Today I dont know if I just got scammed by a client or by upwork or by both? Help me!

[#1]

So there was this client who hired me to do a voice over job about a month ago. Everything went well, the contract was 350$, so after upwork fee 20% (70$), I had 280$ in my account. Well, isnt that completed? I got my job done and I got paid and I also paid 20% charge to upwork fee. Now, this morning, I recieved an email from Upwork telling me that, the client of this contract had their bank reverse back their payment, so Upwork is freezing my balance and asked me to pay them back 350$ or else my balance will be frozen and they will pull the fund out of my available balance. This means that, even after I completed the job and ended the contract, I still risk getting scammed? Not only do I have to pay back for my job, but I also have to pay full price 350$? How about the 70$(20%) that they deducted from then? So, I got scammed by the client 350$, then 70$ more from upwork? Is this a joke or something?

**Edited for Community Guidelines**

[#2]

Hey Renata - My intention here isn't to call you or anyone out for victim blaming and I certainly don't think you had malicious intent or were trying to make anyone feel bad. Victim blaming is a strong phrase, but it's really the only phrase that describes the trend I see on this platform. There is another post in this thread that mentions the rate charged as questionable...I don't think any of these comments are with ill-intent.

I just want the original poster to know that I don't think the rate was any sort of red flag in this case (and that they don't need to further question what project rates they agree to). 

I brought up the trend of victim blaming because I'm seeing an increase in the comments implying (even subtly) that the "the freelancer must have missed something."  (With that said, there are always some big obvious red flags that freelancers don't see and policies they violate.)

In this freelancer's case, his point is that he completed the work and the contract had ended...a good reason why he shouldn't be resonsible for paying back $350. As you know, very compotent freelancers are fed up that they aren't protected. 

[#3]

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Katie K wrote:

Hey Renata - My intention here isn't to call you or anyone out for victim blaming and I certainly don't think you had malicious intent or were trying to make anyone feel bad. Victim blaming is a strong phrase, but it's really the only phrase that describes the trend I see on this platform. There is another post in this thread that mentions the rate charged as questionable...I don't think any of these comments are with ill-intent.

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Hi Katie,

I think I would disagree about the rate being a red flag. Many of the current scams seem to be targeting freelancers in SE Asia, and it seems like a rate of that kind would be really attractive relative to the current cost of living in that region and the rates people living in those countries are charging.  The rate, $350, represents about 15 hours of time at the OP's posted rate, so I imagine that may have made it an attractive one. And yet, it would still be under the radar in terms of looking unrealistic to Western viewers, so it would have been a tough one to flag on the system as being an obvious scam. Scammers have really been upping their game on this platform.

To my mind, Upwork has been slow in addressing the scams isssue, which has been out of control since about January. There have always been scams on the board, but the increase since then is astounding. 

Also, people who have never freelanced in their lives and don't have an identifable skillset are signing up in droves. Many of them don't speak English at a level adequate to hold down an everyday conversation let alone read Upwork's legal and help pages (none of which are not translated into other languages as far as I'm aware) to find out how the site works.

These new freelancers are really easy targets for scammers.  They show up in the forum on a daily basis saying they've been scammed by clients who demand payment for registration and ID cards. They usually show up in the forum after agreeing to start working for these bogus clients without contracts.

So it's kind of like the perfect storm. And it's been raging for months.

If some of the people who post on the forum seem shrill, I think the constant presence of this issue might be making them that way. I'm not saying that's right or helpful, but I think it's a natural consequence when people are burning out as the result of a steady diet of watching preventable accidents happen. 

If you want an example of inappropriate corporate responses, let me know and I can message you one.

[#4]

I'm definitely aware of newer freelancers being targeted. I think both sides of the coin (freelancers watching preventable accidents happen and those getting scammed) have the right to be shrill. Like you said, the increase is astounding, and I think Upwork needs to reflect that their "prevention" methods are clearly not working. 

It is unfortunate that the poster (an experienced, top-rated freelancer) is not safe from scams either. 

