"**Edited**" Scamming Freelancers for free work. Looks like it's their whole business model...

[98f94ba5]

**Edited for Community Guidelines** are asking freelancers for free complex 3D models as a "test" to get further work... They have job ads going up hourly or more from different countries. One I enquired about takes you to a Telegram asking to model a bench, whereby messages from them had been going back as far as Feb 2022, and seen over 2.2k times by people that have been directed there. 

Messages have been edited, which leads me to believe they just update the message to whichever model they are looking to get at the time, for free, from unsuspecting freelancers. Telegram is here **Edited for Community Guidelines**

Feels almost illegal, report these where possible. 

[fe9b8d82]

Freelancers shouldn't work for free.  If people would bother to read the ToS, they'd know this.  But daily there's sob stories from freelancers who got burnt by not reading the ToS, not following basic rules for keeping communication/payment on Upwork, and just generally be naive.

The post(s) you flagged are at least some of the more blatant scams, which any freelancer ready to use Upwork should be able to spot in a second.

[98f94ba5]

You're really out here blaming the freelancers for falling for traps made by scammers? Yes they should be aware, but Upwork also seems to turn somewhat of a blind eye on this and even profits from it.

[prestonhunter]

It is GOOD to take the blame.

It means GAINING POWER.

As a freelancer, if I blame clients. I have no control.

If I blame Upwork, I have no control.

But if I accept the blame myself, I also gain the power.

I can change my behavior and change the outcome next time.

So the best way for a freelancer to understand scams is to understand this:

If I get scammed, it is my fault.

Extrapolating to Upwork as a whole:

It really is good and accurate and useful to understand that FREELANCERS are responsible for scammers being here. If there weren't so many freelancers doing the wrong things and sending money to scammers, we wouldn't have all these scammers.

[artist78]

Totally agree, Preston. Taking all the wrong steps and getting scammed is completely a self-induced injury. And blaming others when it hurts is just calling for more pain rather than a lesson learnt to prevent it from happening again. The scammers are targetting these folks and as long as people fall for it, they have reason to post more of the same. Upwork allows all sorts of job posts for their own reasons to sell connects, but there is enough to weed out bad ones in terms of client history, reviews etc as a freelancer.

With the way things are now, even seasoned freelancers are getting fooled in scams, but still it is upto them to recognize it early and cut it off as soon as possible. Sunk cost fallacy is another factor not to fall into...  cut it off immediately rather than let it fester, and move on with a new lesson learnt.

There is no possible algorithm or way Upwork or any freelance site can eliminate scammers...  it is upto the individual freelancer/ client to see what they are working/ paying for.

[hoyle_editing]

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Haris M wrote:

There is no possible algorithm or way Upwork or any freelance site can eliminate scammers...  it is upto the individual freelancer/ client to see what they are working/ paying for.

---

Maybe not to eliminate them, but there is plenty of things Upwork could and should do that would help - word filters to eliminate contact details in job posts would be one very obvious and simple fix - though alone is not enough it would show that Upwork are taking some responsibility for their platform!

I do agree that in many cases freelancers should not be so naive, but again, that does not excuse Upwork from the responsibities that it clearly does not take seriously.

[artist78]

Totally agree on responsibility as we are the primary customers of Upwork, expecting quality leads to a potential job. No excuses as you said, especially with the recent changes in the costs for bidding skyrocketing. Was just concentrating on the other end to not fall for things so blatantly obvious and go outside of ToS and then complain about it. They are also responsible for making such scammers come back for more instead of flagging it....  we need to look out for our own.

[hoyle_editing]

Yes - that i very much agree with - why they cant insist new freelancers take a basic test that shows they know the obvious scam posts and off platform ToS breeches is beyond me.

Apparently Upwork have a "Trust & Safety TEAM"! which i find astonishing given the lack of trust and safety on the platform!

[celgins]

There used to be an Upwork Readiness Test for all new freelancers, but Upwork retired it a while back. That retirement--along with other things--has allowed a deluge of freelancers into the site, and many of them simply do not learn how to use the site before diving in.

[hoyle_editing]

Which really makes trusting the decisions of the "saftey and trust" team difficult! 

[957eb2e7]

>> there is enough to weed out bad ones in terms of client history, reviews etc as a freelancer.
Not even close.

