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notfamous
Community Member

Client want me to work directly on his whatsapp number.

I am a freenalncer at upwork and i got an invitation for doing a project, it was a great momenr for me but that guy was asking me to contact him personally on his whatsapp number and also he said that payment will be done outside upwork.

 

**Edited for Community Guidelines**

15 REPLIES 15
AleksandarD
Community Manager
Community Manager

Hi Waleed,

 

Thanks for reaching out to us. Could you please send me a private message with more information on this as I couldn't find any message in which the client asked you to get paid outside of Upwork?

Please note that communicating outside of Upwork is not a violation of the Terms of Service.

Edited to add: According to the TOS change announced here, it's no longer allowed to share contact information before a contract is in place.

 

Also, please check out this post for more tips on how to avoid questionable jobs and please use the flag option found on each job post or message anytime you’d like to report a violation.

 

Thank you.

~ Aleksandar
Upwork
harbercandelario
Community Member

You should be careful with cases like this. I have encountered a scam on **Edited for community guidelines**

You should be careful with cases like this.

b1e16ef0
Community Member

Be careful with these direct contacts via**Edited for community guidelines**Sometimes it can be someone malicious

0162d297
Community Member

So you can refer to **Edited for Community Guidelines**to see. This version can support payment for your work.

Amelia B.,

 

It is a violation of Upwork's rules to process payment through any channel other than Upwork.

I've never heard of a Whatsapp invite that was from a legitimate client. As far as I know, these aren't "clients who are confused about how to use Upwork properly"...

 

...these are all scammers.


But my standard advice could apply here:

Offer the client the opportunity to do the right thing: If the client hires you using an official Upwork contract, without asking you to violate Upwork ToS again, then it's fine. If the client doesn't do so, then report him.

15275f77
Community Member

I´ve got an invitation too and the client let me his number on the chat, sometimes some clients don't know how to use Upwork properly so I contact him, but I always let them know that I just work through the Upwork platform because is the safest way for both parts.  

 

So I receive an email from Upwork regarding " This job was not in compliance with our Terms of Service".  And it was removed from the marketplace.

 

So, I would like to know the best way to proceed and inform the client of the correct process within the platform, because I have been working really hard to improve my profile and become a Top-rated plus freelancer in the future, and clearly, I don't want to lose my badge and my status.

 

Thank you very much.

 

Best,

Oscar C.

re: "So, I would like to know the best way to proceed and inform the client of the correct process within the platform"

 

Client: "Hey, Oscar, can you talk to me about the job on WhatsApp? Here is my number..."

 

Freelancer: "Dan: Thank you for contacting me. I would be happy to talk to you more about this job. Upwork requires that all communications be done using this Upwork Messages tool, until an official contract is in place. If you will go ahead and click the green 'Hire' button, I will accept the contract and we can communicate using WhatsApp or any tool you want to use. Until then, we can talk here using Upwork Messages. We can chat, or use the built-in Zoom meeting feature. Looking forward to hearing from you. Thank you."


Oscar Daniel C wrote:

I´ve got an invitation too and the client let me his number on the chat, sometimes some clients don't know how to use Upwork properly so I contact him, but I always let them know that I just work through the Upwork platform because is the safest way for both parts.  

 

So I receive an email from Upwork regarding " This job was not in compliance with our Terms of Service".  And it was removed from the marketplace.

 

So, I would like to know the best way to proceed and inform the client of the correct process within the platform, because I have been working really hard to improve my profile and become a Top-rated plus freelancer in the future, and clearly, I don't want to lose my badge and my status.

 

Thank you very much.

 

Best,

Oscar C.


Don't worry about this. It is not your job to educate clients. Probably was a scammer anyway. Your best strategy is making very sure that you yourself don't violate any terms of service by talking outside of upwork before hire. 

ab1c6312
Community Member

is it a scam or not

re: "is it a scam or not"

 

99% of the time if a "client" asks you to contract him on WhatsApp to talk about the job, it is a scammer.

 

Even if it not a scammer, you still can't do that. You still need to use Upwork Messages only to communicate before a contract is in place.

You want to know something funny?

 

WhatsApp was originally created in the United States, but almost nobody here uses it.

 

And most real, paying clients in Upwork are located in the United States. So if you simply blocked any client who sent you an unsolicited invite to talk on WhatsApp... there's almost no chance that you would ever miss out on a real, paying job.

 

True story:

Last week a real client who I am actually already working for said I could simply contact him on WhatsApp. I said okay, I will look into what that is. He lives in East Asia. He couldn't wrap his mind around the fact that I have never used WhatsApp and did not know anybody who uses it.

d3c00670
Community Member

i also work on fm whatsapp . we often chat with each other very happily because we believe in the security of the app

 

**Edited for Community Guidelines**

8254cd67
Community Member

It's important to be cautious when a client asks you to communicate or work directly through personal messaging apps like WhatsApp. While it might be a convenient way to communicate, it's essential to establish clear boundaries and ensure that you're comfortable with the arrangement. **Edited for Community Guidelines**

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