[#5]

Sincerely, what would you have Upwork do? How do you make someone follow the rules and not be so greedy they don't care what they have to do?

[#6]

I disagree as well. I use only fixed-price jobs and I have never been scammed. The amount being paid is a red flag because it is more than anyone would ever pay for the supposed job. You have to ask, why would someone pay so much more? Clients do not overpay by that much unless the deal is shady. That's just a fact.

The only way to be protected is by using the automatic tracker correctly or using milestones to limit the amount of money up for a chargeback.

This freelancer took a job at many times his rate. What happens in the physical world when someone is promising you big bucks for almost nothing? His usual fee is directly related and if Upwork were to pay on automatic hours, they won't pay him an inflated rate, they will pay him according to his profile, which is $22.00 per hour.

I'm not subtle. If you don't follow the rules and you decide you are going to clean up off of one job you know well and good is not worth even a tenth of the fee - you are taking a huge gamble. Once you do that, I have no sympathy. There are freelancers who still get scammed after doing everything right, but they are few and far between. If freelancers follow the rules, and do not think they are going to suddenly make tons of money illigitmately, I do feel terrible for the few.

It's not victim blaming. It is insisting that freelancers act like adults and take responsibility for their actions. If they don't want to follow the rules, and accept jobs they know there is a problem with then they are on their own.

[#7]

Hi, Jeanne, I couldnt help but notice how you have no knowledge about voice over industry and devalue my work based on the amount of the contract. You should read Katie's post again but very carefully. "This freelancer took a job at many times his rate.", this sentence shows that you have zero knowledge about the voice over, whatsoever, if you dont have anything kind to say or any proper solutions to give, I am just going to invite you to not let out a peep.  

[#8]

hi, retana, i just want to clarify that ive done a lot less for a lot more budgets on fiverr. thank you!

[#9]

I'm glad to hear that you're making good money. It sounds like you're good at what you do and you have a specialized niche. That's a good situation to be in. It also sounds like the offer wasn't as unrealistic as it seemed to me. Usually, with scam jobs, they offer to pay you a lot of money for something that doesn't take very long. 

[#10]

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SokSambath P wrote:

hi, retana, i just want to clarify that ive done a lot less for a lot more budgets on fiverr. thank you!

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What you've done on Fiverr isn't really relevant to what clients see on your profile here. 

[#11]

hello, Katie, thank you for pointing this out, it seems that most of the comments try to blame me that i didnt see red flags or/and saw them but overlooked anyway. somehow i feels like i have to take all the blames while the platform does nothing to improve the payment method security. i dont think most freelancers know about the chargeback system or chargeback scams, i only knew about this in my life when it happened so of course I got scammed because I thought upwork was safe and the payment was secure after the fund in escrow was released. And yes this client said that the first part of the milestone was done but the second phase was canceled and asked me to pay them back a part of it through payoneer, imagine if I disagreed and the client got annoyed, what do you think they'll do? yes, they have the metaphorical knife that upwork gives them automatically to slay me via their feedback and rating; upwork wouldnt care about that either, if they client gives me one star and horrible comments, then they will still stand on the client's side, and I'm a top rated freelancer with over 60 5* rating straights, of course I wouldnt risk upsetting the client in this case. It seems like no matter what I do, I have to follow their rules blindly once the contract is officially created and accepted on the platform. And people on the plaform keep implying that I dont check the forums often enough, or that I didnt see the red flags, while not blaming upwork for raising awareness of this issue or improve anything with their system. And if you check the email that their team sent me, it's just so ridiculous how oppressing they are and how they suggest me to talk with the clients(the scammers) why they asked their banks to chargeback. i dont undestand why people get so horrible and lack so much empathy and unbiased opnions. 

[#12]

You need to worry more about Upwork than your scammer client. You violated so many rules, including sending money outside of Upwork, that you can be banned permanently. Public feedback is meaningless. Your JSS is based on private feedback and other metrics - nothing to do at all with anything you see publicly.

You have to take responsibility for yourself on any platform. People expect you to follow the rules and not take jobs many times your rate because you think you are going to make a lot of money for nothing. If you won't take responsibility for your actions, then perhaps freelancing is not for you.

