Beware of Scammers

[#1]

Scammers always want you to open links/ join Whatsapp chats etc anything to take one outside upwork, after applying for their job postings to unleash their fraudulent activities. Some will even request you pay some money to them before starting the job, that they will double it as soon as possible. Please run away from such people.

I will advise,we also check out the clients hire rate, feedbacks from freelancers etc.

[#2]

Thank you for sharing this. I'm brand new here and I submitted a proposal for a client needing proofreading, who is in a different time zone and stated in their project description that the expectation is to have a Zoom call with the chosen person to discuss the proofreading feedback. I was not sure if that's a common practice on here, as I would think you would normally want proofreading feedback via a Word document or similar. Have you heard of this type of request (Zoom calls) for simple short-term proofreading tasks? Curious what to make of it.  

[#3]

Some clients request for zoom call,even though it's against upwork rules, but I think you should listen to what they have to say first,then you know if they are real or not

[#4 · Accepted solution]

You can easily know if a client is real or not by telling him that communicating outside Upwork before a contract is in place is a violation of Upwork's Terms of Service. If they are not real, they will stop communicating with you.

Breaking the rules to see if they are real or not is still violating Upwork's rules.

[#5]

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Stella A wrote:

Some clients request for zoom call,even though it's against upwork rules, but I think you should listen to what they have to say first,then you know if they are real or not

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Upwork has an integrated Zoom feature, so it's not against the rules to use that. Click on the phone icon at the top of your message board to initiate a call.

[#6]

just got scammed by a Freelancer artist on here **Edited for Community Guidelines**  She agreed to do a drawing for me 

over a munth ago she asked for partial payment i made the payment now she's completely ignoring me

I would advise not hiring her find someone else

[#7]

I'm signing as freelancer and received message and invited me outside upwork. They are offering a job as data entry, such an easy work. They don't want some contract for my outside job from upwork to secure the payment. They are using telegram instead.

**Edited for Community Guidelines**

 

[#8]

There is another scenario where I was almost tripped up is that the scammers also offer you a Direct offer/ Contract Hire offer within Upwork without having to send any proposal. Upwork sends you the notification that shows the offer and it seems legit. The client is even 'payment verified'. This may hook in newcomers like me as the whole process seems to be blessed by UPWORK since as contract hire, your work is anyway outside of Upwork and it's usually long term and the payment is also done directly by the client to you not through Upwork except maybe the first payment where Upwork collect their ' Instant connection fee'. They will offer your rate and everything but the first red flag for me was that the Accept Offer button was disabled and only Decline offer was enabled to click. That was weird.  Then you get instruction to do the job interview in an external app but without video and they will mention that they are working for a known company and even send you a link to the website but you find after further checking that the company referred to is only located in Asia and does not seem to have a US office where your offer is supposed to be located! I stopped there but I feel like if I continued I will be asked to receive a check posted by FedEx or UPS to deposit to my account and then cashed out to buy "software / equipments required for the job" but only to their known "vendor". The checks turns out to be fake and next thing you know your bank is catching you to pay the money back. It's a known tactic by scammers but where they used to contact you by phone, now they do it via Upwork too posing as real client. I hope this doesn't happen to anyone. And I hope Upwork is vigilant about our personal info that client can access when they offer Direct or Contract Hire.

[#9]

Good. Thanks