Photo by János Venczák on Unsplash

I hopped on Upwork all week looking for work, despite my first attempt—which ended up nearly falling for a vendor/overpayment/employment scam. Not one bite. So, we start the second week with

THAT'S RIGHT ANOTHER EFFING SCAM ATTEMPT

I can recognize them now, still not right away but at least I know what to look for.

So this client who's been a member since two days ago posts this big, legitimate-looking post looking for a Web3 blockchain frontend dev. And then they invite me to bid. This job is looking for expert-level users at expert-level rates (at least for outside the U.S.) but I don't care. Remember? I'm desperate.

So I apply. I let them know I'm not a web3 dev (but I definitely know my stuff on the front-end) in the cover letter.

I get a message back immediately and they're sending me a ZIP file.

While I've been writing this they've invited another 15 people to apply for this job. Let's see if Upwork does anything about it.

Oh, the parts I left out: I just set up a profile boost and threw all my—

OH AN UPDATE IN REAL-TIME FROM UPWORK!!

It’s a message from Upwork, indicating the job I reported is not a violation of Upwork's policies.

Their message reads as follows:

Hi Jason,

Thank you for submitting a report about a potential Terms of Service violation. We carefully reviewed your submission but didn't find a violation of Upwork's policies. We now consider this matter closed. To learn more about our policies, you can review our Terms of Use and Trust & Safety. We appreciate your help keeping Upwork safe and secure for everyone. Our Trust & Safety team reviews every report and we encourage you to continue flagging any content or accounts you believe may be in violation of our rules.

Thanks,

The Upwork Trust & Safety Team

Yeah. It's best to stay away from them.

Yes, it gets worse. Since they said nothing is wrong with this job posting, I continued chatting with the scammer. They had sent me a ZIP file, which was the main red flag — like literally, I sent in the proposal and immediately they respond with a link.

Since Upwork doesn't think there's a problem I download the link. But before I can open it I get Windows Defender announcing the file I just downloaded has a trojan.

I just don't know what to do at this point! Even if they give me my connects back, do I really want to use the site again?

For those curious, I checked with a ChatGPT about this scam. Here was their response:

What you're looking at: This is the "Contagious Interview" / "ClickFake Interview" campaign, run by North Korea-linked threat actors (tracked as Famous Chollima, DeceptiveDevelopment, Lazarus-affiliated groups) targeting Web3/crypto developers through exactly this channel — Upwork/LinkedIn recruiter contact, a job that's suspiciously eager to move fast, then a "technical assessment" hosted off-platform (Google Drive, GitHub, a fake portal) that you're told to download and run.