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alex_slater
Community Member

Should I proceed with this job? Is it legitimate?

So, this is it:

I recently got a response to my proposal about a part-time hourly job that would be long term. When they responded, a few things caught my attention.

  1. The info email they provided had a company name, and that company is based out of Germany. Googling this company and some research shows that the actual company has a slightly different email for info requests. Not good.
  2. The person who is to interview me has no linkedin account that is fleshed out. I can't really find him anywhere. Usually this wouldn't be the case with a hiring manager.
  3. They want to take me to google hangouts to do the interview. I am aware this breaks ToS and for this reason and for protection (after all, I might as well use that protection since im paying 20% of my earnings to UpWork for their platform), I asked them to switch to UpWork. They agreed initially, and when they said that the google chat would be used (apparently they didn't remember agreeing to use UpWork?), I responded asking that we use the UpWork chat. I know he read the message, but has failed to respond, even though he has quickly responded just a few messages before. Again, not good.
  4. This one is kind of funny. The only real contact i have had outside of upwork has been on google hangouts, where I suggested we switch to upwork for my safety. When I went to send this message to the person, I noticed his picture is very stock-photoish. Like, REALLY stock-photoish. I google image searched it, and, unless this guy does stock photos as a side job, i'm pretty sure he isn't using his real image.
  5. They mentioned they didn't want a video call, so they can 'forward the convorsation to HQ'.
  6. The response to my proposal was very fishy. It seemed to be completely automated.

I will probably commence the interview, as long as they don't ask for personal info and they stay within UpWork for messaging. What do you guys think?

1 REPLY 1
kochubei_valeria
Community Member

Hi Alexander,

 

I checked and I see that the team has already taken actions against this client account as it was in violation of Upwork ToS. While it's not against the ToS to communicate outside of Upwork, Google Hangout interview is quite often a suspicious sign. 

 

Check out this Post for more tips on how to avoid questionable jobs.

~ Valeria
Upwork
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