Communication with prospective clients

[cda_costa]

Hi All,

I am new to Upwork and submitted a few proposals. Two proepective clients contacted me through messaging potentially trying to schedule an interview/chat. They sent me a link to join Google hangout and shortly after that, in both cases, I see in my inbox that "these person doesnt currently have access to Upwork and you can't message them until their connection is restored", or something like that.

Could someone tell me what's happening here?

Thank you

[prestonhunter]

The invitations you receive from out of the blue from clients who want you to interview with them using Google Hangouts are not actual job offers. These are scammers. They want to steal about $3000 from your bank account.

There is no way that you can benefit from continuing to communicate with them.

If these are responses you received as a result of having sent a proposal, then they are almost certainly scammers as well.

A general tactic would be to tell them that they may communicate with you using the Upwork Messages tool. Do not communicate with them using Google Hangouts.

In this case, it appears that Upwork has already removed these accounts from the platform. Because they are scammers.

[cda_costa]

Thank You!

They were not out of the blue, they were actual postings in Upwork that I sent a proposal to.

And I just received a message from Upwork that the last proposal where this happened was declined.

But thanks for the answer. Short time at Upwork and came across a few scammers already.

[prestonhunter]

Because the scammers target newbies.

I don't run into scammers. Experienced freelancers rarely do.

[BojanS · Accepted solution]

Hi Clara,

I'm sorry to hear about your experience. Thanks for flagging these jobs to us. I've checked and jobs have already been taken down because those were in violation of Upwork ToS and action has been taken on the clients' accounts. 

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.

Thank you!