Issue with receiving Upwork Events & Webinars: Announcements from Upwork in messages center

[NikolaS]

Some users may experience issues with receiving Upwork Events & Webinars: Announcements from Upwork in Message Center after unsubscribing from emails. The screenshot for reference is below. 

We would like to let you know that we shared your reports with our engineers and they are working as fast as possible to resolve it. We will update this thread once we have more information. 

Edited to update information. 09/12/2023

We would like to let you know that this issue is now resolved.

Thank you for your patience. 

[the-right-writer]

Upwork, I have asked repeatedly for you to get your stuff together and stop spamming me with irrelevant propaganda. However, the only response has been to increase the barrage of irrelevant or hard sales messages.

I have multiple "Get your first job" "Send proposals to win jobs" and other harassment from Upwork. These come in emails, and through Upwork messages, etc. The first problem is, these messages are irrelevant to me. No wonder the clients can't find freelancers if this is the quality of your algos. I am not new, had my first job a long time ago with no help from Upwork, and would spend those connects if there were any real jobs to apply for. Now, that's something I never see advice for on Upwork, or from any of the experts.

I don't need to get any more degrees, I have enough. My skill set is excellent, and I am always learning. There are no jobs to apply for, unless I want to work for .03 a word writing werewolf romances. So Upwork, how do I find these jobs to apply for? I know all about searches; I had to create my own Boolean because the "exclude words" feature only allows single words. I was finding jobs until you opened the floodgates to anything that could make an attempt to use the keyboard.

It is annoying to receive messages with no way to shut them down. Why do I have to know about your webinars? It is possible to send a small message, instead of the lengthy sales pitches. Save the call to action for clients.

Why do I have to be inundated with irrelevant messages? Why the !%#& can't we control what comes into our feeds? While on the subject, why do we have to suffer through anything that can use the network feature? Again, why can't we shut it down? You aren't going to force me into being a farmer and take in the unskilled.

No matter where on Upwork, we don't control the messages, except for blocking clients in window discussions. This needs to be corrected ASAP. Upwork, stop spamming. If you feel the need for ads, do ya think maybe you could find something relevant? Do you have any idea what this ridiculous flood of irrelevant ads tell me? It says more than I have time to write here, but it does not speak well of multiple aspects of Upwork. And it smacks of desperation. "Hey, if we bombard every freelancer (and clients?) with every kind of ad, maybe they will give us money?!" The old professional, recommended way to conduct business: throw it at the wall and see what sticks. (sarcasm)

Upwork, enough. Give us control of our messages and network. If you must send an occasional message, please figure out some way to find something vaguely relevant. Perhaps you could hire someone from the platform.

Update: 5/20. Received another encouraging message to add skills to my profile. I guess Upwork is going to allow me to have more than anyone else? But why are they giving me suggestions that have nothing to do with my profile?

Encouraging people to cram their profile with "skills" is not going to get them clients.

[iwan-spillebeen]

Hahaha, the email flood ...
- you've earned a badge,
- your response was selected as a solution,
- here's a daily recap of the forums that you didn't ask for nor care about,
- here are job postings from a week ago which you should spend connects on because they don't have enough responses but the client isn't going to answer
- Even though you just received an invitation for an interview we are going to send you 2 more messages in less than 5 minutes to tell you the same thing again, and again

Communication at its finest 😋

[tlsanders]

And there's no way to turn it off! Just a constant steady stream of notifications that you have a message, only to log in and find out that it's just more garbage spam cheerily inviting you to a webinar to learn how to tie your shoes by yourself or use traffic signals to cross the street without getting killed. 

You can't block them. You can't respond to them. I asked in this forum months ago if there was a way to turn them off and was of course entirely ignored.

I do sometimes miss messages from past clients now or invitations because that notification light is always on and I've stopped paying attention to it.

[LuiggiR]

Hi Jeanne,

I'm really sorry to hear you haven't been getting value out of the emails you're receiving, it's definitely not what we're looking to accomplish. Have you tried disabling these options from your notification settings? You should be able to find it at the bottom of the page. We'll also check with the team if you can be removed from the event invite database. 

In addition, your feedback regarding the amount, as well as the quality of the emails you receive outside the typical account-related notifications is greatly appreciated and I'll be sure to share your observations with the team for improvement.

[grimesr]

I want to add my voice the the unsolicted messages (not emails) about upcoming events. I don't want them, I didn't ask for them and I don't see a way to stop them. I know I can hide them, but the point is I see New Messages and think a client has something to say, but alas, it is just another anoucement from Upwork. At least if you are going to spam me, please do it in email. I can control email, not messages.

[LuiggiR]

Hi Robert,

I understand that you would like to stop receiving these announcements and invites to events and webinars via Messages moving forward. To do that, your email address will need to be removed from the marketing database. This means you will also not receive other marketing emails from Upwork. Please confirm if you would like to be removed from the database so our team can file a request for you.

[grimesr]

Do  you not understand the difference between email and messages [truly a horse of a different color]? I already have emails blocked, but I still get messages.

[LuiggiR]

Robert, I specifically mentioned that I understand you'd like to stop receiving those event invites through Messages. What I meant was that by removing your email address from the marketing database, you will stop receiving those invites on both your email and through Upwork Messages. Considering that you've already blocked the emails, I went ahead and filed the request so that you can stop receiving those through your Messages. Note that it can take up to a week for this to be processed.

[tlsanders]

It would be great if you could come up with a simple opt-out process for the thousands (or more) of others who are equally eager to put a stop to the spam instead of making each of us put in an individual customer service request. It would be a lot less work on your end, too.

[celgins]

From a technical standpoint, the amount of system resources being expended to send hundreds of thousands (maybe millions) of notifications, announcements, advertisements, etc., would decrease significantly if freelancers could opt-out.

At least give the Top-Rated, Top-Rated Plus and Expert-Vetted freelancers another perk by allowing them to opt-out of these announcements. I can't imagine Upwork losing much income or marketplace growth if these three tiers could opt-out.