overwhelming number of spams and scams

[00137e0a]

Hi,

Scammers are on a roll today.

I've flagged 12 scams in just a couple of minutes. You'll find a screenshot attached.

Is Upwork planning to do something about this? It feels like this is getting out of control really fast.

It's very time-consuming to browse for possible jobs when a big part of your feed is made of scams. 

All the best,

Rafael

[ericaandrews]

UW could EASILY block stuff like that from being posted, along with the many posts I see where somebody includes a phone number  or asks you to email your resume to an address.  I've even seen job posts listing a business address for a job 'open house' at their company. These are usually scams or sometimes 'headhunters' and staffing agencies desperate to fill a position and trying to use Upwork like it's a 'resume database':  Basically hoping their posts will stay up just 'long enough' for a few potential 'candidates' to see it and contact them via the email/phone they posted.  The problem is that UW doesn't vet clients much before allowing them to 'post' stuff, and MOST of those types of 'posts' are from newly created accounts usually created the same day.  'Flagging' does nothing because it's usually hours, days, or weeks before anybody does anything with your notification, if they do anything at all.  I don't think they even respond to 'flagged' posts anymore because it's been MONTHS since I've gotten notification they've taken down one I've flagged. Hours, days, and weeks later I'll still see the same post I flagged with somebody cell number, email, etc.

As long as UW allows any and everybody to quickly create a new 'client' login, 'post' a quick 'spam' message as a 'job', and logout and leave, this will continue.  If they at least did the ID verification on 'clients' before they were allowed to 'post' a job, that would stop most of that foolishness.

[59995aa9]

You make a number of valid points, CJ 😊:party_popper::hammer:

Come ON UpWork!! Take these tips & USE THEM 

[geri_kol]

After having watched this issue being raised over and over again in the forum, my sense is that complaining about it is a losing battle, guys. Upwork is aware of it and clearly is either not capable or not willing to do anything about it. Until it hits them in the pocket due to a critical mass of high-earning freelancers walking away, or until there is a negative report about it a mainstream media outlet, I doubt they will be moved to address it. And mind you, Upwork hired a new CTO a few months ago with the express purpose of rooting out fraud and abuse on the platform. 

[pgiambalvo]

Gergana, I agree. And this from How To Spot A Scam:

Our Trust and Safety team has been working overtime to help keep you safe, running multiple machine learning models and numerous reports to find potential scams. In addition, due to the higher seasonal volumes, our Trust and Safety team:

• Hired additional security agents
• Transferred team members, and cross-trained to help grow the team
• Updated product functionality to be more cautious about the jobs shown to users
• Continues to thoroughly investigate any incoming reports
• Continues to monitor daily reports for potential scams

Thankfully, they are on it, because if we think it's bad now, just think how bad it would be if they weren't.

[geri_kol]

Oh Peter, you are so elegantly understated. 

**Edited for community guidelines**

[pgiambalvo]

Gergana, and Karen. the proof is in the pudding, I suppose. And even though Upwork has been great for me, and is the bigest and the best, they really should and could be doing a better job of reducing the spam and scams posts. Like, yesterday.

[k_rodman]

Oh, I can spot a scam a mile away - it helps to be naturally skeptical and not desparate enough to answer something that even hints at craziness.  **Edited for community guidelines**

Truthfully, while I have sympathy for those freelancers who get caught in the web, I'm more frustrated with the time it takes to run through the jobs to find something that is real (and meets my qualifications of course).

[paul2461981]

In the last hour, the same post from 3 different countries with the same contact information in the job post has been posted. The email address is **edited for Community Guidelines**. The are other emails but you see this one all the time.

Two from Germany 

One from the United States

Two from Romania

Upwork is becoming a place for scammers. I would not send an email to it but I bet new freelancers to Upwork will, or are the posts done by Upwork the selves to see who does reply outside of the platform?

[pgiambalvo]

Yep, they are all over the place, Thanks for sharing here. And I agree that new freelancers are ripe for their scams. Fingers crossed Upwork will finally put a huge dent in the number of them.

[paul2461981]

For new freelancers, Upwork is becoming a minefield

[AveryO]

Thank you for sharing this here, Paul. 

