Translation Scams on Upwork

[sergio_rivia]

Be aware of the rise of job posts seeking freelancers for translation work as most pf them are posted by scammers. These guys post same type of job titles claiming to pay  >$1k per project or insane per hour rates. From a personal experience and what I;ve read here in the community they mostly try to contact through Telegram also.
They will waste your time as they will send you articles to translate which might take up to a week just to ask you that they wish to pay you in cryptocurrency or bank transfer not through upwork or for personal info for phising, which is kind of sadistic apart from scammy, since freelancers are pushed to work for free for no reason apart from attempted phising.

Flagging their postings is not enough, I believe Upwork should find a way to take more serious measures.

I have just been contacted by a new one and would like a better solution than just flagging proposed, I'm attaching the message.

Regards and keep your eyes open 🙂

**Edited for Community Guidelines**

[h_honcharenko]

One and the same job post  **Edited for Community Guidelines** has been posted several times a day for at least two weeks. It's unbelievable, but freelancers are applying for it every time.

 

[the-right-writer]

"It's unbelievable, but freelancers are applying for it every time."

You summed up the issue in one sentence. It is indeed unbelievable how many people will apply for jobs that, even on the surface, are a scam. The scammers will stay as long as freelancers start applying without understanding how the platform works and learning the common signs of a scam. I have spoken with a couple of people who knew it was against the Terms of Service, didn't have the skills for the supposed job, and were brand new to the platform. Yet they went after the big money for nothing job. When I asked why, the reply was, "It was a lot of money."  I used to be shocked at how many people would sign up and immediately start applying with nothing set up and some, not even a decent picture. Upwork used to suspend your activity until the freelancer posted a proper photo;  now, they don't even do that. Since Upwork opened the floodgates to anyone, the scammers followed for easy marks. They won't go away until they have no one willing to be scammed.

Upwork says they are working on the scams, yet the phone numbers and messaging in the job posts remain. Until Upwork does something, the freelancers have to defend themselves. I don't mind making my filters, but they have to provide more space or remove the obvious scams before they hit the job list.

Flagging is all we have - I'm not sure it makes any difference when as you said, the same scams are copypasted repeatedly.

The best advice on seeing scams comes from Wes -

https://community.upwork.com/t5/Community-Blog/Top-Red-Flags-for-Scams-From-Community-Member-Wes-C/b...

[h_honcharenko]

Today, the spammer changed his/her job title to "translation job from English to 10+languages...",

and the freelancers continue to apply for it?!

[johnmichaelll]

Im new to upwork and this happen to me. I sent them my personal info but i stopped as soon i saw that talking outside of upwork is forbidden. Should i be worried? Coz of clicking the link and sending personal info

[759e32fa]

**Edited**

Hi John Michael,

Thank you for reaching out to us. As a gentle reminder, please know that communicating outside Upwork prior to a contract starting is a violation of our Terms of Service and your account could get suspended for this. Please utilize our Message Center in order to protect yourself from scams. Additionally, you can send us a flag if you encounter any suspicious user activity so we can investigate.

I’m sorry to hear you encountered this. As you’ve mentioned, communicating outside of Upwork before a contract is in place is against our TOS. We find that when users communicate outside of Upwork there is an increased risk of fraud, scam, and other harmful behaviors. When communications (and work) stay on our platform we can better track, verify, and help address any issues that emerge, and as a result the potential for these behaviors to cause harm decreases dramatically. For example, the vast majority of scammers that successfully take advantage of talent do so by going off the platform. To learn more about staying safe on Upwork, click here.

[ghazwanrehab]

Hello, I recently applied for two typing jobs, and to my surprise, both of them responded immediately. I noticed the fishy and weird proposals after chatting with them via Telegram, and when I looked them up, they turned out to be scammers. When I returned to my Upwork dashboard, the ad for these jobs had been gone.

one was from alphatech.online and the other was from sharethrough 

please be carful 

[759e32fa]

Hi Rehab,

Thank you for reaching out to us. As a gentle reminder, please know that communicating outside Upwork prior to a contract starting is a violation of our Terms of Service and your account could get suspended for this.

