In the era when Upwork provided lots of opportunities to cheap outsources and was heavily gated - anyone without highly sought after skills had a hard time getting their account approved - around 10 years ago - there was a similar market for account approvals. In Philippines or Indonesia, in order to get an Upwork account, one had to go to the village elder, pay them, they reached to the backchannel in the Upwork HQ, and a manager (who came from same ethnic group) approved them.

Once Upwork found out and they realised there was no way they could fight it, they just made it into a free-for-all it is today.