Job proposal, scam

[#1]

I was emailed this morning by someone claiming they were with a company I submitted a proposal for. We've talked all day in fact. A little while ago, I got an email from Upwork that the proposal was deleted for not following term of service. Was I scammed?

[#2]

re: "I was emailed this morning by someone claiming they were with a company I submitted a proposal for. We've talked all day in fact. A little while ago, I got an email from Upwork that the proposal was deleted for not following term of service. Was I scammed?"

You were not scammed.

You were protected.

Upwork probably figured out that this client was a scammer, or was otherwise violating Upwork ToS.

And Upwork took the job down.

Because Upwork took that action, the connects you used to send a proposal... will be RETURNED to you.

re: "We've talked all day in fact."

Your time was wasted.

I guess you can say you were "scammed" because of that. But you allowed that to happen.

You should not be talking all day with a client who you are not under contract with.

If you're working all day on a project, you should be getting paid for your time.

[#3]

I was referring to the person emailing me being a scammer, not Upwork.  I don't know how this works, so I guess this one is on me.  Oh well, I will move on.

[#4]

Hi Brandi, 

I'm sorry to hear about your experience. Thanks for flagging this job to us. I've checked and it looks like the job has been taken down because it was in violation of Upwork ToS and action has been taken on the client account. 

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!

[#5]

In my experience, no interview should take more than 15-20 minutes.

[#6]

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Brandi H wrote:

I was referring to the person emailing me being a scammer, not Upwork.  I don't know how this works, so I guess this one is on me.  Oh well, I will move on.

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You were probably "talking" to a bot. It could have been worse, you could have been stuck with a bogus check and lost real money. 

New US freelancers are prime target for this scam. Remember that in the real world nobody buys office equipment for strangers on the internet. 

Regarding your profile - it does scream newbie, unfortunately, which makes you a target. I really don't know what you are offering to do for clients, maybe work on that. The best way to learn IMO is to research how other freelancers in your field are presenting. Good luck!