How To Spot Fake Job Postings and Avoid Upwork Scams

Scammers are in the business of taking advantage of others in any way they can, especially online. They're always looking for new opportunities and ways to get past your defenses. Fake job postings are one method scammers use, which can sometimes lead them to Upwork. These scams aim to steal your personal information and money or help the scammer with a broader scheme, like making their account seem legitimate through paid reviews.

Knowing what to look for and how to keep yourself safe online is always important. This guide will help you quickly identify these types of scams so you don’t spend time on fake job postings.

How to spot a fake job posting

When you're browsing new roles and projects, create a mental checklist that you can quickly review to look for potentially fake job postings. While some of these may just be signs of a new client or inexperienced hiring manager who hasn't yet mastered job posting, the more red flags the post has, the greater the potential risk.

Upwork has a dedicated team that works hard to prevent scammers from posting jobs on the platform. While scamming isn't common, if you're actively searching for jobs on Talent Marketplace™ or filtering job invites from clients, you may every now and then come across a fake job post before the team has the chance to take it down.

Scammers usually have a quantity-over-quality strategy, and the job posting will seem off when you read it. Always listen to your intuition and do a quick safety check before sending a proposal.

These are some things to look out for when identifying fake job postings:

Is the job description too vague or lacking in details?

Scammers don't spend time creating highly detailed job postings; their goal is to talk one-on-one, where they can avoid raising suspicion. These fake job postings are typically poorly written and vague.

Be on the lookout for:

• Spelling and grammar mistakes
• Short, incomplete, and vague job descriptions
• Lack of details
• No information on salary or budget
• Unclear job title
• No hiring manager or contact information

Experienced clients on Upwork spend time on their job descriptions because it helps them find the most relevant talent with the exact skills they need. They put in this effort upfront to have higher quality candidates and job proposals. Seeing a detailed and well-written job description is a sign of a trustworthy and experienced client.

Does the job offer unrealistic pay and benefits?

Sometimes, if a job is too good to be true, it is. Pay attention to your instincts. A sign that a job posting may be a scam is if it has a suspiciously high salary or hourly rate that is well above the industry standard. Scammers use this tactic to attract more applicants to their fake job postings. The language may be vague, with phrases like “up to” and “unlimited earning potential.”

Contractors and freelancers roles typically pay more than a full-time employee position would. While you can earn more freelancing, the budget for any given project should be reasonable and realistic, especially if the job doesn't seem to require a lot of work or skill. You can check the Upwork hourly rates guide to see the average freelance hourly rates for a specific skill.

Example of a potentially fake job posting that sounds too good to be true:

Job Title: Marketing Specialist Needed Immediately!

Company: ABC Global Enterprises

Location: Remote

Job Description:

• We are looking for a highly motivated Marketing Specialist to join our team immediately!
• Responsibilities include promoting our brand, handling customer inquiries, and other related duties.
• Must be able to work in a fast-paced environment and wear many hats.

Requirements:

• No experience necessary; we provide all training.
• Must have a reliable internet connection and be available to start immediately.
• Strong communication skills are a plus.

Salary and Benefits:

• Earn up to $5,000 per week!
• Flexible hours and remote work.
• Comprehensive benefits package with exclusive incentives.

Application Process:

• To apply, please send your resume and a copy of your ID to apply@abcglobalenterprises.com.
• Only shortlisted candidates will be contacted.

Does the posting have poor grammar and spelling errors?

While you might find a legitimate job listing with spelling or grammar errors because of translation issues or without a lot of information because the client is inexperienced, this is one of the items to add to your checklist.

Professional companies and clients make sure that their job postings are well written. If you see multiple spelling or grammar mistakes, this can be a sign of a scammer. Some scammers also use AI now to help them create fake job postings and emails, so be on the lookout for text that has inconsistencies and sounds repetitive.

Does the client request personally identifiable information early on?

During the hiring process, a potential employer will not need any personally identifiable information until the final stages, when they may need to run a background check. Real clients and employers will never ask for sensitive information in the job posting or early on.