As I said earlier, Upwork will do nothing, nor will any business in a chargeback, nor will the banks. None of them are suffering. We can chat about this all day, but unless financial pressure is brought to bear on the businesses and banks, nothing about chargebacks will change.

You have to protect yourself. And yes, that means taking a hard look at each and every client. If someone offers you so much money for little work, why do you think they would do that?

They do it to get people to take the fake job. The scammers have no shortage of takers.

[#13]

"If you won't take responsibility for your actions, then perhaps freelancing is not for you." haha you're funny Jeanne. Thanks for telling me what I should do with my life. 🙂

[#14]

I think a lot of people don't realize that scammers can be quite sophisticated, and they can be really good at figuring out how to manipulate people at an emotional level or put them into situations that they feel that they can't easily back out of. So you don't have to be particularly dumb to get caught up with one.

Someone tried to scam me into paying a lot of money for fake gems in Thailand many years ago. I was taken on a full one-hour tour to a series of Thai temples where I would "just happen" to meet people who kept mentioning the Thai government jewellery sale that "just happened" to be ending that day (so the story a lot of different people were telling me made it sound like there was this big opportunity that I was about to miss out on). I later figured out that they must have considered me a great target because I had just been teaching English in Japan. English teachers usually had some savings built up when they finished their contracts.

My only clue was that it seemed like I was meeting way too many people by coincidence who just happened to be talking about this governemtn jewellery sale. Later I figured that they must have been calling each other on cell phones to relay the conversations I had with each of them so they could exchange information for the next story the next person I "just happened" to meet along the way had for me.

Later, I was talking about my experience with a few other people I met there. One guy was from Germany, and he said the scammer he met had talked to him knowledgeably about German politics for an hour before getting into the scam story. I would never expect a con artist to have that kind of dedication, but I guess if there's a big payoff at the end, there woud be a lot of incentive to learn about German politics.

So some things I learned about scams are
1) there's usually some time pressure involved
2) they usually give you some critical reason why you can't do something sensible
3) they will get mad at you for any sign that you're not behaving the way they want you to behave

SokSambath, something that you may not have realized is that as a top-rated freelancer, you get a feedback removal perk. So once in every ten contracts or so, you can have bad feedback removed from your profile. Knowing that may have taken the pressure off getting bad feedback.

[#15]

thanks, renata, i think i am going to end the conversation now, thank you for all your comments even though some are not pariticularly helpful or problems-addressing, i appreciate your time responding to my concerns. 
regards,
sam

[#16]

Hey SokSambath,

You mentioned being concerned about your feedback when you were dealing with the scammer.

Since you are top-rated, if you are in a situation where you are worried about your feedback this might help in the future.

[#17]

Great stories, dear Renata. Thank you so much for sharing with us!

[#18]

Rather than see the posts as blaming you, take it as how they are telling you how to avoid it in the future. None of us can change what already happened, but we can advise on how to avoid it in the future. 

[#19]

Wow, I am sorry this happened to you. I see the situation has been tagged solved. Has it actually been solved?

I am new here and I just started sending out proposals. Reading this and other comments have given me a better understanding of what to look out for. 

[#20]

Hello Omolola, it's not solved particularly, but there's a link in that "solution post" that is helpful to freelancers. If I saw that article before the job I took fromt the scammer, I could have avoided it. Thank you!

[#21]

> If I saw that article before

I say it's not about greed or common sense but more about experience. 

Most of you will laugh when someone fall victim to the cheque sending scam which is mentioned as the "oldest scam" in Wes' post. It's "common sense" to avoid it for most of you.

Well, but people here never heard of that scam and will definitely fall for it EXCEPT that the scam will not work. That oldest-common-sense scam for you, is something new and unthinkable and it could never happen, here. Our scammers laugh at how silly that scam sounds.

There's a lot of things or scam tricks in this world that we don't know yet. I'll say "don't be cocky".

[#22]

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Radia L wrote:

> If I saw that article before

I say it's not about greed or common sense but more about experience. 

