Can suspicious client see my personal information?

[chenqiong1235]

Hi everyone,

I'm not completely new to Upwork, but also not experienced in dealing with seemingly suspicious clients. 

Few days ago I was offered an invitation to a job about PS composition (that's the public discription). After several times asking him back and forth (he offered, then withdrawed, then offered again), he finally started the contract (80% funded). It's a government document template that he asked me to vectorize. I've been wondering about the legality of the job but since it's on Upwork and as I know, digital tracing of government documentation is fine as long as they stay digital, I took the contract.

Before I actually started doing anything, he offered me (in the chat) to do the next project after this, saying that for the next project we should communicate outside of Upwork. I got startled and asked him why, he said it's because the content is "not good" and "can't let Upwork know". This is where I know I'm done 🙂 I immediately informed him that I feel uncomfortable with both of the offers (current and future) and I ended the contract. I didn't know my future JSS will be affected, but even now I know, I still think ending the contract is the thing I should do because I don't want to deal with this client anymore.

Right after I ended his contract, I saw Upwork has taken away his access to the site. Maybe it's due to his several attempts to send me digital government document template links (Upwork notified the legality of all this sites) and my act of ending the contract made Upwork cautious about this client. 

It's a long story, I'm sorry, but here is my question: can he, by any chance, see my personal information? His location is in the US but he's from the same nation with me (we communicated in our language, not English). You may think I'm thinking way too much into this, but I'm afraid he would know my personal information (like physical address, phone number, etc). Since Upwork has noticed something wrong with his account, the matter didn't go by smoothly for him, his act may or may not be legal, all of those are things I don't want to be involved in. I ended the contract, hasn't given him any of the (suspicious) work yet. At least right now I need to know my personal life apart from Upwork is still private from this whole matter.

Thank you for reading my seemingly delusional lines. This is my second client on Upwork and my third job, I don't want to experience this insecured feeling for long so I can start another normal job again.

Thanks again!

[petra_r]

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Quynh T wrote:

I immediately informed him that I feel uncomfortable with both of the offers (current and future) and I ended the contract.

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I might have completed the first contract if you thought it was legit.

Actually the contract won't affect your JSS at all, because 1) contracts with no payment only affect the JSS is the client leaves bad private feedback and 2) contracts from suspended clients are excluded anyway!

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Quynh T wrote:

Can he, by any chance, see my personal information?

I'm afraid he would know my personal information (like physical address, phone number, etc).

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No, the client can only see your name and your town, and the client won't go after you over something like this.

[chenqiong1235]

Thank you for replying me! Right now in the chat, his name is showing as temporarily suspended from Upwork and can be restored in the future. If his account is suspended permanently, will I be able to "check" due to the status in the chat?

It's the way he downright said his future work is not safe and "can't let Upwork know" that makes me think this client is certainly a bad target that should be suspended from this community for good.  He only created the account recently btw, to post this job.

[NikolaS]

Hi Quynh,

I am sorry to hear about your experience. I would like to confirm to you that the client only had access to the information available on your profile.  The account information you provided such as phone number, address, etc is not publicly available. 

Please check this help article for more information on how to use the flag option found on each job post or message to report any suspicious or inappropriate content. Also, check out this post for more tips on how to avoid questionable jobs.

[chenqiong1235]

One small question: does this "XXX does not currently have access to Upwork and will not receive messages until access is restored" appear when the client close their account on their own? Or it only means Upwork has blocked them?

Because it appeared 10 minutes after the last line in the chat, and I didn't report anything. I'm just curious if Upwork can really detect potential scam/fraud THAT FAST based on the activities happen in the chat w/o any reports.