Gig-Work Sentinel flags freelance gig postings that use unpaid "test tasks" to harvest real, usable work, with no real job or payment on the other end.
Brand Identity Designer — Ongoing Potential
To start, please complete a free sample task↳ unpaid test framed as a favor: a complete, ready-to-use logo package↳ full deliverable, not a sample for our client's brand launch. This is for a client↳ unnamed end client we're keeping confidential. Once approved, we can discuss payment outside the platform↳ no escrow protection, and this leads to ongoing work if it goes well↳ bait for the next unpaid round.
Same underlying pattern as disguised AI-training job scams, moved to freelance platforms. A poster asks for a "quick test" or "trial task" before any contract exists — except the "test" is a complete, usable deliverable, and once it's handed over, the job quietly disappears.
The specific red flags above (unpaid test tasks, off-platform payment requests) reflect Upwork's own published guidance on identifying and reporting scams, not any specific client or posting. Gig-Work Sentinel evaluates posting language patterns, not accusations against named clients. See Upwork's official scam guide.
No account, no server, no background scanning. You click the extension when you're looking at a gig posting, and it checks the text that's already on the page.
Click "Scan this gig" and the extension reads the visible text of the page you're already looking at.
The text is checked against a weighted signal set — unpaid test tasks, off-platform payment, unnamed clients, and more.
A risk badge plus the specific signals that fired, so it's a judgment call you can verify, not a black-box score.
Every result shows exactly which signals fired — so it's a judgment call you can verify, not a score you have to trust blindly.
No account needed. Chrome Web Store listing has been submitted and is awaiting review — until it's approved and live, install directly from source in a couple of clicks.
Download the extension (.zip)
— unzip it, then in Chrome go to chrome://extensions,
enable Developer Mode, and choose "Load unpacked."
Chrome Web Store listing: submitted, pending review.
Every signal is public and documented — tell us what it missed or got wrong.
Gig-Work Sentinel only reads a page's visible text when you click "Scan this
gig" — it does not run in the background, does not track your browsing, and
does not read pages you haven't asked it to scan. Scan results are stored
locally on your device (chrome.storage.local)
so you can see your own history; nothing is transmitted to a server, and no
personal data is collected or sold.
