New Type of Scam

[kelvinnjiru84]

Has anyone else encountered this situation where a random person sends you an offer, mostly an hourly payment offer, without a job description?

Recently, I have had at least 3 such cases and I am confident that these are just scammers.

One of them needed to offer me an editing & proofreading job for $800 with the condition that I would have to pay them &200 back. They claimed that this $200 was a commission they needed to earn from the company. However, there was a catch that I had to first pay them the $200 before they confirm the milestone and release the $800 to me. In other words, I needed to use my own money to pay them $200, then "deduct" it from the $800 payment. Of course, this is plainly a scam and I am smart enough to see it. 

When this happened, I reported the case to Upwork and I hope they took the necessary measures. 

But now, my concern is, how do we protect the unsuspecting, especially new freelancers, from falling for such scams?

[fe9b8d82 · Accepted solution]

How do you protect unsuspecting freelancers from falling for such scams?

By doing exactly what you're doing - reporting the scam to Upwork and posting about it here.

On the other hand, anyone gullible enough to believe that there's any legit freelancer job on Upwork that requires **YOU** to pay for the privilege of then getting paid is just screaming "PICK ME" to the scammers out there.

Sometimes people have to learn a harsh lesson to wise up and be careful.

[m_terrazas]

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Kelvin G wrote:

Has anyone else encountered this situation where a random person sends you an offer, mostly an hourly payment offer, without a job description?

Recently, I have had at least 3 such cases and I am confident that these are just scammers.

One of them needed to offer me an editing & proofreading job for $800 with the condition that I would have to pay them &200 back. They claimed that this $200 was a commission they needed to earn from the company. However, there was a catch that I had to first pay them the $200 before they confirm the milestone and release the $800 to me. In other words, I needed to use my own money to pay them $200, then "deduct" it from the $800 payment. Of course, this is plainly a scam and I am smart enough to see it. 

When this happened, I reported the case to Upwork and I hope they took the necessary measures. 

But now, my concern is, how do we protect the unsuspecting, especially new freelancers, from falling for such scams?

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Mainly reading the TOS.

[6c399a4b]

Hi bro