getting almost daily offers to test Apple apps, at a variety of absurdly high hourly rates. BUT I noticed that the rates are decreasing, which makes me think that they realize they are giving themselves away, and not getting enough victims for their scam whatever that may be. It's frustrating!!

[#7 · Accepted solution]

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Stephen D wrote:

Hi, is it just me or are the number of spam / scam job postings on Upwork increasing?

My feed is full of jobs with similar wording, each seeking "99 freelancers", from accounts with zero contract history and typically created on today's date.  I flag them occasionally but don't invest too much time doing so because there are too many.

Has anyone noticed an increase in these type of posting?

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There has been a substantial increase in all types of online fraud since the beginning of the pandemic. Scammers are putting forth extra effort, and they have more victims to taget among the  many people who are transitioning to the digital economy for the first time.

For reference:
https://www.wifr.com/2021/09/09/study-covid-19-pandemic-job-market-causes-rise-job-scams/

https://www.cnbc.com/2021/06/03/why-online-fraud-attempts-are-up-25percent-in-the-us.html

https://www.securitymagazine.com/articles/93912-reasons-digital-fraud-is-on-the-rise

[#8]

Yes, increased a lot. I am getting around 30+ daily, and tired to flag daily 🙂

- Now spammers adding their telegram link in attached document 🙂

- some sends custom web page link

[#9]

Hope this will all end soon. My feed is filled with these things so as my friend who's also a freelancer. Though I'm pretty sure UW is doing their best to stop these. They are probably too many to control. 

[#10]

Stephen D. wrote:

"Has anyone noticed an increase in these type of posting?"

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Yes, I have. It's really annoying.

[#11]

Without a doubt, thy have increased dramatically. Many more than I have even seen before.

[#12]

I see a lot more spam in general (not just UpWork). Like other's have said many things are moving online and there is a bigger treasure pot for spammers unfortuantely. I am sure other platforms are experiencing similar trends.

On another note, can I have a moment of your time to talk about your car's expiring warranty 

[#13]

can't say for sure if those increased - I feel like it though. Upwork took some actions to reduce spam from freelancer's end, but does NOTHING to improve quality of job posts. I wrote to support many times throughout the years about that issue. now I'm just preparing my business to move out from here

[#14]

Here's a fresh screenshot. Job board is full of spam with same links and same descriptions. It's quite difficult to looking for a job while filtering this trash.

**Edited for Community Guidelines**

[#15]

Thank you for flagging this, Oleksandr, our team will review the jobs as soon as possible and will take proper actions. 

[#16]

I don’t know what UW changed in their filtering process, but since late August I’ve seen a massive increase in spam and scam posts, but no increase in legitimate posts. Oh well.

[#17]

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Peter G wrote:

I don’t know what UW changed in their filtering process, but since late August I’ve seen a massive increase in spam and scam posts, but no increase in legitimate posts. Oh well.

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Online scams have massively increased on all websites, not just on Upwork, as has been pointed out to you repeatedly. Why on earth would Upwork deliberately change their filtering process in order to increase the amount of spam? You think they enjoy dealing with it?

[#18]

I do not, nor did I even imply, that Upwork deliberately changed their filtering process in order to increase the amount of spam. Why on earth did you choose to interpret in that way? I believe that they PERHAPS changed their filtering process in late August in an attempt to make it easier for clients to post jobs, and this inadvertently also made it easier for spam and scams to be posted. As I said, I’ve noticed tons more spam and scams since then, but not more legit jobs.

And all freelancers should read and follow the tips on how to spot a scam which UW saw fit to post in response to the increase in spam and scams that UW ITSELF ALSO NOTICED and ACKNOWLEDGES.

https://community.upwork.com/t5/Community-Blog/From-the-Trust-and-Safety-Team-How-to-Spot-a-Scam/ba-...

According to UW’s own Trust and Safety Team, these include:

Many open jobs, no money spent

Unverified payment method

Quick hiring process

Money requests

Communicate off-platform

Impersonating a known company

[#19]

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Peter G wrote:

And all freelancers should read and follow the tips on how to spot a scam which UW saw fit to post in response to the increase in spam and scams that UW ITSELF ALSO NOTICED and ACKNOWLEDGES.

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I have not seen one single person disagree that the amount of spam has increased; in fact, I said in my post that it had. But out of a sense of fairness, I take issue with you continually using language like Upwork "allows" scammers on their website, or that they changed something that caused it to increase.

[#20]

I respect your opinions, and also respect your right to take issue with some of mine. I wish all freelancers were as aware of these problems as you, I, and UW are.

[#21]

Can you imagine how it looks from the clients' side these days? I mean how many "experts" appear on Upwork 🙂  

[#22]

Yes, I can. That must be bad, too. I can also imagine how it looks from the spam and scammers' sides - awesome!

[#23]

Hey Stephen,

I totally agree with you, that's why I was searching the community. At the beginning they were not giving Telegram address so it was a bit difficult to spot these however nowadays these scammers put the word "Telegram" and the address. So this should be pretty easy to eliminate. I have spent many connects on these and yes Upwork refunds them when I report the job but lately I have been doing more reporting job than interviewing with real customers!

[#24]

I´ve been a member for more than 7 years and oh yes, definitely there are way too many spam jobs, some of them are easy to identify, and others not so much! which makes it really difficult and time-consuming to get a real job. And now that you have to "pay" for applying to jobs, I don´t know, seems like a problem that might not be very convenient for the page to solve... just saying. My personal recommendation...  use as many platforms as you know and try not to "pay" a lot here, it´s definitely not worth it, not as it used to....