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mekailbd
Community Member

What kind of Scam in this job? Can any one tell me??

Recently I saw lots of this type of job. What's the catch? 

**Edited for Community Guidelines**

Mekail R
ACCEPTED SOLUTION
martina_plaschka
Community Member

Client pretends to be in the US, but the writer is not an English native. In fact, I can't figure out what he is trying to say. The link refers to a different freelancer site, they are too lazy to even adjust their files. 

No freelancer should apply to this, as its completely unclear what it is about. 

What is the scam? No idea, maybe an advance fee scam, or malware in the google file. 

The stats are very confusing. How many people have they hired, 86 or 419? But only 9 jobs posted?

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8 REPLIES 8
martina_plaschka
Community Member

Client pretends to be in the US, but the writer is not an English native. In fact, I can't figure out what he is trying to say. The link refers to a different freelancer site, they are too lazy to even adjust their files. 

No freelancer should apply to this, as its completely unclear what it is about. 

What is the scam? No idea, maybe an advance fee scam, or malware in the google file. 

The stats are very confusing. How many people have they hired, 86 or 419? But only 9 jobs posted?

Hi Martina,

I can't see the job because it's been edited. It doesn't sound like this is a job anyone would want to send a proposal to because of the client history.

However, I'm just going to point out that simply being located in the US is not a determining factor in someone's English-language level. There are a lot of immigrants in the US, and there are  a lot of native English speakers in English-speaking countries with lousy grammar skills.  

It wasn't bad English, it was ghibberish. 

Of course there are bad English speakers, or non-natives in the US. I work on the premise: a client who is serious about his job, will do his best to write the best possible job posting to attract good freelancers. Therefore, if somebody knows their English isn't great, gets somebody else in the company to proofread it. 

It's not just a common curtesy, it's essential to attract talent.

Unless, of course, it's a tool to differentiate good and bad marks, the good ones being the freelancers who are willing to ignore all the red flags that the language alone points to. Non-native English freelancers are at an disadvantage here, because they might not spot all those red flags. 

prestonhunter
Community Member

Is this a scam? I don't know. But the client has a 1.56 out of 5 star rating, after 56 reviews.

 

Does that number influence your decision?

Yes this client account suspends by Upwork. 

Mekail R

Then it was a scam.

jeremiah-brown
Community Member

Your post was edited for community guidelines.

Just an example of one type of scam - 
If the client was offering to pay you in company stock, yes its a scam.  Some scammers will stand up shell corporations and take out 10,000 shares of private stock against their company.  They'll come here to Upwork, posing as legitimate clients interested in designing a new product that will "be a gamechanger".  They'll attempt to hire you and they will claim that they no longer have the ability to pay.  This is where the bait and switch comes in - they ask if you'll accept 5000 shares of company stock instead of payment.  This stock is worthless until the product takes off - and most never do because the scammer has no interest in bringing a product to market. 

Instead, they take these designs and use them as part of a pitch to secure investors, who will then infuse their shell corporation with capital.  This is how a scammer would start the base of a ponzi scheme.  They use invested funds to trickle payments to other investors and cycle their cash flow to give the appearance of legitimacy while securing new investments to keep growing their pool of money. 

The alternative is that this scam can also be used for money laundering (drugs, white collar crimes, etc) - where the money launderer poses as an investor and "loses" their investment through their own feigned ignorance.

Simple answer - if they aren't paying with money, just write it off as a scam (even if its a well-meaning person).  This is also covered in the Terms of Service - regarding methods of payment.

I haven't come across this, but the only people who would be scammed are those who violate the terms of service. Once you agree to be paid outside of Upwork (and there's no way you can pay in company stock while staying on the platform), you've committed a violation that could get your account deleted.

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