Security first has brought these two questions is upwork legit? or is upwork scam? It’s fair to research the market before investing.
What do you think is upwork safe and worth enough? Some of us are confirming upwork is a waste of time and others saying upwork worth it.
So, as a newbie freelancer/client you should first identify a safe marketplace for working. As you know upwork is a complete virtual place to deal with. So, when it is about scam, it totally depends on the freelancers and the clients to deal with it. So, first of all you must know about the following information about upwork and its surroundings.
What is Upwork?
Upwork is a huge virtual international market place where a large number of clients and freelancers are available to hire and to be hired. It is a merged version of formerly Elance and Odesk from December 2013. Upwork is open to all sorts of skilled freelancers and Clients all over the world. The works are done virtually as well as paid virtually by the clients.
Is Upwork Legit or Not?
Is upwork legit? It is often heard that upwork is not safe at all, it is a fraud site and it scams others and so on. But as a regular member of over 15 years I assure you from my real experience that it is totally a legit site. All you need is to be conscious about the steps you are taking. You may be heard of a number of freelancers making a lot of money only by using Upwork. If it is really a scam then how do they do it?
Why People Call Upwork a Scam
Is upwork legit or scam? To get the answer you have to think wisely. The scamming activities are done by some scammers over the internet. You know your messages and emails are often seen as scams. Do you know why these are seen scam? It is because the scammers use these messages & emails for their own profit. But what you don’t know is that scammers do not scam only these messages & emails they are also active in the freelancing sites as well. May be they are freelancers or may be they are clients.
Who are being Scammed
Mostly the newbie asks for upwork legit? You must know that when you are a newbie you will face many competitors working over there. They won’t want you to be grown up easily. As a newbie freelancer you may be hired for a project and after submitting the work, you may find that the client is vanished without giving you any payment.
On the other hand, as a newbie client you may hire a freelancer for a hourly rate. After working one month, he may be vanished without completing your work. Upwork imposed laws of an hour work and an hour payment. And your freelancer has gone away scamming your money.
So, Upwork is not a scam rather some miscreants are doing these illegal activities over upwork and other marketplaces. However it is now strictly prohibited by upwork.
How to Remain Safe in Upwork as a Freelancer
So, now you see upwork is not a scam at all. It is totally safe to business. But to remain alert from being cheated as a freelancer you will have to tag along the following steps to get a genuine project and make money safely.
01. Never Hurry
It is often seen that the newbie apply for a job and after getting hired start their work in a hurry without being sure whether the client is genuine or not. It is totally foolish. Never make hurry rather be cautious of every steps. Check the client’s payment method is verified and ensure milestone for fixed price jobs.
02. Research your Client
Before starting with any project you must research your client. Read through the profile of your clients deeply. Take into account each details of your client. Try to know the policy of your client – the duration of their project, reviews, work-hours, payment method, budgets, amount to be paid, project type etc. Genuine clients make these things clear before making the contract. So, be wise while choosing your clients.
03. Check the Transparency of Your Client
You must check your client’s transparency. Check carefully your client’s rating and the feedback they got for their previous works etc. Remember that a reliable client surely has a great ratings and reviews. Never be scammed by the false reviews.
04. Don’t Agree of any Test or Free Samples
You may often see that some clients are demanding free samples from you to test your skills. The wise decision here is to avoid these clients. It is strictly against the policy of upwork. These clients are fraud and follow such policy to get their job done without giving any payment. So, avoid these frauds simply. Never agree to give any free sample.
05. Adopt a Secured Payment
Always try to follow a safe and secured payment for the job done. Upwork recommends you to use the escrow system it provides. It is safe, secured and prevents any kinds of payment disputes. Whenever you deal with any fixed price contract or hourly contract make sure that you are dealing with such secured system to avoid loss of your payment.
06. Report Scams
If by any way you understand that a job post is a scammed one, feel free to report against it. Give your suspicion a better consequence. Your step will help other freelancers restrain from involving with the scammed job post.
How to Remain Safe in Upwork as a Client
There are many other scams also in the land of freelancing. Just study carefully the following facts to remain safe as a client also. It will help you know how you may be cheated and what to do to protect yourself.
01. Scamming by Plagiarized Material
In the upwork system it has become very common to cheat a client with plagiarized material as there are a lot of opportunities to copy article, logo or web design etc. So, as a client you must remain alert of your job you are getting done by your hired freelancers. You may cross check to justify the originality of the task. We recommend you to use Copyscape to check written material. And to check any designs use Google reverse image search or other online tools. You should ask your employee for designs in editable formats and multiple resolutions. It will help for further process. You may also ask for the resource, usage rights to ensure if it is royalty-free.
02. Scamming by Hacking Your Systems
It is really a dangerous thing for a client that often happens when a client hires a freelancer to work on his website. It allows the employee to get all access to proprietary material of the site and thus hacking it. And if you forget to change your password of the site after the job done you yourself will give the hacker chance to hack it later.
To avoid such scamming use the tools like LastPass. It will share the access to your system without sharing your actual password. And you must ensure the level you want to share to accomplish the task and never give the highest level access even your employee demands. After the accomplishment of the job revoke the access as soon as possible and check system activities and logs.
03. Fake Identity
Identity theft is a very common scamming in all kind of systems in the internet. Many freelancers often use a fake identity or some other good freelancer’s identity to make the impression good to his client and get the job. So, as a wise client you must remain alert of such thing.
What we recommend you to avoid such scam that you may prefer a location of your choice of freelancers. It will ensure that the freelancer of the expected place only will be able to apply. If you are hiring your native employee, give special attention to his language, grammar and style to get a proof. You may ask for other identity proof from the employee for a large contract. For instance you may check his social networking site etc. for your comfort. You may also ask for referrals from your employee.
Is Upwork Legit? Yes! You May Trust
So, now you clearly understand that upwork is not any scam at all. But scamming is seen here often done by some fraud scammers for their dishonest intention. You will just have to remain alert from them. If you follow our instructions while using upwork, surely you will find it profitable for you.
Never be frightened about these scams. Upwork is always legit and helpful for you. It widens a great scope to both the clients and the employees to get their job done easily with some simple steps. All you need is to use your account wisely and deal with your partner only after checking every detail adopting the wise means.
Upwork will pave the way for you to make money easily or get your job done easily. So, use your upwork site according to our suggestions you will surely be contempt. Best of Luck
Bonus Story for You
Once, Tricky Macs, an American successful businessman, wanted to invest in Turkey for a big Telecommunication business. He got a visit in Turkey and stayed there for six days in order to research the technical market. Finally he found, Oil business is more worthy than telecommunication. Finally he invested five billion USD in Telecommunication business and another five billion in Oil Business. Exactly after two years, he saw that his profit from Oil business was eight billion including capital and losses from Tele business was three billion including capital. So, he was still in one billion profits. If he invested his whole money in Tele business, he would have been in four billion loses.
4 Comments
Thanks a lot
This message is not for everybody only saying this to those who might need this, yes most comments on these sites are scams but i know someone will come across this comment and wont fall victim to these scams, i pray someone sees this.
He worked for me and at the same time my personal counselor and i can confide in him, from what i observed, his clients privacy is his first priority.
To cut to the chase, he renders a good number of hack services, needless i mention them.
Upwork is such a waste of time. Either you wait FOREVER before getting a job which pays sooo low OR you get suspended INDEFINITELY for applying “too much jobs”. So stay away from Upwork.
I agree with majority of the reviewers here. Upwork is such a waste of time. Either you wait FOREVER before getting a job which pays sooo low OR you get suspended INDEFINITELY for applying “too much jobs”. So stay away from Upwork.