Fake Jobs
Why are there so many fake jobs on this site?
Do the posters gain anything by posting them, and how do we spot them before wasting our precious credits applying?
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The latest I've seen is #1525192 - 'I need writer. proofreader, editor for long-term projects'. Once a job has been flagged up as fake, or at least dubious, can you remove it so we're not wasting our time. I sent a suggestion a few months ago about an unfavourite button so we could filter out jobs we don't want to see - surely that could be put into place quickly? As it is I'm spending valuable time reading through ads that aren't worth the time and effort, and it would be nice if PPH took on some responsibility for getting rid of them.
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I've reported three in the last 24 hours (and that was just out of ones that I was invited to bid on). To PPH's credit, they were all gone within a few hours - and this was over the weekend.
It does seem to be getting worse, however, and there are persistent offenders. Although a 'block' button for profiles seems a bit too social media, perhaps the time has come?
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After PPH's crackdown in the early summer (for which, thank you), it's getting really bad again of late. I challenge jobs where I can in the clarifications - and get plenty of abuse, which is telling in itself - and report those that are clearly fake. There's far too much market rate testing going on again too.
Just a suggestion, but if it's a client's first job, can you a) put pressure on them to award it or be bumped from the site (unless there's a very good reason not to), and b) insist that it's pre-funded? It would stop probably 90% of this nonsense in its tracks.
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Bumping this as I've reported I think eight jobs this week already and it's only Tuesday...
Today, one is clearly the same 'client' with multiple accounts who was posting a great deal last week (so the PPH checks and balances are failing somewhere along the line here), and the other was asking for help with something skirting the grey area between unethical and illegal. Yesterday, we had what appeared to be a university student pretty blatantly looking for someone to do their coursework for them.
I realise PPH can't be across absolutely everything, and for any job platform operating online there has to be an element of expectation that buyers and sellers both will act ethically.
However, I seriously think it's time to be tougher on clients in terms of what they post, how they post it, and whether they award it or not. Personally, I'd like to see 'clients' booted off after three provable incidents of tyre-kicking. Perhaps insist that every client's job is pre-funded with 10% non-refundable if it's cancelled?
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Hi David,
I had a run of invitations to fake jobs a few weeks ago and there was a pattern to them. I starting ignoring them after the first two. They usually had a very vague description and the only way to find out more was to submit a bid and then they would write back with an external link which was to download a virus. I have seen jobs posted that link straight to a virus file.
At the moment I'm finding the low paid jobs more of a problem than the fakes. I get email invites to bid on a job but can't see the budget until I log in. That's when I find that somebody expects to get several hours work for 20 minutes pay.
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