A client asking you to buy something (from Amazon.com or anywhere else), and promising you to reimburse you later after you review stuff?
I definitely believe this is against Upwork ToS. So you should definitely not do it.
BUT... EVEN IF this were not against the rules, I would advise against having anything to do with this. I see no possibility that this would benefit you. This certainly seems like something which will only benefit the client.
There ARE jobs in which a worker may legitimately incur expenses using their own money and then submit expense reports and get reimbursed.
But realistically speaking, anything you encounter like that on Upwork or anywhere else online that involves you buying products to review is likely to be a scam.
In the brick-and-mortar world, where you work with real people you meet in an office and there is a real HR department and a real accounts payable officer, etc., this kind of thing isn't so unusual. An online company, especially one that is recruiting you and starting you out buying things with your own money, is simply going to be a scam that is trying to take advantage of the fact that you're looking for a job, and the fact that you have a vague sense that reimbursed expenses exist in some parts of the real world.
But like I said, NOT on Upwork.
Keep in mind, that Upwork has a legitimate way for clients to reimburse contractors for expenses. The ONLY WAY to do this is by paying reimbursement money THROUGH UPWORK. But in practical terms, the situations where this is necessary are vanishingly rare. Because you and the client are both working online, right? So if you need to buy something, such as stock images to use on a website, you can just have the client buy them.
If you need special software, the client can buy the software. If you need to be registered with a paid account, they client can pay for the account directly and send you access codes.
A rare legitimate use of reimbursements might be when a contractor is purchasing things offline, in local stores. For example, I might hire a contractor to bake a cake the promotes my business, and take photos of it, and I'll use the photos on my website. A contractor COULD buy local supplies with which to make the cake, and I could reimburse her for the supplies. But even then, I wouldn't want to use reimbursement. I would post the job as a fixed-rate job and state that the amount I pay the baker will be all-inclusive, so they they should factor in what they're charging for labor AND materials.
Member Since: Oct 31, 2014
