Victim of a scam

[c8c85da3]

Hello, 

I am victim of a scam. The freelancer took 600$ without doing any real work.

The method he used is that he charged my hourly and telling me all the time

that facebook was rejecting or reviewing the app he was creating for me,

so he could not proceed.

Meanwhile the weeks passed and now I don't find the link to file the dispute.

I would like to be contacted by Upwork to get my money back. You can see

from his work history screenshot that he did not do any real job.

Contact me.

[petra_r]

For hourly contract you can only dispute the previous week, so this week you have until Friday night to dispute any hours logged 23rd to 29th of January.

You can only dispute for that week, and only if:

• The work was done in the previous week

or

• there is low activity

or

• the screenshots show activity not related to your project

or

• manual time

or

• no or insufficient work memos

You can not dispute previous weeks, or because you don't like the results.

[c8c85da3]

Yes, I understand the rules. But the thing is that it was also psycological because

he was taking time and he promised me to reach 600$ and then finish anyway

without chargin extra.

I'm asking upwork to take a closer look at the screenshots because it's clear that

he stayed for hours on a fixed screen without any work.

This person should be banned from Upwork and my money should be returned.

[yitwail]

You may get your wish to have the freelancer banned, but you're probably not going to get money returned, unless the freelancer returns it himself.

[c8c85da3]

We'll see how Upwork handles this. This is about Upwork reputation as well.

[petra_r]

---

@Marcello M wrote:

I'm asking upwork to take a closer look at the screenshots because it's clear that

he stayed for hours on a fixed screen without any work.

---

 Then why did you not dispute when this happened?

It is the client's responsibility to check work diaries. Once the freelancer has withdrawn the funds there is nothing Upwork can do to retrieve them for you, which is why you have 5 whole days to review them every week.

[c8c85da3]

Because I was a victim of social engeneering, a psycological scam and nonetheless a scam. I had already invested money and time in the freelancer and he kept reassuring that we are just wating for fb to approve the app. For sure, my mistake to not have stopped everything sooner, but I'm the one now with 600$ less and NO job done. This is a type of fraud that Upwork should want to look into as well, since I'm sure I'm not the first and leave a very untrustworthy feeling to the whole platform.

[kochubei_valeria]

Hi Marcello,

We'll have a member of our team reach out to you directly for more details and to check if any of the hours your freelancer logged can be disputed. You can also learn more about Upwork Hourly Protection for clients and what it covers here.

[c8c85da3]

Thank you Valeria, I'm sure it will be very easy to see that most of the hours can be disputed.

[prestonhunter]

Marcello:

I think your analysis of what happened is absolutely correct.

You were scammed by a scam artist. And it was indeed psychological manipulation.

You have learned a lot from this experience. Even though the lessons you learned are obviously more valuable than any money you lost, I still hope that Upwork will help you to recoup as much money as possible from this.

I hope you will learn from your mistakes and next time take wise precautions such as:

- have your project manager review the work on a regular basis

- make sure that you receive deliverables on a regular basis

- for any large job, hire more than one freelancer for a trial basis, review their work early on, and continue working only with those who really deliver

It sounds like you really only hired one person for this job, which is a common mistake among rookie clients.

[c8c85da3]

Hi Valeria, nobody contacted me yet for this case.

[prestonhunter]

re: "Hi Valeria, nobody contacted me yet for this case."

As a practical matter, if you want to make progress on your project, you should definitely move forward and not wait for Upwork Customer Support to contact you regarding this matter.

If and when they contact you, you may be able to assist them if they have questions about the freelancer, so that can take action against the freelancer and suspend her account if they have not already done so. But they will not be able to do anything to further the development of your project. That is something you and your project manager must take charge of, and can be accomplished by working with the right Upwork freelancers, rather than a scammer like you unfortunately encountered previously.

[kochubei_valeria]

Marcello,

I'm sorry about the delay. I see that an agent replied to your and escalated your case for a review. Our dispute team will review it and we'll get back to you as soon as possible.