You’ve got to be kidding me! Just...wow.

[pgiambalvo]

How in the world could Upwork let this get posted? I deleted all the personal information that was there. Here’s the post as it appeared on my feed:
JOB TITLE
please contact NAME OF PERSON for more information about the job

what's app only please take note : +PHONE NUMBER

call or text +A DIFFERENT PHONE NUMBER
email AN EMAIL ADDRESS

please we need good and nice respective people to work for us please be the first lucky person we need just 20 people thank you

and God bless you all

NAME OF PERSON

[pgiambalvo]

I really wish you wouldn't have put that out there.

[sofia2008]

Just saw a job post advertised as «INTERESTING JOB» with Telegram number!

[pgiambalvo]

That's just plain incompetance, if not negligence.

[pgiambalvo]

My favorites are the scams that are actually "Featured."

[martina_plaschka]

That is concerning. My working assumption always is that scammers need to put a certain amount of effort into the scam for it to work. They need a defined script, they need to occupy the mark for a reasonable amount of time to create confidence or at least confusion if this might be legit. Their job postings need to resemble in at least some way a legit job posting. 

What you posted here is similar to getting a letter in the mailbox stating: Congratulations! You already won a million dollars!

If scammers get so lazy that they don't even try any more, then is has gotten entirely too easy to scam people on upwork. Not saying that it ever has been hard, but this is ridiculous. 

(Disclaimer: I have no empirical data to back up my claims. This is based entirely on anecdotal evidence.)

[pgiambalvo]

Yes. What's next? "Hi, this is a scam. Please send me money." I wonder if that could get posted.

[martina_plaschka]

I'm sure it would get posted. 

BTW, I'm not seeing job posts with weird links any longer - I think they took care of that problem. 

[pgiambalvo]

Well that's good to hear. Thank you Upwork! Woo hoo!

[pgiambalvo]

Oh well. Just flagged 5 with Telegram in the job description as well as weird links.

[paul2461981]

I have talked about this before, It's crazy to say Upwork made a department to fix this and the has been no change.  

It can be fixed easily. All Upwork needs to do is take the post down for review as soon as it gets flagged.

The review needs to be done by a real person, and if the is no problem with it, then repost it.

As of now, you flag a post, and it's still showing days latter

[ericaandrews]

Upwork could EASILY set up filtering algorithms to STOP people from posting email addresses and phone numbers or at least ERASE them from the job postings before they are posted.  You can go to almost any site in the WORLD and it can easily recogonized IF you entered an email address, if it's in a correct email address format, and most times, if it's a FAKE email address.  There is absolutely NO reason the Upwork programs can't add in a few lines of code to DETECT email addresses.   The funny thing is, if you try to submit a PROPOSAL with a URL, it's most likely going to be erased, but 'clients' can post absolutely ANYTHING with email addresses, URL links telling you to go "apply" some place else, phone numbers, street addresses, bitcoin wallet information, etc.   It's completely RIDICULOUS.  It's almost like they have simply GIVEN UP on trying to ensure only QUALITY jobs are being posted.   Pretty soon, they are going to have freelancers FLEEING for other platforms or no platform at all because we are being forced to burn through too many hours rummaging through junk to get to the 'real' jobs on the board.

[pgiambalvo]

Of course they could stop these. And since they can but won't, it means that for some reason, they don't want to stop them. I wish someone from Upwork would share that reason with us, and not leave it up to people here to opine on it when there is a definitive answer that could be provided by UW itself.

[prestonhunter]

It sounds like you are saying you have reconciled with the fact that Upwork isn't going to put a stop to this...

And now you just want someone to come out and tell the truth about it.

Now it's the "not knowing" that is driving you crazy... and maybe you could accept the situation more easily if you knew why.... no matter what that reason is.

[pgiambalvo]

I wouldn't say "reconciled," exactly, but I do at least recognize the reality of the situation. And I do not expect an answer from Upwork. Anyone who's ever worked in a large corporation knows that the reasoning of upper management is far beyond the ability of peons such as myself to appreciate, let alone understand or agree with. But still, oy.

[jeremiah-brown]

Could be an inclusivity initiative.  Scammers could be feeling left out, unheard, and mistreated because of being flagged.