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Edita's avatar
Edita S Community Member

Invitation to Interview Scam or Valid?

Hello!

I am new to upwork and am not quite familiar how things works. This morning I got an email that I've been selected for an online interview through Google Hangouts. This doesn't seem right to me, but could you please look into this and let me know if this is a scam?

Please see attached screenshot of the invite.

Your help on this matter is greatly appreciated.

 

**Edited for community guidelines**

 

11 REPLIES 11
Preston's avatar
Preston H Community Member

Google Hangouts invite = scam

Preston's avatar
Preston H Community Member

Edita:

Entry-level newbie Upwork freelancers are regularly targeted by scammers.

 

You shared a screenshot showing us an invitation which is from the most common scam on Upwork.

 

For now you should focus only on the jobs which you carefully select and send proposals to. All job invitations you receive at this time are scams.

 

When you gain more skill and experience, then you may start to receive legitimate invitations. That is something you may look forward to in the future.

 

At this time, if any client contacts you and mentions Google Hangouts, you should simply BLOCK them from communicating with you further. Don't waste your time.

Edita's avatar
Edita S Community Member

Sounds good. Thank you!

Bojan's avatar
Bojan S Community Manager

Thank you for flagging this to us, Edita. I've checked and it looks like the job has already been taken down because it was in violation of Upwork ToS and action has been taken on the client account. 

 

Please check out this post for more tips on how to avoid questionable jobs and do use the flag option found on each job post to report any suspicious or inappropriate content.

 

Thank you.

~ Bojan
Upwork
Edita's avatar
Edita S Community Member

Will do. Thank you, Bojan!

Virginia's avatar
Virginia F Community Member

It's a scam - flag it and forget about it.

 

Then read this:

 

https://community.upwork.com/t5/New-to-Upwork/Tips-to-Avoid-Questionable-Jobs/td-p/240833

Edita's avatar
Edita S Community Member

That's what I thought. Thanks!

Martina's avatar
Martina P Community Member


Edita S wrote:

Hello!

I am new to upwork and am not quite familiar how things works. This morning I got an email that I've been selected for an online interview through Google Hangouts. This doesn't seem right to me, but could you please look into this and let me know if this is a scam?

Please see attached screenshot of the invite.

Your help on this matter is greatly appreciated.

 


Be vary of any unsolicited invitations. You are new, you have no upwork history. You are targeted by a scammer because you reside in the US. They will do some bogus interview and then offer to send you a check for office equipment. Then you are supposed to cash the check and send them the money, after which the check bounces. 

Note: you are not allowed to receive any money outside of upwork, and no stranger on the internet sends newbies money out of the goodness of their heart. A legit client assumes that you have everything that you need to do business on your end. 

Edita's avatar
Edita S Community Member

Thank you, Martina!

Nayeon's avatar
Nayeon K Community Member

I just got one of those! Their job description had a website of a print-on-demand business, and then in the invitation it was talking about a totally different big company based in Germany. They'd only do the text interview through Zoom, which is unheard of for me. So that was the first red flag. 

 

What got me wondering even more was that they "hired" me on the spot $50/hr (4-8 hours a week) and offered to pay for all these softwares for every specialty area (that no one person can cover) and office equipment/furniture including an iPhone, MacBook Pro, iPad, etc. that would probably cost over $30K-$40K easy. That was a major red flag.

 

They also said that they are going to have a physical office in my area (Atlanta, GA) in two months. So I asked which part in Atlanta, and they had no idea. 

 

So I asked for their LinkedIn profile and they started making all kinds of excuses as to why they don't have it or they'll send later. And they asked for my personal information. I kept pushing back and digging for them to confirm their legitimacy, it took way longer for them to respond after that. Their email they wanted me to send all my personal info was: **Edited for Community Guidelines**

 

I'm so glad I started researching Upwork scams because I definitely felt it was too good to be true! The names they used were **Edited for Community Guidelines** and **Edited for Community Guidelines**. lol

 

**Edited for Community Guidelines****Edited for Community Guidelines**

Arjay's avatar
Arjay M Retired Team Member

Hi Nayeon,

 

Thank you for reaching out and reporting this here in the Community. I'm sorry to learn about this disappointing experience. However, some content from your post has been removed for Community Guidelines. Please avoid including names of persons or companies (or other identifying information) in an accusation of misconduct, incompetence, or other wrongdoing. Also, posting contact information, be it your own, another person’s, or a company's for any purpose. Posting email content, chat transcripts, or other private communication are not allowed. 

 

Firstly, a real client will never ask you to give them money to start working, cash a check for them, work for free, or provide your personal information. I would like to let you know that sharing contact information before a contract has started is against Upwork's Terms of Service and that all communications prior to the contract starting must take place on Upwork.

 

We also encourage you to let us know if you find anything suspicious has happened by using the Flag as Inappropriate option throughout the platform. You can learn more about user reporting here. You may also want to check this help article and this thread for more information on how to stay safe on Upwork. 

 

~ Arjay
Upwork