[artist78]

I understand and agree on what you are getting at upto a certain point, Paul.
The blatantly obvious ones can be weeded out upto a certain degree by checking their history/ reviews etc- seeing a repeated pattern of posting the same job, never completing the budget they propose wiith anyone and hiring multiple freelancers for the same task over and over again plus interviewing a zillion people etc.
But not the pro scammers I agree. The ones that reel you in and one only dicovers later. Have myself cancelled a few projects like that, after commitment and starting a contract. There should be a system to report and permanently ban such accounts.

[celgins]

Scammers don't care about "innocence;" rather, they care about freelancers who are:

• Unprepared and unsuspecting
• Passive and/or careless
• Unwilling or unable to read the TOS and abide by them
• Money-hungry

[957eb2e7]

You are blaming the victims, rather than the perpetrators.  Some scams don't become obvious until it's too late.

[957eb2e7]

Complete nonsense. 

[98f94ba5]

For clarity, I didn't get scammed nor ever have. I certainly take blame for my own actions. The annoyance is constantly seeing the same ads clogging up the feed. I'd rather complain at the platform than at the masses of people (who will never change) 

[celgins]

Preston's point is spot-on; you can only change yourself. You can't change Upwork and you (as an individual) can't stop scammers on Upwork's platform. But we all can help starve them.

If you did not apply to the scam job, flag it and move on. It's Upwork's problem and if they choose not to do anything, you will have a fake/scam job sitting out there, with no freelancers responding to it.

Over the past two years, Upwork has seen its active freelancer accounts increase by 4+ million (maybe more). One of the main drivers behind the increase in fake/scam jobs is the increase in the number of freelancers who bid on those fake jobs. If you can reduce the number of freelancers who apply to those fake jobs, you can starve the scammers, and they will slowly dissipate.

[pgregory_indigo]

---

Clark S wrote:

Over the past two years, Upwork has seen its active freelancer accounts increase by 4+ million (maybe more). 

---

Purely out of curiosity, where are you getting the data for these numbers? I'd love to take a look and do some analysis myself, preferably over time, with client and freelancer numbers, and anything else you have.

[pgregory_indigo]

Did a little digging myself, and there's an interesting report on "demandsage" with lots of details, including finances, staff, clients, freelancers etc. lots of very interesting information, I can't link it here, because it'll be censored, but google it and you'll find it. One interesting line from the report...

There were 18 million freelancers on Upwork in 2019. After 2019 Upwork never disclose the number of freelancers on Upwork.

curious...

[celgins]

The number is not surprising. However, I would be interested in knowing how many "active" freelancers are among that 18 million and how many are dormant. It feels like all 18 million are active.

Upwork defines an "active client" as a client that has had spend activity in the Upwork marketplace during the 12 months preceding the date of measurement. I have never seen Upwork define "active freelancer."

[the-right-writer]

Upwork doesn't want the freelancers to know there are, at my best guesstimate, 50 million listed freelancers. I have no data from Upwork, because as you found, they don't want us to know, because compared to clients numbers, it is terrible. I base my numbers on what you found, and at one time during the pandemic, Upwork said they had added 20 million, and they stopped talking. They were also admitting to hundreds of thousands each day.

Too many unskilled, too many cheating freelancers, and ones willing to ignore the rules for a supposed payout make easy feasting for scammers.

[pgregory_indigo]

50 Million seems like a very exaggerated estimate to me, given the data I've been able to find. Either way, it's guesswork at best, and therefore probably not a good idea to use it in an argument. If the numbers are even close to those, I'd suggest that this might support my assertions in another thread that the platform is being attacked by freelancer farms. This is also guesswork, based on numbers that are guesswork, but it's based on some first-hand experience and logic.

[celgins]

Mostly from quarterly or annual shareholder reports, financial forecasts, etc. I used a "+" because even Upwork doesn't provide exact numbers.

Also, since they are a publicly traded company, the data aggregators out there will typically report totals based on their own information, which is often quite accurate for most public companies.

[the-right-writer]

Fact: Unless freelancers stop violating the Terms because they think they are special or whatever to get lots of money for nonsensical jobs, there is no hope of getting the scams out. It is entirely the freelancer's fault if they break the Terms and go outside of Upwork. If freelancers followed the rules, it would immediately eliminate 99.99% of all scams.

[957eb2e7]

>> If freelancers followed the rules, it would immediately eliminate 99.99% of all scams.
No it wouldn't.  Most scams are not as obvious as that, and don't involve the freelancer breaking ToS.

[the-right-writer]

The vast majority of scams are obvious. When someone wants you outside the platform, it is a scam.

If you talked to as many freelancers as I do, or even read the forum, you will understand most do involve breaking the Terms. They may not start out that way, but it happens hundreds or thousands of times a day here.

