Interview questions… Red flag

[dd22dbdf]

A client sent me a list of 15 interview questions to respond to. This was the last one. Should I be concerned?

“The Company's official banks are Citi Bank And US Bank, What banking institution and credit card do you operate with to see if it tallies with the company's official salary payment accounts”

[gaspardjack]

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Katelin O wrote:
Should I be concerned?

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Yes, any genuine client will never ask for your banking information, all payments must go through Upwork.

It's highly likely that it's a scam.

[petra_r]

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Katelin O wrote:
A client sent me a list of 15 interview questions to respond to. This was the last one. Should I be concerned?

“The Company's official banks are Citi Bank And US Bank, What banking institution and credit card do you operate with to see if it tallies with the company's official salary payment accounts”

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It's the fake check scam. NEVER answer questions about your bank etc, or ever agree to be paid in any way other than through Upwork. It's forbidden and you can get scammed.

[martina_plaschka]

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Katelin O wrote:
A client sent me a list of 15 interview questions to respond to. This was the last one. Should I be concerned?

“The Company's official banks are Citi Bank And US Bank, What banking institution and credit card do you operate with to see if it tallies with the company's official salary payment accounts”

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Nobody sends you 15 questions for an interview. You are not looking for full-time employment. So that was the first red flag, regardless of the content of the questionnaire.

Why are they doing that? To create a false sense of security, pretending they are serious, to gain your confidence. They are con people. No con works without the connee having confidence in the connor.  

[g_vasilevski · Accepted solution]

Hi Katelin,

Please send me the job post URL via PM (click on my name) or feel free to use the flagging option on the job post itself. Our team will investigate it further and take proper action. 

I would also recommend, check out this Post for more tips on how to avoid questionable jobs. Thank you.

[dd22dbdf]

I will do that. Thanks for the info!

[aimee_gomez]

I just had an "interview" via telegram with a smiliarly worded question.

[peterson_stacie]

I was contacted by the same group.  Same questions.  After the questionairre was done they said equipment would be provided by the company but then later in the communication they said I would need to purchase it and they would reimburse me.  Furthermore they wanted to know about Microsoft Application experience but then wanted me to purchase a MAC.  Um... that doesn't make any sense.  They also asked me to interview through an application called LINE.  Being relatively new I thought this was normal for an interview.  Never again.  I thanked them for their time and declined any offer they may have had.  Here was the other wierd part.  They closed their opened position 2 months ago but reached out to me yesterday to schedule an interview.  Not going to come right out and say it's a scam but I had too many red flags to continue on with any communications with them.

[martina_plaschka]

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Stacie P wrote:

I was contacted by the same group.  Same questions.  After the questionairre was done they said equipment would be provided by the company but then later in the communication they said I would need to purchase it and they would reimburse me.  Furthermore they wanted to know about Microsoft Application experience but then wanted me to purchase a MAC.  Um... that doesn't make any sense.  They also asked me to interview through an application called LINE.  Being relatively new I thought this was normal for an interview.  Never again.  I thanked them for their time and declined any offer they may have had.  Here was the other wierd part.  They closed their opened position 2 months ago but reached out to me yesterday to schedule an interview.  Not going to come right out and say it's a scam but I had too many red flags to continue on with any communications with them.

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Go ahead and say it. Of course it's a scam. 

Plus you absolutely need to adhere to upworks policy of no communication outside of upwork before hire. It was put in place to make it impossible for scammers to operate as you described.

[resultsassoc]

Martina,

Yes, it's a scam. I'm not going to speculate publicly about UW's reasons for implementing the new policy, except to say that it cannot protect against all kinds of scams. And, until UW's voice and video chat solution gets much closer to commercial standards, it can hurt clients seeking high-value emergency services. Yes, there are emergency services, they're just not in data entry, app development or cartoon character drawing.