I am still a newbie here at UpWork though I have 13 years of experience in Marketing. That is because my experience is mostly dealing with local SMEs, businesses based here in my country.
So let me tell you a story of how I got scammed. It is the first time in my life.
The client has an unverified payment method that joined June 4. I applied because I have not much UpWork experience. So the client asked me to do test articles as part of the interview. I agreed to do a test article because I don't have what she was looking for in my portfolio. That was my first mistake.
She accepted the article I have submitted but told me it still doesn't fit the genre. She asked me if I want to try again. I said it was OK to do another one. My second mistake, I should have declined.
So, when she checked, she told me I have a few grammatical errors. I acknowledge the mistake but didn't ask her to specify where the error is in the article. She said, despite the inaccuracies, she will still offer me a contract.
She told me that she is not the one who will offer the contract. She told me to wait for an offer from another person from her group. (Is there something wrong here?) When I received the offer, I accepted the project. Then she instructed me to converse on Skype. That was mistake number 3.
My project was to upload four memes and an article every day. She told me to wait for the WordPress access so I can save drafts and also to wait for Facebook Page access so I can schedule posts. I suggested, while waiting for access, I am going to write three articles and look for 12 memes to cover the postings for Friday, Saturday, and Sunday. I began writing the articles also and started looking for memes. She asked for my email address so she can add me on WordPress and Facebook.
I waited for a day for her to grant me access. Office hours started. I informed her that I still haven't received any Facebook notification or any email from WordPress. She finally gave me a username and password for WordPress access as a solution. She told me to log-in.
There was a bit of confusion about where I am going to log-in. It was apparent that the client was unknowledgeable about the log-in process as well. It took several probing questions and several minutes before she added a guy to a Skype group chat to troubleshoot. It took him two inquiries to solve the problem. Again, it was apparent that she didn't know what she was doing.
Then she started to get irritated and started to insult me. And ask me why I applied for the job when I don't know how to log-in on Wordpress. I told her that Wordpress isn't the only blogging platform in the world. I told her that I contribute to several websites using different platforms. It is starting to get obvious that she is the one with lesser experience handling these kinds of projects.
Then I followed up on the Facebook Page access because I still haven't received any Facebook friend request or notification. She told me I was already an editor. I told her how can that be? I haven't received any alert that I have been editor of their page. Then she informed me I gave the wrong email. Then she got irritated again and started to insult me again. Yes, my mistake, there was a typo in the email I gave. But how can you add me if I gave the wrong email? It was impossible because I have tried to add the email with the typo using a page that I handle. You can't add me! Then she continued to insult me.
She asked me why do we have problems, and she went on to say that if I have the experience, then we wouldn't be having problems. She said that I am lying and that I have communicated false information about my work experience.
She went to give a set of instructions to solve the Facebook access problem. Based on my 4-year experience in Social Media Management, I have concluded that she has no clue about Social Media Management. How is that possible when she handles their company's page? I went to counter her instructions and told her how things worked on Facebook. Then I offered to upload the memes on Google drive so they could still post for the weekend. She declined and told me to use it for later.
Then she messaged me to say that the three articles I have submitted were full of spelling and grammar errors. I told her it was impossible. I am not saying that all of the pieces I have written are grammatically perfect, but come on! It wasn't full of mistakes! I had a professional writer check it, and also Grammarly gave me a high score. I asked her to specify which part of the article was full of errors, but still, she can specify a single paragraph.
That was the last straw. I told her to end the contract. I'd rather have a polite pro bono client rather than a paying unpleasant client. So they canceled the contract without paying a single cent. So tell me, was I scammed into doing free work?
I have published all of them on my website, should she decide to use my articles.