Most of you will laugh when someone fall victim to the cheque sending scam which is mentioned as the "oldest scam" in Wes' post. It's "common sense" to avoid it for most of you.

Well, but people here never heard of that scam and will definitely fall for it EXCEPT that the scam will not work. That oldest-common-sense scam for you, is something new and unthinkable and it could never happen, here. Our scammers laugh at how silly that scam sounds.

There's a lot of things or scam tricks in this world that we don't know yet. I'll say "don't be cocky".

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SO true, Radia. I think the one true thing about all scams: it seems too good to be true. If that comes up, then run don't walk. 

[#23]

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Radia L wrote:

> If I saw that article before

I say it's not about greed or common sense but more about experience. 

Most of you will laugh when someone fall victim to the cheque sending scam which is mentioned as the "oldest scam" in Wes' post. It's "common sense" to avoid it for most of you.

Well, but people here never heard of that scam and will definitely fall for it EXCEPT that the scam will not work. That oldest-common-sense scam for you, is something new and unthinkable and it could never happen, here. Our scammers laugh at how silly that scam sounds.

There's a lot of things or scam tricks in this world that we don't know yet. I'll say "don't be cocky".

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Hey Radia,

I agree your comment about experience. This is why I try to post Wes's article when I see someone posting about being scammed. It might not help the person who posted, but at least the people who might be reading about scams for the first time might see it.

Also, some scams work simply because the targets are good people or they may naturally be extremely kind and generous. A lot of refund scams target older adults who don't have that much computer experience. Ironically, they can fall for refund scams because they're honest and empathetic. So we need to teach the kind and generous people in our lives how to be canny and cynical like the people who give advice on Upwork. 🙃

[#24]

Jeremiah B.,

You say, "Upwork will slap you with sanctions if they suspect you are attempting to collect outside of their website. Even mailing the client a collections invoice can get your account suspended or banned."

But according to Upwork Moderator Annie Jane B. "the Upwork team also helps the freelancer or agency challenge the reversal (chargeback)...Our team can submit a rebuttal to the client’s bank on the freelancer’s behalf if they provide proof of the work or deliverables. They would need to move quickly, so please provide the requested proof within 48 hours of being notified of the reversal if you’d like us to proceed. Keep in mind that it can take the bank up to 90 days to review and provide their final decision. The client’s bank will have the final say regarding the rebuttal and we have no control over the outcome."

Re: Having a serious issue because of a charg... - Upwork Community

There is no indication Upwork does not allow freelancers to pursue a client to get payment for work completed.

Have you actually tried to pursue a client after they reversed payment to you via a chargeback by their bank?

[#25]

Upwork team didn't helps the freelancer challenge the reversal (chargeback). Moreover, they cover the scammer in every possible way. I can't even tell if there really was a chargeback or if Upwork came up with it when he wanted to. I was denied any information even after 90 days.

[#26]

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Will L wrote:

Jeremiah B.,

You say, "Upwork will slap you with sanctions if they suspect you are attempting to collect outside of their website. Even mailing the client a collections invoice can get your account suspended or banned."

But according to Upwork Moderator Annie Jane B. "the Upwork team also helps the freelancer or agency challenge the reversal (chargeback)...Our team can submit a rebuttal to the client’s bank on the freelancer’s behalf if they provide proof of the work or deliverables. They would need to move quickly, so please provide the requested proof within 48 hours of being notified of the reversal if you’d like us to proceed. Keep in mind that it can take the bank up to 90 days to review and provide their final decision. The client’s bank will have the final say regarding the rebuttal and we have no control over the outcome."

Re: Having a serious issue because of a charg... - Upwork Community

There is no indication Upwork does not allow freelancers to pursue a client to get payment for work completed.

Have you actually tried to pursue a client after they reversed payment to you via a chargeback by their bank?

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Will, I'd like to add that I have actually spoken directly to CS when a client's payment method failed and they dragged their feed to pay (they did eventually through bonus) that I was told I would be able to take them to small claims court to pursue payment, although it never got to that point.