As a rule of thumb, never give anyone online your:

• Social security number
• Banking information
• Government ID (numbers or pictures)
• Address
• Phone number

Scammers can use this type of information to steal your identity and run a scam.

When creating your freelancer account on Upwork, you’ll only need to verify your identity directly with Upwork. You may need to reverify down the road as part of routine security and maintenance, but you won’t have to do any of this with individual clients. As a freelancer on Upwork, you never need to give your clients any personal information to "verify your identity" or "complete payment."

Upwork facilitates payments from both the client's and the freelancer's end to offer payment protection. Clients will need to verify their payment before starting hourly projects or fund the fixed-payment project in escrow. Freelancers have a few different options to withdraw their payments, including direct deposit, wire transfer, and third-party payment vendors.

Does the posting request a payment?

Starting a job shouldn’t cost you anything upfront. If a job posting requires payment for “application processing,” this is likely a scam. An employer or client shouldn’t require payment for training or equipment either. This is another sign of a fake job posting. Rather than looking for candidates, these scammers are collecting payments, and the role likely doesn’t actually exist.

When applying for affiliate marketing jobs, the company should never require you to buy product inventory upfront, either.

Does the posting promise mailing you a cashier's check and requesting that you wire back fees?

Check scams have existed for decades. Cashier’s checks are seen as more secure than traditional checks or money orders because the bank backs them, making unaware job applicants less suspicious.

The check will seem to clear the bank (which is different from funds being available), and then the client will ask that you wire back money to them to cover any fees. When the bank realizes the check is fraudulent, they will take back the money, possibly charge a penalty, and then you've also lost the money you paid the client for "fees." When wiring the money, the scammer may send a phishing link or ask for your banking account information and other personal identifying information.

A similar type of check scam involves the client or employer asking you to buy their software or product before you can start. They'll offer to reimburse you with a cashier's check, sometimes even sending this upfront. If you're doing administrative work, like virtual assisting, they may ask that you buy items for them using your personal income. The scammer will either give you a cashier's check or wire money to cover the costs afterward, neither of which will ever make it to your bank account.

In an Upwork-specific scam, the client will say they prefer to pay their freelancers using cashier's checks. As a freelancer on Upwork, you can only accept payment through the platform to have payment protection and avoid violating the Terms of Service (ToS).

Does the client ask you to buy something from Amazon or elsewhere?

A client may post a project saying they're looking for individuals to purchase their product on Amazon or their website and leave a positive review. This helps boost their profiles and make their product and company seem more legit.

These types of reviews violate Amazon’s terms of service. By participating, you also risk being scammed again by the client later on, or they could use a common check scam to “reimburse you.”

This type of transaction may seem OK, especially if they ask for an "honest review.” Sellers on these legitimate sites on Amazon aren’t allowed to pay for reviews. The review system is how real customers make purchasing decisions. If you have an account on Amazon or another website and use it for a review, it could lead to issues and suspensions for violating their ToS.

When freelancing on Upwork, this is not an approved type of job and violates the ToS. You could put yourself at risk for account holds or suspension.

Is the client fake or impersonating a celebrity?

Another way you can protect yourself is by researching your potential client, especially if they claim to be a well-known celebrity. Scammers may try to establish legitimacy by pretending to be someone trusted. Celebrities rarely advertise themselves on job postings.

Scammers may say they’re C-suite employees (CEO, CFO, CMO) of a highly recognizable company. You can quickly fact-check this on Google to make sure the name matches their title and credentials.

Example of a fake job posting for a well-known celebrity:

Job Title: Virtual Personal Assistant for Tom Hanks

Company: Confidential - Tom Hanks Team

Location: Remote

Job Description:

We are seeking a dedicated and highly organized Virtual Personal Assistant for the acclaimed actor, Tom Hanks.