Please utilize our Message Center in order to protect yourself from scams. Additionally, you can send us a flag if you encounter any suspicious user activity so we can investigate.

[the-right-writer]

Because you are new, you are a target for the scammers. You need to read the Terms of Service and everything you can about the platform and the scams. Pay attention to how milestones and automatic tracking of hourly jobs function. Then read this advice from Wes: https://community.upwork.com/t5/Community-Blog/Top-Red-Flags-for-Scams-From-Community-Member-Wes-C/b.... Read everything Before you even look at another job. Complete your profile by showing work in your portfolio.

You have to protect yourself and appear to be an experienced freelancer.

[c4e453ac]

---

Sergio D wrote:

Flagging their postings is not enough, I believe Upwork should find a way to take more serious measures

---

Of course.  Online security is about prevention. Nothing is preventing scammers profiting on Upwork, and that's why they have been proliferating on this platform for years (looking through the forums, there's plenty of evidence of this).  The usual pushback is "new people are dumb, they shouldn't send proposals and they need to read the rules and regs".  And meanwhile, 50+ proposals are sent to these scams, and people lose money to them.  There's a mismatch between what Upwork say all users "should" do, and what they actually do.  Online security doesn't assume anything.  There is no "should".  There is only the question of "what can we technically do to minimize this problem?".  There are always technical solutions.  The fact that scammers can send links in messages is such an easy fix to prevent.  Heck, you can outright identify a scammer if they try to paste a Telegram link in their message (no legit hirer will do this) - that's an automatic flag/deletion right there.  Obfuscated links can easy be identified via regular expressions too (where they might use something like "t dot me" instead of "t.me".  This is trivial scripting from the late 90s to do.

[roberty1y]

You have to have your identity verified before you start working here, or at least you did when I started. In my case it was a video call lasting a few seconds. Maybe Upwork should combine that with a brief quiz on how to avoid being scammed - no work or offsite contact until a contract is started, etc. 

This would extend the interview from a few seconds to maybe a minute. Anyone who flunks the questions would have to be verified again before being allowed to use the site. 

Andrew, I don't know if blocking URLs from Telegram or WhatsApp would help. Can't these be converted into different URLs that would get past the filter?

[ac853f83]

Hey, I'm new to upwork and someone just contacted me through telegram and asked me personal questions like address, age etc, i was naive enought to respons but now it clicked, what should i do im very very panicked and don't know what measures i should take at this point, can someone please help me out

[elisa_b]

Stop talking to them and stop using the platform until you have learned how it works and how to stay safe. There is an Academy section you need to study carefully. This is a tank full of sharks, taking advantage of new freelancers who don't follow the rules - including taking a conversation out of Upwork before a contract is in place.

[ac853f83]

Yeah totally understand that, I literally created my Upwork account yesterday and today I got the scam message on Upwork asking me to message them on telegram, i gave lots of info like name, address, and my resume!! And this was a legit "payment verified" posting too how come it is so easy to do that on upwork? Also am i at any risk right now, what should I do??

[elisa_b]

Probably you can just hope the data you shared will not be used by the scammer. "Payment verified" means nothing in terms of legitimacy of clients. What you can actually do is read and study to avoid that happens again.

[ac853f83]

what do you mean how can it be used??? I didn't give out my credit card or such just my resume and in my resume they already have every sensitive info other than SIN/Credit card number, so how is that possible. Plus anybody, you could've also applied to this job with your resume no, and you would've given all your info to these scammers via upwork as well! Upwork is messed up and i can't even conatct a human personelle via phone or chat, how do i report this, i saw at least 20 other ppl bidding for this scam position

[PradeepH]

Hi Handan,

Thank you for your message. I am sorry to hear about your recent experience with the client. I checked the job post you were referring to and it appears that it's already been taken down because it was in violation of Upwork TOS.

Please check out this course for more tips on staying safe on Upwork and please use the flag option found on each job post or message anytime you’d like to report a violation.

