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twilliams1543
Community Member

Scammers

I've been approached by 2 "clients" to go to Hangouts. I did with the first because...well they were my first reply. Then I started getting suspicious. 

 

**Edited for community guidelines**

 

Pretty sure they're scammers as well. 

 

 

14 REPLIES 14
louisaj
Community Member

Chance it's a scammer: High

 

Note of advice: Do not ever take payment off of the Upwork platform. Your chat attached is a little revealing. It also has your address on. I'd delete that chat from your message if I was you. 🙂

Its not my address. Police station. 😊
petra_r
Community Member


Tina W wrote:

I've been approached by 2 "clients" to go to Hangouts. I did with the first because...well they were my first reply. Then I started getting suspicious. 

 

I've attached the conversation with that one.


It's the ancient super dumb fake check scam.

 

By agreeing to be paid off Upwork you violated Upwork's most important term of service.

I knew it was a scammer 5 minutes in. I just wanted to confirm it seeing as
they changed their story that I would be paid through upwork.
BojanS
Community Manager
Community Manager

Thank you for flagging this to us, Tina. I'm sorry to hear about your experience. I've checked and jobs you're referring to have already been taken down because those were in violation of Upwork ToS and actions have been taken on the clients' accounts. 

 

Please check out this post for more tips on how to avoid questionable jobs and please use the flag option found on each job post or message anytime you’d like to report a violation.

 

Thank you!

~ Bojan
Upwork

Google Hangouts invite = scam


Preston H wrote:

Google Hangouts invite = scam


__________________________

That is what we have all been saying - correctly. 

 

But - just occasionally, Upwork's talent specialists see fit to use Google hangouts for a genuine job. They really should be dissuaded from doing this. I can't find the recent thread that addressed this. 

The problem is, they don't invite you from Google Hangouts, or these people who attempted with me didn't. They invited me to interview through Upwork, I replied and was asked for my email address so more information about the job could be sent. Another person contacted me and conducted the interview through Hangouts.
AveryO
Community Manager
Community Manager

I'm sorry to learn about your experience already, Terina. 

If you haven't already, you have the option of reporting these jobs by flagging it as inappropriate so that it goes to the team's queue for their review. You may also send it to me through a private message so that I can look into it further.


~ Avery
Upwork
terinam
Community Member

Thank you, Avery, for replying, I didn't see this until now (2 years later, oops). I have, indeed, reported it to Upwork, and they got shut down pretty quickly. I think I might have been contacted either by them again, or it was a copycat, a few months later, and declined their invitation, as well as, having reported them. I'm glad we have Upwork looking out for us. I'm glad you're there, having my back.

Sincerely,

Terina

re: "The problem is, they don't invite you from Google Hangouts, or these people who attempted with me didn't."


To clarify: When we refer to a "Google Hangouts invite"... this is a "shorthand" term that refers to when a freelancer receives an invite from out of the blue (they didn't send a proposal) to discuss a job. And after the freelances responds, the "client" quickly asks the freelancer to discuss the "job" using Google Hangouts.

 

The initial invite (invitation) comes through Upwork. This is followed by an invitation to "interview" using the Google Hangouts platform. But the interview is always a sham. It is a opportunity for the scammer to apply a script they use to trick the freelancer out of money in their bank account.

Hi, Preston, 

It was an Invitation to Interview, through Upwork, and like all the other invitations, I answered it, gave my proposal, was contacted through the Upwork messenger, where she told me who the client was, and she needed my hangouts name so the hiring guy could give me more information (turned out THAT was the interview, there was no further information given). Seeing all those red flags come up was just exhausting for a really simple (so I thought) data entry job. I don't want to go through that again. Since then, I stay on Upwork messenger for communication with new clients. Lesson learned.

 

Sincerely,

Terina

schardo
Community Member

I probably wouldn't spend any more time trying to sleuth out scammers. You could get yourself in trouble and compromise your account.

I'd just report and move on.
terinam
Community Member

I agree, thank you, Sarah!

 

Sincerely,

Terina

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