• Responsibilities include managing Tom's virtual schedule, handling his social media accounts, coordinating virtual meetings, and managing email communications.
• The ideal candidate will be discreet, professional, and flexible to accommodate an ever-changing schedule.

Requirements:

• No prior experience required; training will be provided.
• Must have a reliable internet connection and be available to work flexible hours, including evenings and weekends.
• Exceptional organizational and multitasking skills.
• Must sign a non-disclosure agreement (NDA).

Salary and Benefits:

• Earn up to $10,000 per month, with potential bonuses!
• Opportunity to virtually attend exclusive events, film premieres, and VIP parties.
• Free designer clothing, luxury items, and exclusive merchandise as perks.

Application Process:

• To apply, send your resume, a recent photo, and a brief cover letter explaining why you’re the perfect fit to tomhanksassistant@luxuryjob.com.
• Only shortlisted candidates will be contacted for an interview.

Red flags of an Upwork scam

If you accidentally submit a proposal or accept a job invitation from a scammer, they may ask you to do something that violates Upwork's ToS. This can also get you in trouble, leading to a possible account suspension or ban. To avoid any account issues, make sure you don't accidentally engage in any activities that go against Upwork policy.

When applying to jobs on Upwork and responding to job invites, be on the lookout for these red flags:

Why do scammers target Upwork?

Upwork is the world's largest work marketplace. Freelancers in more than 180 countries earned over $3.8 billion on Upwork in 2022 across 10,000 skills. As the platform continues to grow, it becomes an even larger target for scammers.

Upwork is committed to keeping the platform a safe place where you can do the work you love without having to worry about payment or security. You can learn about the different layers and levels of protection Upwork freelancers have. This is one of the reasons why freelancers use Upwork instead of searching for clients on their own and invoicing them directly.

If you keep all communication and payments on the platform and follow the ToS, you will always be paid for the work you do.

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Is the Upwork client’s activity legitimate?

Before sending a proposal or accepting a job invite, check the client's activity to see if it's legitimate. Under the job description, you'll see if the client has verified their payment, be able to view their ratings, and learn how much they've spent on the platform. You can click on the project to learn more.

While brand-new clients won't have reviews or ratings, they can still verify their payment method. Remember: If you accept an offer from a client who isn’t payment verified, the contract will not be covered by Upwork's payment protection. Besides verifying payment, a new client will likely have a website or additional verifiable information about their business that they can give you to build trust and prove their legitimacy.

When you click on a job posting to apply, you'll be able to learn more about the client under "About the client." These are warning signs you'll want to look for:

• Client's location doesn't match what they claimed in the job posting
• No jobs posted
• No hire rate
• Low hire rate with an unusually high number of jobs posted
• Only one open job
• Multiple job listings without any hires
• Join date and job post date are the same

In the Job Filters section, you can filter out jobs with less than five proposals and clients that aren't payment verified or haven’t made any hires yet. However, this may prevent you from seeing jobs recently posted by new clients.

Is anyone else applying for this job?

When you find an interesting job on Talent Marketplace or receive an invitation to interview, check the job activity. Jobs with very few or very many proposals but no interviews can be a warning sign—other freelancers may have noticed the red flags but didn't report them.

The job description will tell you when the client posted the job. If it's been many hours or days without interviewing or hiring activity, this can be another red flag. At the same time, legitimate recently posted jobs may take a while to get proposals, especially if the job requires a specific or less common skill set.

When you click on the job description, you can see "Activity on this job," which shows how many other freelancers have submitted proposals and are interviewing. This can be helpful, especially for real positions, to let you learn about the competition. While it’s not an indication of a scam, you may want to skip working on a proposal if lots of freelancers already have interviews.

If you upgrade to a Freelancer Plus account, you can also see the bid range along with enjoying other perks. Knowing what other freelancers are bidding is a helpful strategy for avoiding submitting a proposal price that’s too high or too low.

Does the client have fake Upwork reviews?

When deciding if you want to submit a proposal, pay attention to the "Client's recent history" at the end of the job post. If a client has been active on Upwork, you'll be able to see reviews left by other freelancers. This can give you valuable information on whether this is an actual client and, if so, the type of client you want to work with.

