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michaelaholbrock
Community Member

Scammer hiring freelancers!

Someone from**Edited for community guidelines**hired me to do a "big project". For the project, he said that he would have to send me checks which I would need to forward to a vendor so that he could supply me with the supplies I would need for the project. All the checks were discovered to be fraudulent after I had sent the money, leaving me thousands of dollars under on my bank account. He calls himself**Edited for community guidelines**(although he sent me a picture of "his" ID and it said**Edited for community guidelines**) and he had me send money to a " vendor" named Brandi Reeves. Watch out for these people! Save yourself the headache. I am extremely disappointed in Upwork for verifying him and giving him a high rating, despite him being, in hindsight, an obvious scammer! In this attachment is the original posting of the job, but he has since deleted it. Not sure if it can be found on Upwork's end so they can block the guy or what, but hopefully it helps.

7 REPLIES 7
dataextract
Community Member

First of all you've violated the ToS of Upwork by accepting a payment outside Upwork. Though it is for purchasing something as specified by the scammer, all financial transactions must be through Upwork only.

This is one of the oldest scams.

I am going through TOS now to become better equiped in the future. I am new
to this service, and did not know that I was not supposed to do some of the
things that happened. I was not trying to break any rules, I was only
trying to be a good freelancer, unfortunately.

You are not going to be punished for this. You are new and did not know. If you were more experienced and did something like this then... yes, you could face suspension or other sanctions.

I'm glad I won't be in trouble for it. I already am dealing with the
headache that it's causing my bank. I will have to brush up with the types
of scams that are common here so I can avoid them in the future.

It is good you are reading more about the topic.

 

But for the record... you just went through what can be considered THE main scam encountered by Upwork freelancers. That probably accounts for 95% of the scams freelancers run into here. The same scam script is passed around the scammer community and used by most of them, with relatively little variations.

JoanneP
Moderator
Moderator

Hi Michaela,

 

In addition to the information shared with you on this thread, I'd also like to share that it is a violation of Upwork TOS to take communication outside the platform before a contract is placed. All payments should be done on Upwork only. I checked the job post that you're referring to and I'd like to confirm that our team has already taken action following our internal process. 

 

If you see a job that seems suspicious, you can report it to us using the flagging option. You can read more on this help article and also, please check out Tips to avoid questionable jobs. You might also want to check out the information here to learn more about staying safe on Upwork. 

 

~ Joanne
Upwork
aguilarroland
Community Member

yes i seen that in the news its drug related scams sorry meaning mafia run scams to set up shop

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