Invitation to Interview Valid or Scam?

[annathornton]

I’m questioning the validity of an invitation to interview. I’m new and received an invitation to interview along with 200+ other people. The client’s payment is not verified and they asked for a cell phone number and e-mail. Attached is a screenshot of the number interviewing, etc... Does this seem legitimate? Is this something to report? Thank you for your assistance!

**Edited for Community Guidelines**

[g_vasilevski]

Hi Anna,

Our team will investigate this further and if any violations are found proper actions will be taken. Check out this Post for more tips on how to avoid questionable jobs. If you have any additional questions let me know, thank you.

[annathornton]

Thank you!

[martina_plaschka]

Good that you came here to ask.

Anyone interviewing 200+ people should not be considered a serious client in any case. They likely want some free work, or something more nefarious such as identity theft. Considering that you are in the US, they could also try making you cash a check and steal your money.

Any unsolicited invitation that you receive before you have a reasonable upwork history is very likely to be a scam.  Don't forget to flag the job posting for possible scam.

[prestonhunter]

My philosophy on something like this:

If a client is hiring 200+ people, he doesn't really need or want ME specifically.

He's looking for people in bulk. Why? To serve some kind of scheme of his own. It's unlikely this is going to benefit me in any way.

Moreover: This client is asking for CELL PHONE AND EMAIL ADDRESS.

That sinks it for me. These are valuable pieces of information that this so-called "client" is collecting. Perhaps he is compiling some kind of contact list to pass on to people for some reason. Maybe for marketing. Maybe for identity theft. Maybe as a step in a scam. Maybe to try to hire people off platform. None of which I want to be involved.

HOWEVER: If a client is hiring 200 people, and sent me an invitation, if I happened to read what it is they want me to do and I don't have a problem with it, I might accept an invitation or accept being hired if I don't need to spend any further time in an "interview stage" and can immediately start getting paid.

FOR EXAMPLE: Through Upwork, I have taken part in paid questionnaires and paid phone interviews for studies. Not conducted by Upwork itself, but conducted by actual clients who set up jobs and hired lots of freelancers. People were conducting a study and I got paid to answer opinion questions online, or I got paid to talk to somebody on the phone. In this case there were indeed many participants gettting hired.

But this is definitely an exception. I'm pretty cautious about this kind of thing.

The bottom line: If you're a client doing something suspicious or something that presents a traditional red flag, you better be VERY QUICK with the money if you want to get my attention and have any chance of getting me to participat.