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3d1ccf0c
Community Member

Contract Violation

I just started working on the upwork. A few days ago, I did a product review for my clinent and we successfully close the contract after I completed the task. I returned the product and get a refund because I have no use for his product and now he is telling me that I violated our contract. I didn't mean to violate the contract. I only returned the product because no where in the contract said I can't do it and I have no real use of his products. Can someone review the offer and instrucations and see if I did indeed violated the contract. 


Here is the contract offer 

" Hi there,

We have a newly designed household product, and we are looking for marketing help.

We cuently need people to test our product and take pictures of the product in use.

Not much knowledge is required, just easy tasks. We will also need images from our products in different settings" 

Here is his task instructions 
"This is how this works. I hire you and put $30 in the escrow.
I send you a link where you can buy the product.
You order the product on amazon.com
You send me the order number
You get the product
You put the product to use and take a few pics
You send me the pics right here
You get the $30 from escrow released.
You get a great feedback here on upwork
and we're done.

 

Let me knwo if you have any questions, or you are ready for the contract to start." 

ACCEPTED SOLUTION
paywell
Community Member

Welcome to Upwork!

 

Upwork Community Blog has you covered with this great article from early on this year:

From-the-Trust-and-Safety-Team-How-to-Spot-a-Scam

 

And, if you haven't read Wes C's assortment of scam types and flavors, have a go at it:

Top-Red-Flags-for-Scams-From-Community-Member-Wes-C 

I believe, that your “job” falls under this category:

 

Requesting you to send money in any form for any reason
If the client asks you to send any kind of money to them, it’s a scam. This includes cash; transfers through PayPal, Wise, etc.; gift cards; cryptocurrency; in-game currency like PUBG UC; funding a casino account; etc. They will promise to reimburse you and give you a bonus payment on top of that amount. You will not see any payment from them and any money you send will be gone. If they do pay a bonus, it will disappear because the payment method will be invalid.

 

 

Buying something on Amazon is basically sending money, but laundering it through an Amazon account.

 

I may be wrong, so you’d better open a support ticket.

A moderator may answer this forum post as well, but a ticket will be opened to clarify the matter anyway.

 

 

View solution in original post

7 REPLIES 7
paywell
Community Member

Welcome to Upwork!

 

Upwork Community Blog has you covered with this great article from early on this year:

From-the-Trust-and-Safety-Team-How-to-Spot-a-Scam

 

And, if you haven't read Wes C's assortment of scam types and flavors, have a go at it:

Top-Red-Flags-for-Scams-From-Community-Member-Wes-C 

I believe, that your “job” falls under this category:

 

Requesting you to send money in any form for any reason
If the client asks you to send any kind of money to them, it’s a scam. This includes cash; transfers through PayPal, Wise, etc.; gift cards; cryptocurrency; in-game currency like PUBG UC; funding a casino account; etc. They will promise to reimburse you and give you a bonus payment on top of that amount. You will not see any payment from them and any money you send will be gone. If they do pay a bonus, it will disappear because the payment method will be invalid.

 

 

Buying something on Amazon is basically sending money, but laundering it through an Amazon account.

 

I may be wrong, so you’d better open a support ticket.

A moderator may answer this forum post as well, but a ticket will be opened to clarify the matter anyway.

 

 

3d1ccf0c
Community Member

"You will not see any payment from them and any money you send will be gone. If they do pay a bonus, it will disappear because the payment method will be invalid."

 

The client payment method is verified and the payment is on pending paid status on my account for 2 days now. Should I be worried? I also in the middle of another contract that exactly asked me to buy a product and reimbuse the money + bonus in the end 

Yes you should definitely be worried. Stop immediately buying stuff on Amazon! End the other contract, you are violating ToS, see below. 

It's not money laundering if you buy a physical product. 

MIn, It sounds like the client is trying to artificially boost his Amazon sales, therefore a return is contrary to what he wanted to achieve, and he probably feels he overpaid you since the money was for the purchase of the item. 

Did you write a review on Amazon?

 


Martina P wrote:

It's not money laundering if you buy a physical product. 

It sounded very much like laundering to me:

Putting money into Upwork, and receiving it back through another platform.

I could be wrong in the terminology, but the principle seems to be almost identical.

 

Plus, there's a caveat: we don't know whether the client puts any money in, since the payment on the milestone is pending. 

It is not money laundering. It is buying stuff on Amazon with money that you get from a client on upwork. Basically somebody gives you money, you buy something, you keep it. 

Now the problem here is the following:

1. Was there a (fake paid) review left on Amazon?

2. Contracts that are mainly for the purchase of something ARE NOT ALLOWED on upwork. 

Nobody is going to get into trouble with the authorities for money laundering, but with Amazon AND with upwork. 

spectralua
Community Member

You cannot buy anything for own cost! Some "secret buyer" works is possible but client provide own credit card\coupon for this.

You have no rules violation with contract canceling. Freelancer legit to cancel contract with refund at any time. With nothing to explain. Just close it and move forward. Block client if needed.

Never apply to job where you need to buy something for contract amount, refund to Paypal, send crypto, etc. In most case is a scam. It is also ToS violation.

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