Reporting suspicious post when job is closed

[dshah1102]

How do I flag a job posting that was closed? I received a message through upwork regarding the job posting and was told to email for further information. After providing my CV through upwork, I received a weird text message and saw the job posting closed. Please advise. 

[martina_plaschka]

If the job post is not there any longer, somebody already reported it and it was taken down, so you don't have to do anything. 

[AveryO]

Hi Dhara, 

Martina is correct. If the job is no longer available, it could mean that it was closed either by Upwork or by the client. I'll go ahead and double-check the job post you are referring to and will report it to the team for their review. 

In the future, you can flag suspicious activity by following the steps here. 

[a_raghuraman]

Hi,

I am attaching the posting I am suspicious about. The client's profile is also visible in this. I did not sense any issue here.

So I forwarded my proposal. I got message on Upwork in the next 1 hour or so. It was a set of rapid messages- asking me if I was online- from a person called *Edited for Community Guidelines** but he provided Skype ID for a person called**Edited for Community Guidelines**. He ended up deleting his Upwork messages in the next 5 minutes. (That perhaps should have alerted me that the account was hacked?)

I still had a preview of the first message he sent on Upwork through my email. So I added the Skype ID. I started chatting. I am attaching this transcript as well.

If you notice on the job posting- it is for a company called **Edited for Community Guidelines**. However in the chat he mentions the company name **Edited for Community Guidelines**. He also initially mentioned the position of Data Entry. But later rectifies it to Technical Writing. At first he said I will be receiving my offer letter through email and instead ended up sending it through Skype itself. I am attaching this as well. 

Constantly there was some sort of push to provide personal details - to finish everything within 15 minutes. The one thing I am grateful for was that I did not reveal my bank account details. But I did provide him with an image of my driver's licence, residential address, phone number and my name. I deleted these in the files I uploaded here (on this post).

Right after I agreed to proceed further with his offer, he stated that he will be removing the job posting from Upwork because he had enough number of candidates and will re- activate it once we started the work. I managed to print a copy of the job posting right before he said it.

I am worried about the details I gave up.

**Edited for Community Guidelines**

[g_vasilevski]

Hi Aruna,

I'm sorry to hear about the bad experience you've had and thank you for reporting this. Our team will investigate the client further and will take proper actions.
To learn more about how to protect yourself you can check out the Safety First section here and this thread. If you have any additional questions, feel free to follow up here. If private details are involved or you would like to share any additional evidence, please reach out to me via PM (click on my name). Thank you.

[martina_plaschka]

At the first mention of Skype, or google hangouts, or whatever other means of communication outside of upwork, you know it's a scam. You don't need to waste your time with long interviews, or anything else. 

That perhaps should have alerted me that the account was hacked?

That is not what happens. Scammers are usually not worried about their account being hacked, they remove their job postings often themselves when they have reached their number of people to run their scam on. 

There is only one way to stay safe on upwork: read and adhere to the ToS. You are seriously endangering your profile by communicating outside of upwork before hire. 

Upwork please! A pop-up, anything, before these newbies send their first proposal! With about 10 items to be checked off so they actually have to read it! Just for the first proposal, or the first three, something that is really annoying but they still have to read it, should not be too hard, right?

I'm happy to provide some items:

1. I know that I am not allowed to communicate with a potential client outside of upwork before hire. 

Yeah, I only have one. Actually, that should do it. Thank you.

[prestonhunter]

re: "I still had a preview of the first message he sent on Upwork through my email. So I added the Skype ID. I started chatting. I am attaching this transcript as well... At first he said I will be receiving my offer letter through email and instead ended up sending it through Skype itself. I am attaching this as well."

If you were chatting via Skype before an official Upwork contract was in place, then you violated Upwork TOS. A freelancer can be suspended or otherwise penalized for doing that.

In the future, if a prospective client asks you to do that, it is important to say no. You will save time wasted talking to scammers. A real client will be willing to talk to you within the Upwork messages tool, which includes chat and built-in Skype, prior to officially hiring you.