Suspicious client? **Edited**

[rbeccajoy]

I am very new to Upwork and had a client respond to one of my proposals. They sent me their Microsoft Teams contact and we've been communicating through there. She did the interview through this and asked which bank I use (to verify it works for their payment module to send me the hourly rate). Once they started communicating with me, they immediately removed the listing from upwork. I apparently got the job after the interview and they sent me an offer letter, but I'm wondering why all of this communication and offer letter are happening outside of upwork. Is this normal? Also, the initial hourly rate was $40, but now it's $50? None of this feels right.. and I need some help confirming if this is not how proposals with upwork are usually done

[martina_plaschka]

Do the Learning Paths on the right hand side of this screen, very urgently. 

You really need to learn to recognize scams earlier. 

[sofia2008]

Communicating outside of Upwork before a contract is in place on Upwork and accepting payment outside of Upwork are both violations of the Terms of Service and can get an account suspended.

[rbeccajoy]

Thanks ladies, I sent several tickets to upwork to try to start up an investigation since they had immediately taken their ad down, but I wanted to put this on the discussion board in case anyone else comes across one of their job postings in the future. I definitely declined their offer and want to help make sure no other newbies get sucked in. 

[martina_plaschka]

The client can't remove his job posting. Somebody else reported it and upwork took it down.