Lost Money through Upwork job

f4ceb6f7 · ‎07-01-2021

I got a job invitation to buy a amazon egift card and he would pay me extra money for that.
The job was easy and I did it right away. I bought E Gift card from my pocket because client put the money in escrow. I sent him the E gift card and he released the money. The job is done and money was released. Later on he posted a job to buy crypto currency for him and I did that worth 3000$ and he paid extra for that. Client left the money in escrow account and I sent him, He released the money when he received. So after a day Upwork started reviewing on the contract and I sent them all the proofs of my purchasing and screenshots of our conversation. After reviewing upwork made refund from my account to the client and I lost all the money I spent to get that job done. How can I claim my money back? The money I spent trusting on Escrow. There is no where mentioned that we cannot buy the gift cards and crypto currency for the clients. I have totally lost trust on this platform. How can I claim my money back? Can someone help me regarding this.

g_vasilevski · ‎07-01-2021

Hi Saad,

I'm sorry to hear about the bad experience you've had and I understand your frustration with this. I checked your account and I can see that our team has followed up on your ticket with the number 31963656. Feel free to follow up there with any additional questions you may have and our team will assist you further. Thank you.

~ Goran

f4ceb6f7 · ‎07-01-2021

Hi,
Thanks for the reply Goran. That ticket which is already opened is not constructive at all. It was not my fault that upwork does not provide us Chat facility so we can make sure with them if we could take particular job or not. Now I have already spent money and upwork refunded the money to client. How can I get that back? They dont reply to that question. How can I recover my money? Please tell me if I could reach out to some other dispute team who can atleast help me recovering the money I spent.
Because the client who got his job done recieved the currency I sent him plus the giftcard for free as he also got the refund .
How makes that fair ?
I will appreciate your help.
Thanks

petra_r · ‎07-01-2021

Saad A wrote:
How can I get that back? They dont reply to that question. How can I recover my money?

You can't.

There is absolutely nothing Upwork can do to get that money back for you in any way, shape, or form at all.

Never use your own money to buy anything for a client. The scam you fell for was so incredibly obvious as a scam you really should have known from the first second that it was a scam.

Upwork didn't refund the client. There was no client. Upwork sent the funds back to the payment method they came from, which was hacked or stolen by the scammer and the scammer was trying to use you to turn a stolen / hacked payment method into cash.

There is nothing to dispute and nothing that you or anyone can do. The money is gone.

When something seems too good to be true, it virtually always is. Of COURSE no real client would pay you extra AND the Upwork fees to buy such things as giftcards or crypto, that is ridiculous.

moonraker · ‎07-01-2021

Saad

When you see things like this, ask yourself why the client would ask a stranger to buy the cryptocurrency, or whatever, for them (plus extra). Why would they not just buy it themselves?

It makes no sense.

prestonhunter · ‎07-01-2021

re: "That ticket which is already opened is not constructive at all."

Forget about the ticket. You are CORRECT that it is not constructive at all. That is because there is nothing Upwork Customer Support can do to help you.

re: "It was not my fault that Upwork does not provide us Chat facility so we can make sure with them if we could take particular job or not."

You are correct that Upwork does not provide that. For future reference, if you have questions about the legitimacy of a job, come here to the Forum to discuss it.

re: "Now I have already spent money and upwork refunded the money to client. How can I get that back?"

You can't get that money back.

re: "They don't reply to that question."

Stop asking them questions.

re: "How can I recover my money?"

You can not recover the money.

re: "Please tell me if I could reach out to some other dispute team who can at least help me recovering the money I spent."

No, that won't work. Don't spend any time doing that.

re: "How makes that fair?"

I don't think what happened is fair. But nobody who works for Upwork has said that it is fair. Nobody here in the Forum has said that it is fair. I am certain that everyone participating in this thread wants to help you as much as possible. I feel bad for you. I know this is a horrible experience. But there is no way we can get your money back for you.

The most we can do is provide you with accurate information. And this thread WILL HELP OTHERS. People do searches and they find and read these threads, and they are saved from getting scammed and losing money.

Your report of your experience will help others.

roberty1y · ‎07-01-2021

Talking of scams, I flagged a post several days ago and it's still there. The client needs to use the freelancer's PC for 5 minutes, nothing more. Budget is $5 and, not surprisingly, it's an entry level job. If anyone knows of an honest reason why anyone would want remote access to your PC, I'd like to hear it.

tomzilla1 · ‎07-01-2021

How did you not realize that was a scam like in the first 0.1 second opening the job offer.

lysis10 · ‎07-01-2021

$3000 in gift cards. How do people not see this is a scam? lol

prestonhunter · ‎07-01-2021

Well... To be fair... however much it may seem like something a person should identify as a scam, huge numbers of good people fall for this. Scams based on persuading people to buy gift cards and then providing the scammer with the gift card numbers are the basis for worldwide industries. Scam companies and organizations have impressive operations based out of office buildings and business centers. Although India and Nigeria are commonly thought of as the principle centers of these operations, these scam operations can be run from anywhere. There are entire channels on YouTube dedicated to scam baiting and exposing scam operations. There are many types of scams, but ultimately getting marks to buy gift cards is one of the most common elements found in different scams.

This would not be such a huge, worldwide industry if this didn't work. The original poster may take solace in this fact. He is not alone in getting tricked this way.

This is so common that retail stores routinely post warnings about gift card scams.

2a05aa63 · ‎07-01-2021

at least try to cancel the e gift cards if they weren't used yet.

prestonhunter · ‎07-01-2021

re: "at least try to cancel the e gift cards if they weren't used yet"

Presumably the original poster is asking for help to recover his money because he already send all gift card and cryptocurrency codes to the scammers, and he now has no way to get that money back.

2a05aa63 · ‎07-01-2021

Preston H wrote:
re: "at least try to cancel the e gift cards if they weren't used yet"

Presumably the original poster is asking for help to recover his money because he already send all gift card and cryptocurrency codes to the scammers, and he now has no way to get that money back.

If he purchased a gift card, can't he ask the shop to cancel that order if it wasn't used? cryptocurrency sure won't happen, but gift cards are just orders.

prestonhunter · ‎07-01-2021

re: "If he purchased a gift card, can't he ask the shop to cancel that order if it wasn't used?"

The gift cards that scammers ask marks to purchase have a scatch-off area on the back. The scamers directs the mark to scratch off the area and reveal the code. The code is unique to the card. The scammer has the mark send them the code. The scammers use web sites that let them immediately redeem the cash from the card. The scammers then typically launder the money through another site, to exchange it for money in their local currency.