If freelancers didn't break the Terms, there would be few scams here.

[957eb2e7]

>>If you talked to as many freelancers as I do, or even read the forum, you will understand most do involve breaking the Terms. 
If a client uses blackmail to force you to refund part of the money you earned, and Upwork provides no protection against that, it's a scam.  At least a third of the posts about scams fall into this category.  You could memorize the ToS off by heart, word-for-word, and it would not protect you.

[the-right-writer]

I don't know what Upwork is looking at in your situation. However, the vast majority of scams are the fault of the freelancer for going outside the platform. If you read through most of the scammed threads, you will read over and over and over about people who knew better, but thought they were going to get paid a bunch, and were scammed.

[957eb2e7]

They censor most of the rest.

[fe9b8d82]

Yes, I am absolutely blaming freelancers who blatantly violate the ToS, try to circumvent Upwork, and/or who fall for clear scams.

There is so much information on these forums, and in Upwork's own academy about scams and how to stay at least somewhat protected, that if you're falling for these blatant scams you're being willfully ignorant of your own online safety.

[98f94ba5]

With that take you fail to see the argument that the large corporations knowingly profit from scams on their platform, which is the part that is wrong. It takes hundreds or thousands of people to change their behaviour in your idealistic view whereas it would take a tightening up of Upworks flagging & removing (non existent) system to benefit all freelancers. I personally won't fall for any scams or "violate" terms, I just don't love seeing the same ad every 3-4 posts still being put up that has been flagged probably 50+ times.

[957eb2e7]

>>which is the part that is wrong. 
It's completely illegal in most jurisdictions.

[prestonhunter]

re: "It's completely illegal in most jurisdictions."

This is not "most jurisdictions."

This is Upwork.

As a practical matter, this is a single jurisdiction.

My experience as an Upwork user is governed by the source code running on the server and the policies as implemented by Upwork's employees.

Anything outside of that, whether it be posts on Reddit or the laws of Estonia, may be a matter of intellectual curiosity for some people. But it's not part of my Upwork experience.

[957eb2e7]

No it's not.  It's subject to the laws of the jurisdiction in which it operates (California),just like every other corporation in the world.  Obviously.

[tlsanders]

Yes, I blame anyone who takes it on themselves to be self-employed and yet doesn't bother to learn even the most fundamental aspects of the contracts they're entering into. People who can't be bothered to learn the basics have no business operating businesses.

Of course, the scammer is in the wrong, but that doesn't make the freelancer an innocent victim. And, it's no good for freelancers to pretend that they're blameless in this situation--as long as they feel like they're powerless and it's all someone else's responsibility, they'll never take control of their businesses and succeed.

[pgregory_indigo]

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Miles H wrote:

The post(s) you flagged are at least some of the more blatant scams, which any freelancer ready to use Upwork should be able to spot in a second.

---

Or, stay with me here for a second, perhaps UpWork could spot the blatant scams in a second and remove them, and perhaps do something for the money we spend? Just putting that out there. Of course, I fully understand that it's in UpWork's interest to do nothing, of the possible outcomes...

1. Freelancer submits a proposal, spending connects, UpWork gets paid, and the freelancer loses out.
2. Freelancer spots the scam and reports it, UpWork gets their job done for them for free, zero effort.

...all of them at worst don't impact UpWork, at best directly contribute to their income. If UpWork pulled its fingers out and cleaned up the job posting debacle, freelancers wouldn't be responsible for policing a service they are paying for.

[fe9b8d82]

If freelancers would have a basic understanding of the terms of service, and then actually followed them, the vast majority of scams wouldn't harm them.

Yes, Upwork could and hopefully will do a better job of policing scams that are posted, but even if they did a stellar job, it's still negligent for a freelancer to just completely let their guard down and start trusting strangers on the Internet.

[957eb2e7]

That's like blaming a robbery victim for not having a gun, or for not being able to shoot accurately enough.

[prestonhunter]

re: "That's like blaming a robbery victim..."

You don't seem to understand that we are talking about a framework for gaining power.

When you reject blame, you reject power.

[957eb2e7]

Make my day.  Explain to me how it's "my" fault that a client who has fake ID and fake location demanded most of the money I had earned for a week's work be refunded?  I can dispute it, and I would win, because I have the evidence to prove that I performed the work.  But I can't do so, because it would risk him giving me a revenge review which destroy any future earnings.

Your ability to rationalize this insanity is disturbing.