If a client has reviews, evaluate whether they look real. One possible scam is paying for reviews. These scammers will post jobs and then pay freelancers to leave positive reviews.

These are some tips for distinguishing fake reviews from real ones:

• Repetitive language (written by AI)
• Reviews that sound like a marketing campaign
• Overly positive praise without any specifics
• Many positive reviews within a short time period
• Inconsistent reviewer profiles with little experience
• Short reviews with few details
• Reviews that don’t match the job posting title

An experienced client should have a history of past hires. In their recent history, you should see work dates, durations, payment amounts for past projects, and reviews. While clients new to Upwork may not have this history, even if they're legitimate, their job descriptions should help you feel more confident about their validity with links to their website.

Be on the lookout for suspicious activity like many small and low-paying jobs posted in the same period of time or seemingly simple tasks with skeptically high dollar amounts to help spot clients who pay for fake reviews.

Requesting to communicate off platform

The telltale of a scam is if a client doesn't want to use Upwork messages and asks you to contact them on Telegram, WhatsApp, email, etc. While this is against ToS, it's also usually how a scam begins. They use Upwork to establish contact and then move the conversation off-platform to avoid alerting the Trust & Safety team.

If a client asks that you move the conversation to a different messaging app, you can let them know that you only use Upwork Messages both for your protection and because off-platform communications violate Upwork's ToS.

They may not be aware of this policy, and the request could be innocent. If they insist on talking outside Upwork, you can report them to the Trust and Safety team. You can do this in Messages. Click <<...>> on the top right corner of the message you want to report and choose <<Report>> to flag.

You can then select the reason for reporting the message and any additional details to help the Trust & Safety team.

Talent and clients generally find that keeping communications on Upwork’s platform helps with overall quality and efficiency. Being able to have all messages and files in one spot and easily use messaging and videoconferencing from the platform is one of the many reasons they choose to keep using Upwork.

Requiring job security or onboarding fees

When freelancing on Upwork, you should never pay a client any type of fee before you can start working—this is a scam. The client may ask you to pay an "onboarding" or "job security" fee before they can work with you. They will typically ask this when communicating off-platform.

Scammers will ask you to send them a payment on a platform like Zelle, Venmo, or CashApp or give you a link to use. You likely won't hear from the client again after they receive their payment. This type of payment scheme may also double as identity theft and be an attempt to steal personal or account information.

As an Upwork freelancer, you pay a 10% service fee on your earnings, which is automatically deducted before you withdraw funds. You can see this on both your Billings and Earnings Report and Transaction History Report. This service fee covers the benefits and perks of using the platform. The clients never facilitate fees, which is a sign of a scam.

Offering to make payments off the platform

One of the most important rules to remember is to always keep client communication and payments on Upwork to have hourly payment protection and fixed-price escrow. If a client asks that you contact them outside of Upwork to assign work or get paid, this is a big red flag called circumvention, which violates Upwork's policies. You only have payment security as a freelancer if the transaction follows the ToS.

Asking for off-platform payment is one of the most common Upwork scams. Clients may ask to pay you off the platform to avoid service fees. They're trying to scam the platform, not necessarily you. These types of scammers are putting you at risk of account suspension and banning. You also have no guarantee that after you hand in your deliverables, they will actually pay you. They may use this as a way to get free work.

The scammers may also be trying to gain personal and banking account information. They may say that in order to pay you, they need certain information. Scammers can then use this for fraud. It also may look like you're getting paid, but the money stays pending and is never actually delivered to your bank account. They may send you a phishing link to set up your payment method and capture your information.

If you do meet a client outside of Upwork, they can use the platform to pay you—this is called Any Hire. You work off Upwork, but the client uses the platform for payroll and invoicing. The important part of Any Hire is that your relationship needs to start independently from Upwork.

