Gmail Hangout Scam

[derektsmith]

Had an interview this morning after bidding on a long term contract with good pay.

Seemed very official. Was sent a PDF with instructions to sign-up to Gmail Hangout via Upwork. Interview was conducted via instant messaging and I was a half hour in when I asked about payment. Interviewer said it would come through their company and NOT Upwork. Was offered the position via texting (another warning to me) and was asked to forward my address/phone number to gmail emails and one to companyname-company.com. The real company has a different URL.

I didnt give them my address or bank account details thankfully. Signed off with a few choice words to my supposed recruiter.

I'm new to Upwork. Not a great introduction. Do these scams happen often? Anyway to tell if it may be a scam prior to an interview?

[prestonhunter]

re: "Do these scams happen often?"

Entry-level newbies, particularly Americans, are frequent targets of these scams.

Experienced freelancers are not targeted. Personally, I never encounter scams. I only read about them in the Forum.

re: "Any way to tell if it may be a scam prior to an interview?"

Often there is no way to tell.

Because scammers copy the formats and text of real job postings.

But an experienced freelancer can identify these scams in less than a second. We don't waste time on them. Even relatively new freelancers can identify them quickly, if they have encountered them before. Because the most common scam here (the one you encountered) follows a specific script and the scammers don't change the script very much. They are working from files they download or working from resources that their scam bosses provide to them. The scammers are mostly not very creative or thoughtful, sorry to say. Kind of boring, really. Not like an episode of "Leverage" or "Hustle."

The good news is that you can use the "Flag as inappropriate" button link in the top right hand corner of the job posting screen, report the scam job, and then Upwork will return your connects to you.

If somebody ELSE has reported the job and Upwork already took action against it, then you may not be able to flag it. But you will get your connects back.

[BojanS]

Hi Derek,

Thank you for flagging this for us. I've checked and it looks like the job has already been taken down because it was in violation of Upwork ToS and action has been taken on the client account. 

Please, check this help article for more information on how to use the flag option found on each job post or message to report any suspicious or inappropriate content. Also, check out this post for more tips on how to avoid questionable jobs.

Thank you!

[castrodesign]

Hey Derek!

I have been a freelancer on Upwork for a few years now and this had never happened to me until this week! Sadly, I didn't put two and two together and had an interview with them. They offered me a job, gave me a contract and even send me a check to buy equipment. It went as far as me giving them my license, but thankfully my gut feeling was strong enough that I didn't cash the check or gave them my social.

Like I mentioned, this had never happened to me here. It's a big scam that has been going on since 2015 at least, I found a bunch of comments on an Indeed blog. 

Just be careful. It is not very recommended by Upwork to take interview outside of the platforms, if I am being honest I have done a few calls outside of Upwork and those have gone great. This is my first time in year using this service of this happening. 

In my opinion, if it all sounds to good to be truth do not do it.