client wants to pay via upwork bonus system

[dbd428af]

Hello.

I got an offer from a client, and it says

"please don’t send requests for payment, our accounts manager will pay you through the Upwork Bonus System once due (The $5 is a placeholder to keep the contract open, this way we can offer you more projects)."

Is this legitimate? And I wonder why he wants to do it that way. Worried it might be a scam.

[martina_plaschka · Accepted solution]

Sounds like a scam that could get you suspended if you accept payment outside of upwork. 

[75f7010a]

Thanks for your valuable information. 

[PradeepH]

Hi Jiwon,

Thank you for your message. Milestones are used to define the deliverables you will submit, and the payment you will receive for those deliverables on a fixed-price contract. You will need to ensure your active milestone adheres to the work and payment terms as per your discussion with the client. The client will need to fund the milestones in advance and that fund will be held in escrow until the deliverable is submitted and approved. Please note that only the money that's held in escrow is secure. Upwork can't help you collect any funds that have been promised but not deposited to escrow. Therefore, it's important that the amount held in escrow is appropriate for the work you will perform for that milestone. You can reach out to your client directly if the milestone isn't what you were expecting.

Thank you

Pradeep

[wescowley]

Jobs paying like that can be legit, but they are very often scams. Read this post and see if anything sounds similar:

https://community.upwork.com/t5/New-to-Upwork/List-of-red-flags-for-scams/m-p/1017044#M158742

[dbd428af]

Thank you for the helpful article. I read it carefully, from start to an end. Reading the article, I came up with another question.. I recently worked with a client who needs his app translated. So I translated it via crowdin.com. After that, he sent me a link(google play) so I could install the app on my phone and check. Your article says apps can be malwares. Is there any chance this could be one of them?

[wescowley]

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Jiwon L wrote:

Thank you for the helpful article. I read it carefully, from start to an end. Reading the article, I came up with another question.. I recently worked with a client who needs his app translated. So I translated it via crowdin.com. After that, he sent me a link(google play) so I could install the app on my phone and check. Your article says apps can be malwares. Is there any chance this could be one of them?

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Yes, apps can be malware. But Crowdin is a legitimate site for localizing/translating apps (I think I've used it for editing a client's localization), and it sounds like the client is asking you to verify (proofread) the translation after you did it. Of course, I can't be certain, but this sounds ok.

What I've seen reported as scams are cases where the client wants the freelancer to download the app and translate it from the app, which isn't how localization works. 

[dbd428af]

Oh I see. Thank you for the information!