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kymleemurphy
Community Member

SCAM alert-Due dilligence report

Good afternoon,

 

As this is an inaugural posting- I apologize if I might not be posting this in the correct location. Moderators/Administrators; I've done my level best to adhere to the terms and conditions and community guidelines by removing identifying information, but please do point out if I missed something or if something I included is not allowed.

 

I was contacted today for a proposal I submitted earlier by the owner of a job posting. (Please see embedded photo of the conversation.) ** Photos removed for community guidelines apparently **

 

EDIT**

 

The gist was - Potential Client emails to my proposal opening with "I'm a busy man" and I work at Cryptocurrency company (REDACTED) and I need virtual assistant. Contact me offline at (EMAIL REDACTED) if you're interested. 

 

I replied, that I am also a busy and qualified woman, and would prefer to stay on this platform as cryptocurrency is an unregulated field, and that I wanted to ensure good transactional balance would be had. 

 

I am almost certain his proposed project is a scam and most people might not pick up on this if they don't know the background of cryptocurrency or how to vet it. **

 

My issues are as follows;

 

  1. When contacting a professional for work, playing the "I'm a very busy person" card does not engender trust in self-named authority, rather distrust for your ability to communicate effectively to other professionals. We are all busy. We are here to provide a transaction with one another, professional service for professional delegation, review and compensation. Treat professionals equally, or don't and reap the consequences. 
  2.  I do not know you. Taking the conversation offline immediately, and in some cases-- at all, does not a good or seamless transaction, make.
  3. To each their own, but when I research your "cryptocurrency IT company" and see that it has only been active for little over a month with little information, and knowing as a competent and practiced security industry professional that cryptocurrency- for all of its' benefit, is also being used for its decentralization tactics to fund terrorist organizations and other criminal activity, would make me want to go offline for transational information EVEN LESS. 

 

Lastly, I wanted to post this as warning and as a heads up to the moderating community for Upwork, that even if this is somehow legitimate (always a possibility), there is a higher probability that it is not and that good people could become involved in a very bad situation. 

My suggestions are to follow Upworks' lead and stay on the platform, vet all person(s) as much and as deep as humanly possible and if your gut tells you no-- abide. 

 

Any thoughts on any of this? Am I out in left field? 

Hope the community is well. Looking forward to see if I can find any true leads to supplement my existing work. I've only been passively involved here and decided to give it another go recently. 

 

Best,


Kym

 

**Edited for community guidelines**

ACCEPTED SOLUTION


Kymlee M wrote:

 understand your point, but I wouldn't approach hiring a new professional with the "I'm a very busy man" approach either for the same reasons you listed. I'm not interested in jobs for the sake of jobs, rather jobs that might add value to an existing portfolio. Thus the problem with what I've seen happen here. Virtual Assistants, or anyone one here proposing to do a job for a prospective client being treated as "less than" as the person who is giving the job must not be inconvenienced. 

That's not how this works in the real world. It's give and take. I respectfully disagree with your stance. Additionally, the nature of cryptocurrency is borderline illegal at best and unfortunately because of my background, I happen to know this at another level. I'm 99.9 percent sure that this job is not legitimate


Report it then...

View solution in original post

15 REPLIES 15
melaniekhenson
Community Member

If I thought I spotted a scam I wouldn't take the time to answer. I'd just report. So I'm a little confused. I'm not sure whether you're saying you think it definitely is a scam, or whether you're asking for advice on whether such approaches are scams?

 

If you're not thinking it really is a scam, and are hoping for the job...TBH, you come off sounding a wee bit defensive and also perhaps as if you're mocking him (throwing the "I'm a busy woman" back at him). It may not have been intentional but that's how it sounds. Your choice of words also comes off somewhat accusatory - i.e. unregulated line, etc. - plus distrustful; you don't know if he'll pay you.

 

If you legitimately are interested in the job, why not just say "Hi! Thanks for contacting me. For now I prefer to communicate via Upwork. Why not tell me a bit more about this project?"

 

And if you're not legitimately interested in the job, why answer? KWIM? That's the part that I'm confused about.

 

People don't necessarily know how to lead with a cold approach. He needed something. He put in the thing about getting right to the point. I wouldn't approach a job I really wanted like that in the future if I were you. The person will see you as trouble from the get-go. JMHO.

 

For what it's worth, I've had off-platform communication early on (i.e. Skype) and never had a problem. Now if it were Google Hangouts and a request that I buy $1000 worth of office supplies based on a check that was supposed to come later, that would be a different story. 😛 For the record, I really don't know anything at all about cryptocurrency.

I understand your point, but I wouldn't approach hiring a new professional with the "I'm a very busy man" approach either for the same reasons you listed. I'm not interested in jobs for the sake of jobs, rather jobs that might add value to an existing portfolio. Thus the problem with what I've seen happen here. Virtual Assistants, or anyone one here proposing to do a job for a prospective client being treated as "less than" as the person who is giving the job must not be inconvenienced. 

That's not how this works in the real world. It's give and take. I respectfully disagree with your stance. Additionally, the nature of cryptocurrency is borderline illegal at best and unfortunately because of my background, I happen to know this at another level. I'm 99.9 percent sure that this job is not legitimate, which is the secondary reason I responded to him as I did. I think it's wrong to attempt to scam people who are looking for work. If it wasn't me it'd be someone else. In fact, potentially 15 someone elses. 


Kymlee M wrote:

 understand your point, but I wouldn't approach hiring a new professional with the "I'm a very busy man" approach either for the same reasons you listed. I'm not interested in jobs for the sake of jobs, rather jobs that might add value to an existing portfolio. Thus the problem with what I've seen happen here. Virtual Assistants, or anyone one here proposing to do a job for a prospective client being treated as "less than" as the person who is giving the job must not be inconvenienced. 