I have forwarded this to the team for their review and action. 

[00137e0a]

So, I believe today we have achieved the apex of the scams season.

At least 95% of my feed is now made of scams. It's unbelievable. 

This isn't, by any means, just a matter of blaming new users for not reading the TOS and falling for such obvious scams.

Certainly, a lot of good jobs are getting lost in this ocean of scams, and the ratio of successful freelancer/client matches most likely gets affected by it, which is very concerning.

Upwork, I'd really appreciate it if you could come clean about this situation, and tell us if you're actually taking any concrete measures to fix this issue, which is very serious, in my opinion.

[59995aa9]

Rafael, I feel ya bro! 

I was dealing with a whole flipping LOT of that myself on sites like Freelancer & Fiverr, & now every other job post here is telling me same. All inquiries so far about my services here have NOTHING to do with my offered profile or project .... But 95%!!? Holy crikey man, geeeeezus! This is nuts!! 

[59995aa9]

YES I've posted a profile here to rid FB & YouTube of scammers!! Do I need to get hired by UpWork too to rid them of the same thing!? Soooo SICK of the nonstop**edited for Community Guidelines** -HONESTLY peeps, do better! 😕

**edited for Community Guidelines**

[59995aa9]

Yes go ahead Upwork, HIRE ME, I'LL DO IT !!! LOL :litter_in_bin_sign:😁🤓:laptop_computer:👍👍👍

I'll 86 these blasted **edited for Community Guidelines** - let me put a sizable dent in 'em, & get paid handsomely to do so :heavy_dollar_sign::heavy_dollar_sign::heavy_dollar_sign::heavy_dollar_sign:

[abid_abir]

I was just starting to write a new post when I found this. And yeah for a couple of months now I'm seeing almost all of the Job Posts are Spam and Scams. Flagging each and every one of those, still, they're not taken down. Don't know what's happening to Upwork, and if this continues, Upwork will be in trouble.

[44f31b7d]

I have been flagging them all evening.  My first expirenance on upwork was a scam. I got taken for 7500.00 That's a lot  when you are unemployed. 

[ArjayM]

Hi Rene,

Thank you for reaching out and we sincerely apologize for the unpleasant experience. We truly appreciate your cooperation in flagging these scam jobs. We take great measures to keep our global marketplace safe, and we’re committed to doing our best to prevent or address suspicious activity. Rest assured that I will look into the job you're referring to and report it to the appropriate department for further review and action.

If in case you come across suspicious job posts again, don't hesitate to report them here so we can have them reviewed and we will surely take action.

[bitsharma10p]

there are 57 jobs containing same maliousious link posted on upwork,

I don't know why upwork can's see what we can see, I searched that link and it has 57 job all have same content,

UPWORK IS NOW UNSAFE, THEY ARE NOT GIVING ATTENTION TO SAFETY, SCAM JOB POST INCREASING DAY BY DAY

**Edited for Community Guidelines**

[LuiggiR]

Hi Shobhit,

Thank you for flagging this. I've forwarded your report to the team for review and action.

[motoyen]

The generic answers from the Upwork Team Members and Moderators will tell you all you need to know about what they are doing about the spam. In short: nothing. 

[bitsharma10p]

this one is very new Kind Of hack and scam I found by hackers on upwork, I was unable to discribe it in words so I recorded my screen, when I click on a normal job post suddenly on detail page the job is changing to another job, and all those jobs has this suspicious link 

I have the video with me but I am unable to post on here

[the-right-writer]

Report the job to Upwork. You can flag it from the same page.

[bitsharma10p]

I reported to upwork, gave a screen recording, they want job post link, but I was unable to provide it as in that job post the job on my listing is different and it's detail page was different so there was no link, upwork did not understand my issue and keep asking the job post link. recently I saw simmilar job post again shown up on your job board which show different project detail usally but when you click apply now button it opens some different job in itself

[the-right-writer]

Upwork needs the job link to look at the job. Can't you take a screenshot if you can't copy it? If it's an Upwork job, there is a number. Send them the URL; it should have the job link contained in it. It doesn't matter what you are seeing - send Upwork the link, so they can investigate.