The benefit of an Any Hire contract is that you don't pay service fees on your earnings but still have Upwork payment protection. You can work on Any Hire contracts with existing clients on Upwork if they convert your contract and pay the conversion fee.

Then, fill out the contract information. You set up a fixed-price or hourly contract through Direct Hire. Once you’ve added all the necessary information, you can click <<Next>> to review and then send to your client.

Your client will need to accept the contract before you can start working through Upwork.

Requesting to purchase your Upwork account

Another type of Upwork scam is asking to purchase or rent your account. This is one of the ways scammers can temporarily avoid getting immediately flagged by the Trust & Safety team. They use real accounts from already verified freelancers to conduct their scams. When they finally get caught, it's your name and your account that get banned.

Typically, these scammers reach out to you on a different platform, such as LinkedIn or Slack. They've likely been banned already from Upwork and can no longer make an account. A scammer will ask to buy your account outright or "rent" it by giving you a percentage of their earnings each month.

They may claim they had a profitable freelancing career and then were "unjustly" banned, but by using your account, you can passively earn 10% or even more of their earnings.

While this is clearly against Upwork policy, it also puts you at risk. Your personal information is on your account, including your address, along with banking and tax information. Scammers will most likely steal the account when you process the transfer, and you'll end up losing your account and not getting paid.

Buying Upwork reviews

Scammers want to avoid getting caught, and having a legitimate-looking Upwork account makes them seem like real clients. One of the ways they do this is by paying for reviews. The client will post a simple project asking for a review and pay you a small amount for leaving five stars.

It may seem harmless, as you're not at risk of losing money or not getting paid if it's a legitimate contract and you keep all communications on Upwork. However, this is a violation of Upwork ToS and can result in an account suspension or ban. While you may not be scammed yourself, you’re playing a role in the scam and making it easier for them to target other freelancers after their accounts look legit.

Requiring a free trial or unpaid test project

As a freelancer on Upwork, you should never feel pressured to do work for free. Clients may ask that you do a free trial or an unpaid test project as part of their job description or in the interview process before starting a contract. While asking for a test project is OK and a great way to evaluate talent, it should be paid.

This could be a scam, an attempt for clients to get free work from freelancers. They may ask each freelancer to complete a different free test project and then piece together a large project from work they didn't have to pay for. The scammer may have no intention of hiring anyone—their goal was to get this free work.

Some clients don’t realize that asking for unpaid test projects or trials is not how the Upwork marketplace works. They can ask freelancers to fill out questions in their proposals and to see samples of their past work. If they need a test project, it should always be paid at the freelancer's hourly rate.

If a client asks for unpaid work, and you don't think it's a scam, you can inform them it's against Upwork's policies and send them the ToS. Let them know you're willing to do a test project but for your hourly rate or a fair fixed price.

The ToS states that "You can’t use Upwork to ask for or demand free work—you can't ask freelancers to submit work for little or no payment as part of a proposal bid or competition." Always report scammers and clients who refuse to pay for test projects to help other freelancers from being in the same situation.

Spot a fake job post? Report it!

The Trust & Safety team is committed to keeping Upwork a secure marketplace for freelancing, where you can find projects that excite you while always getting paid. One of the best ways to help the team is by reporting any fake job posts as soon as you see them.

You can report a post by clicking on the job post and selecting "Flag as inappropriate" under "Apply."

The Trust & Safety team reviews all flagged and reported posts and will take down any that violate the ToS or have suspicious activity. Select the reason for flagging the post and add a brief description to help the team.

Find real clients and jobs on Upwork right now

Getting started as a freelancer is easy. All you have to do is create a profile and start sending proposals. On Upwork, you can find projects that excite you and build relationships based on trust with clients all over the world. Start meeting clients from one-person startups to Fortune 500 companies, and build your career.

As a freelancer, you have a high degree of control over your work. You get to create a schedule that fits your lifestyle, choosing what projects you submit proposals to and which clients you work with. If you’re not already using the platform to build your freelancing business, sign up for Upwork now.