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noellematteson
Community Member

Another Scam Alert via Google Hangouts: ''

I would like to report: **Edited for community guidelines**as a scam, or at least it is being hijacked by scammers. **Edited for community guidelines** confirmed that people are posing as employees of that company on Upwork. **Edited for community guidelines**Thank you.

ACCEPTED SOLUTION

Hi Noelle,

 

Thanks for flagging this job to us and reporting it. I'll follow up with our team and share the additional information you posted.

 

Please, check out this post for more tips on how to avoid questionable jobs.

 

Thank you.

 

Edited to add:

Confirming that the job has been taken down because it was in violation of Upwork ToS and action has been taken on the client account. 

~ Bojan
Upwork

View solution in original post

13 REPLIES 13
kat303
Community Member

If you knew what to look out for, you would not have wasted your time calling, google, or searching out a company and then contacting that company trying to find out if a client is an employee there. All you had to do was to see the words Google Hangout and you would have known and moved on. 

I am trying to help out the company by reporting this person and contact with the information I now have. Because I couldn't find a specific contact person or email at Upwork, I was directed to this community board. Do you have a specific contact or email? If not, your comment was smug, useless, and a waste of time, lol.

Any FL who spends even a tiny bit of time and attention learning about how to use UW before jumping in, knows to ignore posts and invitations that mention Google Hangouts. UW can't police that scam effectively, it's like playing whack-a-mole. But it is such an obvious one that it is EASY to avoid--except for those who plunge into UW without doing their homework first. Posting "scam alerts" for this is like running up and down your street trying to warn your neighbors that someone wearing a Google Hangouts tshirt might ring their doorbell adn if she does, they should NOT lend her their ATM card. Everybody either already knows not to do that, or perhaps could do with a lesson.

Wow, this is a great "community". XD 

 

So far the only answers have been:

 

1) You are an idiot for reporting spam at all. Just let it fester. Look out for yourself and no one else.

2) In fact, you deserve a "lesson." You deserve to be scammed.

 

And these are the gurus here at Upwork? Lol. I see that Upwork itself has responded by redacting certain aspects of my original post, which, by the way, I am aware is common practice because I saw plenty of other posts JUST LIKE THIS.

 

This is what I did:

- I went to report suspicious user activity (a page on Upwork's site.)

- I flagged the post.

- I flagged the client.

- I read this: "If you ever come across inappropriate or suspicious client behavior, please save evidence of your experience and get in touch with us as soon as possible."

- I followed the link, PROVIDED ON THE PAGE, to Customer Support.

- I filled it out.

- It then directed me to this community page.

- I tried it again.

- It directed me to a community page again.

- I decided to post here just in case.

 

And then I receive two self-righteous messages about how stupid I am. Man, Upwork is really a supportive platform indeed.

Hi Noelle,

 

Thanks for flagging this job to us and reporting it. I'll follow up with our team and share the additional information you posted.

 

Please, check out this post for more tips on how to avoid questionable jobs.

 

Thank you.

 

Edited to add:

Confirming that the job has been taken down because it was in violation of Upwork ToS and action has been taken on the client account. 

~ Bojan
Upwork

According to the "community gurus," who have much more experience than I do, I not only did the wrong thing, but I deserve to be scammed and do not belong on Upwork. I see that you are a community moderator. So, is it good I did any of this, or was I completely wrong in everything I did?

re: "So far the only answers have been:

1) You are an idiot for reporting spam at all. Just let it fester. Look out for yourself and no one else.

2) In fact, you deserve a lesson. You deserve to be scammed."

 

Noelle:

Nobody is saying these things.

 

Every person who participated in this thread is only trying to help you. They are offering serious, helpful advice.

"If you knew what to look out for, you would not have wasted your time calling, google, or searching out a company and then contacting that company trying to find out if a client is an employee there. All you had to do was to see the words Google Hangout and you would have known and moved on."

"Any FL who spends even a tiny bit of time and attention learning about how to use UW before jumping in, knows to ignore posts and invitations that mention Google Hangouts."

"Everybody either already knows not to do that, or perhaps could do with a lesson."

 

If everyone here only wants to help, why did they phrase it in such a way that was CLEARLY critical? Instead of saying, Google Hangouts is a bad sign, they assumed that I was just too stupid, based on my very simple post about this scammer, to realize anything was suspicious. They also said "if you had...", which is not advice. It's talking about the past, something that has happened. I found absolutely none of these comments to be remotely helpful. So either that wasn't the intention, or they were so terribly written, they failed to communicate any "serious, helpful advice" at all.

