Typing jobs - are they legit?

[39412916]

I am new to this platform and freelancing and I see all these offers for easy typing jobs, where PDF documents need to be retyped into ms Word. Since there are so many of these similar jobs, I was wondering if this is a real thing? Because don't converters for PDF to Word exist? I'm not sure how this could be a scam since payment goes via upwork, but I'm also not sure how this could be a real job.

[ashrafkhan81]

That's the catch right here! The payment does not go through Upwork and they make you pay instead of paying you...so that's how it is a scam. 

Most of those jobs advertise very attractive compensation for simple jobs, people get attracted to it, the "client" then asks you for some kind of payment for "verification fee" or "Id card" or "security deposit" the payment asked is not very high but in return, you are promised high-income opportunity so many fall for it....like pay $50 for verification once everything is verified you can earn $800-$1000 each week ...

in some cases they fund the escrow and ask you to transfer part of that to their friends in need from your bank account once you do that, they charge back the transaction so they receive your payment and get their money back ...

since you are new, my advice to you is to stay away from "easy" money jobs, and if it looks suspicious it probably is...

[4a1498c5]

Hello, I have this situation exactly, this is happening to me and I do not know what to do and how to make them to pay me back my money, can you please help me or if you know someone who can help or someone who has been scammed like this? I would appreciate it a lot... 

[prestonhunter]

re: "Hello, I have this situation exactly, this is happening to me and I do not know what to do"

What you are supposed to do is learn from your mistakes and don't make those same mistakes again in the future.

re: "and how to make them to pay me back my money"

Um... sorry.

You can not get your money back ever.

re: "can you please help me"

I just did.

re: "or if you know someone who can help or someone who has been scammed like this?"

Yes.

Many people have been scammed like this before. In the Community Forum, one can read hundreds of firsthand accounts of getting scammed the same way.

[paywell]

I would recommend Upwork to create an algorythm to calculate the usual price for every job type and mark much higher rates red, if they are above market level. 

Since typing jobs are a frequent scam, I would recommend making it harder to post such jobs.

A way to do this would be to make clients input the amount of words/pages / video hours to be transcribed, and a budget, so that an algorythm can be put in place to analyze the price and compare it with the usual price level.

If the level is above average, it should be marked red for the Freelancer, with a hint popping up, containing a link on how to filter out scammers.

Another, more sophisticated way, would be making it mandatory for the client to upload (and either make visible or hide).

This shouldn’t hold real clients back because they have to do this either way, since all job-related communication has to be done through Upwork, and the client has to upload the file sooner or later.

As soon as a file is uploaded – it can be hashed by Upwork or even put through an algorythm, which could analyze / sample the audio (in order to compare it automatically).

That way repeatedly uploaded PDF/Picture/Audio-files could be automatically "red flagged" for the security team and action can be taken on such clients and/or their posts.

I would have such „clients” shadow banned.

I wouldn’t recommend outright banning scammers, since they will look for a workaround.

Just make them unable to get proposals (or even better - make them think they are receiving proposals through faux „Freelancer” replies).

Since Upwork is interested in getting the client to pay on the platform and scammers don’t pay – this will be a winning solution both for the platform as well as the Freelancers.

Real Clients win as well, because Freelancers will propose to their jobs, not to the scammers.

[martina_plaschka]

These jobs are ALL scams. Nobody pays that kind of money for typing. A client pretending he doesn't know how to copy/paste is just laughable. 

[prestonhunter]

Waste of your time.

Don't bother.

First of all:
They're all scams. These aren't real jobs. These are scammers trying to steal money from you.

Second: If you run into something like this which is NOT a scam (unlikely), it's still a waste of your time. There's no money to be made doing something like that. You would be better off finding money-earning opportunities in your non-online local economy.

[renata101]

Hi Rosalie,

This is a good article to read if you're new to Upwork. It explains a lot of common scams, so it can help you avoid bad experiences.

https://community.upwork.com/t5/Community-Blog/Top-Red-Flags-for-Scams-From-Community-Member-Wes-C/b...
Also, the rules of the platform require you to keep communication on Upwork until you have a contract in place.  And make sure that you have a contract before you start working. If the client hasn't sent you an offer through the Upwork message system, and you haven't accepted it, you don't have a contract.

Never pay any kind of fee for anything directly to a client (registration fee and ID card fees are common scams) and you don't need to share personal information by filling in extra forms. The contracts are on Upwork.