As someone who got hired through it for years I can confirm this:
> learn to sift through the legit profiles vs the dodgy
It's also important to get longer term projects through it (either a client that brings you repeat work or short-medium term hourly contracts). It has got more and more difficult over the years imo as the various freelance sites merged and you had more crap to sift through.
Thanks for that. I couldn't believe that my experience was the norm, as the site couldn't stay in business.
I'm not kidding, though. Every. Single. Contact. that I had was "dodgy."
I really must have had something in my profile that attracted them. I don't know what it could have been. I use a similar approach in all my endeavors, but that site responded quite differently.
I remember one that was pretty scary. They kept trying to get me to meet them in rather remote places, like commuter parking lots, or hiking parks. They also tried to find out where I lived (which, TBH, isn't difficult. I own a house, and don't use an LLC to obfuscate ownership).
I come across as fairly open and credulous, but I have dealt with serious hardcases almost my entire life. The alarm klaxon was going off like crazy on that one.
Another data point: I also found multiple jobs with multiple clients through Upwork. I even built a transpiler for the most recent client, which is the coolest thing I've ever done.
> learn to sift through the legit profiles vs the dodgy
It's also important to get longer term projects through it (either a client that brings you repeat work or short-medium term hourly contracts). It has got more and more difficult over the years imo as the various freelance sites merged and you had more crap to sift through.