Payment not received. Client asking me to pay them for funds to be released

[sofia2008]

This is a scam. No real client will ever ask you to pay them money or buy something for them.

Did you contact them outside of Upwork? (ex. on Telegram/WhatsApp)

[petra_r]

Sigh.

You were never (properly) hired, there is no job. Those people are scammers. You will never get paid for any "work" you did, the whole point was to scam money out of you.

In future, do NOT violate Upwork's terms of use by communicating outside of Upwork with prospective clients, which is strictly forbidden and can get your account suspended). That way you'll be safe from almost all the scams.

[NikolaS · Accepted solution]

Hi Natasha,

Thank you for reaching out to us. I shared your report with our team for further investigation and appropriate actions will be taken according to our internal processes.

Please know that a real client will never ask you to give them money to start working, cash a check for them, work for free, or provide your personal information. Please note that sharing contact information before a contract has started is against Upwork's Terms of Service and that all communications prior to the contract starting must take place on Upwork.

I encourage you to let us know if a TOS violation has happened by using the Flag as Inappropriate option throughout the platform. You can learn more about user reporting here.

Additionally, I would like to clarify that you were not hired for this job and shouldn't provide any work until your client sends you an offer and a contract is created under your My Jobs tab. I advise you to check this thread and this help article to help you stay safe on Upwork.