There are a multitude of ways to lose time and money here, if you are not careful. If you're serious about freelancing, then avail yourself of the helpful information provided by UW for new FLs, and the reams of info to be found in this forum (by searching past threads), about how to use the platform safely and productively, so you are equipped to avoid scams and other pitfalls that waste your time (and therefore, your money). Or don't. It's your choice.


Noelle M wrote:

"If you knew what to look out for, you would not have wasted your time calling, google, or searching out a company and then contacting that company trying to find out if a client is an employee there. All you had to do was to see the words Google Hangout and you would have known and moved on."

"Any FL who spends even a tiny bit of time and attention learning about how to use UW before jumping in, knows to ignore posts and invitations that mention Google Hangouts."

"Everybody either already knows not to do that, or perhaps could do with a lesson."

 

If everyone here only wants to help, why did they phrase it in such a way that was CLEARLY critical? Instead of saying, Google Hangouts is a bad sign, they assumed that I was just too stupid, based on my very simple post about this scammer, to realize anything was suspicious. They also said "if you had...", which is not advice. It's talking about the past, something that has happened. I found absolutely none of these comments to be remotely helpful. So either that wasn't the intention, or they were so terribly written, they failed to communicate any "serious, helpful advice" at all.


----------------------

What I had written to you is true. You are a new freelancer. Scammers look and prey on new freelancers. Do you know why? It's because they just jump right in, fill out a profile and think that's it. They don't realize that this is a World Wide platform, There are no restrictions for clients in order to use this site. And because of that, this site will attract a lot of scammers. As I stated, "If you knew what to look out for" is IMO spot on. 

There are only about 4 or 5 scams here targeting new freelancers. And they exist because new freelancers keep falling for them. 

 

You are weaving a fantsy in your mind when you say we are calling you stupid, etc. Not a single person said that. New freelancers rarely come on here to read about scams, nor do they read about what to look out for, Upworks procedures and do's and don't's. 

 

Freelancers gain nothing when they search companies. Did you know that's a scam? Scammers say they are from XX company ONLY to gain your trust. You trust them,-

 

I think I echo when I say it's a waste of time to google companies. You are here for 2 purposes. 1. To obtain work and 2. to be paid when you complete that work. It doesn't matter who or where the client is from. 

 

I usually say, if you buy a product that needs to be assembled, do you just jump right in or do you read the instructions first? Same here. Stay in this forum for a week or so. (or search for scams on here) You'll find it's only new freelancers posting with the same statements as you. And it's only after the fact that they come on here. 

 

If you want helpful advice, then here it is.

Search this forum and the New Freelancer form for SCAMS.

In the new Freelancer form read all the information in the very first post. 

Like any other forum or group, the Upwork Community Forum has its own distinctive personality and vibe.

 

It is common and very normal for an initial foray into the Forum to be a bit surprising, and maybe even confusing, rocky, exasperating, etc.

 

We tend to forget our earliest Upwork and Community Forum experiences, but they were like this for many of us.

“If you knew what to look out for, you would not have wasted your time calling, google, or searching out a company and then contacting that company trying to find out if a client is an employee there. All you had to do was to see the words Google Hangout and you would have known and moved on.”

“Any FL who spends even a tiny bit of time and attention learning about how to use UW before jumping in, knows to ignore posts and invitations that mention Google Hangouts. UW can't police that scam effectively, it's like playing whack-a-mole. But it is such an obvious one that it is EASY to avoid--except for those who plunge into UW without doing their homework first.”

= Blaming and condescending tone.

“Everybody either already knows not to do that, or perhaps could do with a lesson.” Yeah, Noelle is right, that literally just means they deserve to be scammed. Like how else can you take that? Lol

 

A better way to say it would be “I’m sorry that happened to you. It can happen to many new freelancers. Ones that say ‘Google Hangout’ are almost always scams, so in the future I’d suggest just ignoring those.”

 

If your issue is that you don’t want to see these posts, rather than being so snarky about it, you can also just say “Thanks for bringing this to our attention, but most people know that Google Hangouts is a scam, so you don’t need to post about it here next time. I see that you’re new so you probably didn’t know.”

 

Preston, you’re right that the community has a “distinctive personality and vibe” and it’s very uncouth, and unnecessarily so.

whiteboard_media
Community Member

Thanks, Noelle. They reached out to me and some aspects seemed off. Poking around, I found your post and it helped verify my suspicions. 

 

Kinda curious to see how the scam would've played out, but we move on. 

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