Thank you,

Pradeep

[ac853f83]

I'm sorry but how does Upwork allow these to happen, by just applying to jobs in here with my resume, I'm already giving out a lot of personal info, and if that position I sent my resume to is a scam, the scammer will have that info ... I just need reassurance that I'm not at risk right now, it was a traumatizing experience!

[celgins]

Most résumés include full names, telephone numbers, and email addresses. A savvy scammer can do a lot with that information.

As Elisa pointed out, scammers target new Upwork users because new users often respond to fake jobs or scams since they haven't learned to identify them. You need to go through the Academy Courses and other resources here to learn how to use Upwork more effectively.

Plus anybody, you could've also applied to this job with your resume no, and you would've given all your info to these scammers via upwork as well!

No--not anybody. Experienced freelancers who understand the marketplace would not have applied to this job and certainly would not submit a résumé without a contract in place. Your Upwork profile functions as your résumé, and any client asking for personally identifiable information without a contract is violating Upwork's Terms of Service.

You willingly sent a résumé--and all of its contact information--without a contract in place, which is also clear violation of Upwork's Terms of Service. You probably didn’t know it was a violation because, again, you’re new and didn’t bother to learn how the marketplace works.

There is nothing Upwork can do to protect you. I'm not well-versed in Canadian law, but in the U.S., if I'd sent personally identifiable information to a scammer, I would take steps to review my bank accounts security measures; contact credit bureaus to lock down credit inquiries; change the passwords on every web-based account I own; and maybe a few other things to protect myself. Then, I would come back to Upwork and go through the Academy link at the top of the screen and dive into the Courses and Learning Paths before making any more moves.

I looked at your profile and there are several things you need to improve before applying to jobs. If you want someone to review your profile, go to the New to Upwork forum and post a message in the Get Profile Feedback thread.

[ac853f83]

"

You willingly sent a résumé--and all of its contact information--without a contract in place, which is also clear violation of Upwork's Terms of Service. You probably didn’t know it was a violation because, again, you’re new and didn’t bother to learn how the marketplace works." are you kidding me? I had to do that because im bidding for a position right and one of the requirmeents is to send a reusme, have u not applied to a job before?

[celgins]

No, I'm not kidding you. You didn't have to send the résumé because it is not required to start a job here on Upwork. If a client asks you to send a résumé, tell them to review your profile, which functions as your résumé.

[ac853f83]

"

No--not anybody. Experienced freelancers who understand the marketplace would not have applied to this job and certainly would not submit a résumé without a contract in place. Your Upwork profile functions as your résumé, and any client asking for personally identifiable information without a contract is violating Upwork's Terms of Service." dude are you for real? how do you apply to any job without sending out your resume??

[ac853f83]

rest assured, i don't even want to use upwork and will close my account, i was just trying it out but this is terrible and instead of taking measures to not let scammers into this platform, you are trying to blame it all into new freelancers, what kind of logic is that

[elisa_b]

Surely Upwork has its faults because it is doing almost nothing to prevent scams. But freelancers have to follow the rules in place to ensure their safety. And no - as Clark said, lots of freelancers wouldn't have sent their resume and personal data.

Using Upwork without knowing how things work and how to stay safe is like climbing without rope and harness.

No one is blaming you for everything, because the scammer is a dishonest person in the first place, but there are measures to avoid them

[ac853f83]

Thank you for explaining that, I already changed my email address and personal data, just glad it didn't go as far as sending a fake check and then me signing it, but I'm pretty sure somebody must have given out their credit card info or SIN to this scammer he also sent me their "business" website and it looked very legit what should I do with that info (the scammer's company website) it is calledTransLink Inc and the scammer claims his name was faiyaz tristan, what should I do now? I want to contact upwork via phone but seems like it is impossible

[55a4ab53]

Can i help you?? 

[aaa1d202]

Yes 

They are going by **Edited for Community Guidelines** and **Edited for Community Guidelines** name in telegram 

Asking for initial payment for linking an account and then promising to pay 4000$ for just goggle translation