The Upwork Fraud Scam

Freelancers be vigilant! Be wary of anyone requesting access to your account.

2023-08-19T00:00:00.000Z

The gig economy is here and although this new era establishes opportunities for those seeking to earn fairly, a door has opened for unscrupulous individuals as well.

We should all practice a degree of vigilance as our awareness of fraudulent activities increases. The schemes and scams of today are becoming increasingly creative and elaborate. One such scheme involves the platform Upwork which facilitates the provision of services such as copywriting or web design by identification verified freelancers. The objective of this scheme is for a malicious actor to obtain access to an individual’s Upwork account which is then utilized to bill for services that are never actually rendered. The malicious actor withdraws these funds for themselves leaving the identification verified licensee of the account liable for the fraudulent activity.

Not only is it against the Upwork terms of service to share account credentials or access, it is secure practice to never share account credentials or access for any platform.

• Here is an example of how this may appear out in the wild.
• Feel totally within your right to tell these people NO and BLOCK THEM!
• If you are part of a community (like on Discord), do your service to everyone else and REPORT THEM to your server moderators and admins. They are predators and are preying upon everyone around you, sliding into their DMs while hoping everyone stays silent about it.
• Expect them to sound genuinely interested in you.
• Expect them to flatter you and appeal to your ego.
• Expect them to be persistent.
• Stay strong! It can be tempting and the money can be attractive but the whole scheme is an illusion. There is no money for you in this scheme. There is only being held responsible for someone elses crimes.

Stay safe out there!