Is upwork under attack from some bot net that is faking client accounts?

[kooshesh]

Suddenly the last week everyone has noticed all the of clients don't respond. The sudden period posting of jobs that seem really generic or LLM'd from recruitment boards. The way they start and stop suddenly like someone is running a script and maybe it crashed or they took it down for adjustments.

I personally have 71 Proposals open and most of them have no hire, tons of applications, and no activity by the client. That's the real one. "Client view X ago" is always way too long.

I'm very aware of the normal number of jobs that people post, decided they don't want / cant afford / figured it out themselves as most job boards hae these.  This is different. This is a constant LLM chatgpt generation of fake jobs. Even the titles seem wrong.

For example, they are very generic. They mention technologies not problems. Most of the real jobs mention a real problem.

I understand again for anyone who poo-pahs that this is normal on most sites and like dating sites there is content generated to make it seem not bare but this isn't the normal "spam."

This is clearly something else. Someone farming accounts perhaps to sell by being both the client and freelancer? 

[sein_mac]

Hi Sterling. Yes feels like spam farm. The big question I feel is, when will we see Upwork take visual actions to stop what is obvious to a lot of people as enabling, and bascily inviting bad actors?

It feels like false advertising is almost encouraged.

It's beyond unfair to charge freelancers to apply for jobs that are later (and repeatedly) proved to be totally not genuine.

There are people gaming the the system. We need confidence restored by Upwork showing leadership on cultivating a healthy environment and healthy work space. I feel the job posting system needs an overhaul and pronto.

[tjmisny]

I have 97 Proposals open, not including the ones I'm interviewing for... vast majority of clients are just not hiring and are not taking the hiring process seriously.  I do suspect that some of the posts are bots.  

[sein_mac]

Yes, it's a quite worrying sign to see so many clients not hiring.

[alex-nemchyn]

Totally agree with you. I see this very often.

[d27025a1]

I had posted looking for an engineer to do a job. Immediatly got back about 6 replies. I chose one and he never got back. So searched again for someone, sent a message and same thing...crickets. I then copied the profile pic and sent it through Google image search and the picture matched with someone who is totally unrelated to the profile on upwork. Also searched the location and job description and same thing....nothing. I had high hopes that I would find someone to do my job, but now it appears Upwork is a bunch of Ai BS. 

[tjmisny]

Do you think that these "Freelancer" profiles were bots?