"Editing and Proofreading" -- Avoid Scams

[mbccluff]

I've been very active on Upwork for the past three months as an editor. At first, I applied to anything and everything that said "Editing and Proofreading"—probably 30+ proposals. I had a response rate from the clients of about 35%. However, it seems that many of them were scams or, at the very least, shady. 

The responses are all similarly worded to the effect of "Your application has been reviewed by our HR team and passed on to, JOHN SMITH, our hiring manager. He is awaiting your call on WhatsApp. Please contact him ASAP. He will discuss training and compensation."

Some of these are even accompanied by a google doc that discusses paying an Upwork contract cancellation fee to move the work outside of Upwork.

Am I being paranoid, or does the similarly worded response not make it seem like this is a scam?

[BojanS]

Hi Michael,

It's definitely a great call to keep an eye out for fraudsters out there who may try to take advantage of professionals like you. Please check our Stay Safe series and learn more on how to work safe online:

• Stay Safe Online: Preventing Fraud
• Stay Safe Online: what you need to know
• Stay Safe Online: How circumvention hurts the marketplace and your business
• Stay Safe Online: Paid and Leased Account Fraud

If you see a violation of the Upwork Terms of Service, we encourage you to use Report Suspicious User Activity feature.

Thank you for flagging this for us and for helping us keep Upwork a safe and trusted marketplace! 

[petra_r]

---

Michael C wrote:

Am I being paranoid, or does the similarly worded response not make it seem like this is a scam?

---

Those are the good old "fake check" scam, or variations of the theme.

Never communicate with any client outside Upwork before you are hired, which will avoid the scammers, as they always "interview" outside the platform.

Plus communicating outside the platform is a violation of Upwork's terms of Service.