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nathan-binkley
Community Member

I've found a lot of suspicious messages and pyramid schemes being sent to me

I joined Upwork last night at around 5pm my time. It's now less than 24 hours later, I've recieved 3 messages from people who have asked me to go elsewhere to talk like Skype and refusing to tell me why or just straight up telling me to give them money by doing surveys under their referral link.

 

How is this not against TOS? How are people able to keep asking users to do pyramid schemes or give the freelancer information?

 

It's upsetting to get excited about a new potential offer only for it to be a pyramid scheme.

3 REPLIES 3
nkocendova
Community Member

Hi Nathan,

The examples that you've mentioned should be flagged for our review.

You can flag any job for us to review it by clicking on the "Flag as inappropriate" link located at the upper right of the job posting. In addition to flagging a job post, you can also report individual messages with users by clicking the gear icon to the right of a message. These reports go directly to our team who will review each report and take actions on violations of our ToS. I would suggest you browse  this thread which has helpful tips and excellent resources for users just getting started on the platform and you can also check out this thread for tips on avoiding suspicious jobs and scams.

 

~Nina
kat303
Community Member


@Nathan B wrote:

I joined Upwork last night at around 5pm my time. It's now less than 24 hours later, I've recieved 3 messages from people who have asked me to go elsewhere to talk like Skype and refusing to tell me why or just straight up telling me to give them money by doing surveys under their referral link.

 

How is this not against TOS? How are people able to keep asking users to do pyramid schemes or give the freelancer information?

 

It's upsetting to get excited about a new potential offer only for it to be a pyramid scheme.


 

These are scam clients. They specifically look for new freelancers because most newbies are desperate for jobs that their common sense shuts down. Those newbies also do not take the time to learn about how this site works, the procedures, what to look out for and other information.

 

Most of these clients take communications off site. Communication off site is acceptable, but when it's taken off site, Upwork has no control over it, They can not monitor Skype messages, phone calls or email. It's then up to us freelancers to report these scammers.

 

It's also very hard to stop them. When their accounts are terminated, they just make new accounts. Recently I even saw (and reported) here on this site, a job description asking to create 100 accounts, each with a new email address. If one of those is terminated, this client has 99 more to fall back on.

 

As long as newbies respond to these scammers, and give them what they ask for, these scammers will continue to use the same tactics over and over.


@Kathy T wrote:

... Recently I even saw (and reported) here on this site, a job description asking to create 100 accounts, each with a new email address. If one of those is terminated, this client has 99 more to fall back on.


Lol, how innovative. Hiring freelancers for fake jobs to help scale your business of hiring freelancers for fake jobs. 

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