That's not how this works in the real world. It's give and take. I respectfully disagree with your stance. Additionally, the nature of cryptocurrency is borderline illegal at best and unfortunately because of my background, I happen to know this at another level. I'm 99.9 percent sure that this job is not legitimate


Report it then...

That was definitely my next step. I'm sure positive offline transactions can be had, but I'd be cautious about them and there's probably criteria they'd need to meet for me to be comfortable with it. Sorry also, I revised my last reply a bit after you'd already replied. 

I will report it, but I'm not sure if there's a forum specific to discussing how to identify potential scams, and how to alert others so that no one has to go through the whole rigamarole of disputes and all that aggravation-- if it can be avoided. 

Scam artists get smarter. So sometimes, it's hard to tell if someone isn't knowledgable on the subject matter, which is why I wanted to post this in the first place. Not everyone knows what might be legitimate and what, statistically might not be. 

Thanks for your insight! 🙂 

Hi Kymlee,

 

Thanks for flagging this job to us. I've checked and it looks like the job has already been taken down because it was in violation of Upwork ToS and action has been taken on the client account. 

~ Bojan
Upwork

Thank you Bojan! I appreciate the follow up.


Kym M wrote:

Thank you Bojan! I appreciate the follow up.


__________________________

 

Kym,

 

Just a heads up. I am very pleased that you managed to get someone to take notice of this job and managed to get it delisted. 

 

As you are new, you will probably get a few more really dodgy offers, which I am sure you will recognize and report. However, I have to tell you that there are dozens of cryptocurrency jobs that get offered on Upwork and accepted. Cryptocurrency, in my opinion is something to be avoided as an investment, but it is not so far, illegal - even if many cryptocurrency operators sail  too uncomfortably close to the wind.

 

The other thing you will come up against is academic cheating. Dozens of us tilt at windmills on this. Sometimes we succeed and sometimes we don't in getting essay mills and cheating students taken down.  

 

My advice to you to begin with, is to treat every invitation you get with care (as you do already) and expect the chancers to try it on. They will soon tire of targeting you, particularly when you get your first gig.   

 

 

Thank you much for this. I am sure there are legitimate opportunities within the Crypto sphere, but if they do exist and I am offered them- I personally will be vigilant about keeping them here on this platform or deny them outright and this is because of the unfortunate access that some people/organizations have to them for more insidious reasons not at face value. Given my full time work in security, government and OGAs I cannot be involved in potential funding or ancillary involvement in such activities so I am very cautious in this regard. That my personal preference and really requirement. I’m sure other people can benefit from legitimate opportunities there- the problem is verification of legitimacy in an unregulated field. Again, thanks for the insight. 🙂

I had something similar happen to me on my first time out! I'm not as fimilar with how this all is suppose to work but I do know that asking for my banking info is a NO GO! Of course they have already taken the job down so it won't help to look it up and the Business names are inconsistent also. I found there phone number called them and confronted my scammers. I also confronted them during the interview and they stopped reponding. I don't know if knowing the Business name will help help you please anyone from the Upwork Network feel free to contact me and I will give you the information to try and make this a safe environment to find jobs.

Stephanie C.

BojanS
Community Manager
Community Manager

Hi Stephanie,

 

You can send me a PM with more information about your report. I'll gladly check that and escalate to the correct team for their review.

 

Thank you!

~ Bojan
Upwork


Stephanie C wrote:

. I found there phone number called them and confronted my scammers.


No, you didn't, because scammers never use thier own names and always use the names of real businesses to lure their victims into a false sense of security.

 

Real-Job-Or-Scam.jpg 

 

 

I am very confused. I heard about Upwork via a major 3 letter newsradio station here in Chicago. So, I thought Upwork was legit. I don't understand how scam advertisers are making it to the platform for freelancers to bid on. Why aren't these ads properly vetted so I can feel comfortable about not giving my personal information to some phishing scam when a "company" says they want to interview me?

Hi Frederick, 

I understand where your frustration is coming from, and appreciate your participation in this thread. I would like to note that we do have teams and systems that help identify red flags if a user or a job post is fraudulent.

 

However, I would like to clarify that there are cases where we are unable to foresee a violation based on a client's job post itself or their initial communications with the freelancer. We usually receive flags when the interview stage has already commenced, where the client explicitly communicates this (ToS violation) with a freelancer. In cases like these, the teams involved take action immediately against the client's job post and account based on the report. 


~ Avery
Upwork

Scams are a part of life - for all legitimate business.  Also, freelancers scam clients too.  Nobody is safe.  Just have to work smart (or hire smart, depending on your account type).


Kym M wrote:

That was definitely my next step. I'm sure positive offline transactions can be had, but I'd be cautious about them and there's probably criteria they'd need to meet for me to be comfortable with it. Sorry also, I revised my last reply a bit after you'd already replied. 

I will report it, but I'm not sure if there's a forum specific to discussing how to identify potential scams, and how to alert others so that no one has to go through the whole rigamarole of disputes and all that aggravation-- if it can be avoided. 

Scam artists get smarter. So sometimes, it's hard to tell if someone isn't knowledgable on the subject matter, which is why I wanted to post this in the first place. Not everyone knows what might be legitimate and what, statistically might not be. 

Thanks for your insight! 🙂 


It is really easy to stay safe on upwork, and if you don't like the field or area the client operates in, don't work with him. Your profile still screams newbie, until you present a bit more professionally, they will haunt you. 

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