Cheryl K wrote:
I've been trying to figure out what the actual scam must be. The job is to create word docs from PDFs. Do these guys not know there is software that does that for you without a freelancer?
The scam is getting the freelancer to pay some kind of banking or ID fee. The jobs are just pretend to keep the freelancers busy for a reasonable amount of time. Based on the sunk cost fallacy, this keeps people engaged and gullible and ready for the scam.
Now why typing a pdf to word? Maybe this is a final idiot test, before the scam begins. A last chance for the freelancer to activate some brain cells and ask himself why somebody would pay hundreds of $ for something that can be done in seconds.
It's probably the same approach as in romance scams, where people are willing to overlook atrocious accents from people who pretend to be US citizens (being stuck on a different continent, therefore in dire need of money, maybe to regain their English speaking skills.)
Ignoring red flags is a green flag for the scammer - they know they found their newest mark, fresh and ready to be scammed.
