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luqman_mak
Community Member

"We Need Payoneer Dollars Today" - This job is a scam

Link: **Edited for Community Guidelines**


Do not be fooled by these kinds of jobs posts, trading dollars for dollars is not a job - how did this person hire 2 people, i do not know but it might take a while for the post to be taken down. I hope this helps someone

19 REPLIES 19
PradeepH
Moderator
Moderator

Hi Luqman,

 

Thank you for reaching out to us. I shared your report with our team to investigate and take action based on our internal processes. In the future, feel free to use the "Flag as Inappropriate" option throughout the site to report any suspicious activity.

 

Thank you,

Pradeep

Upwork

Pradeep I know this is out of your control, but how about UpWork use some simple NLP AI to not allow these kinds of jobs to be posted in the first place for heavens sake.  This is childsplay, yet UpWork doesn't seem to either care, why is this left up to the community to discover and flag?

81aa2cd9
Community Member

Hi there, honestly said today I had such a contract but I told the client I will send his money in case my money is available and he agreed. I was paid 300$ for 100$, on Wednesday my money should be available, as soon as it is I have to send his 100$ to his Payoneer. Now I have to wait untill the payment process reaches available phase. I hope everything will be okay. If you have additional information please provide 🙂 I will highly appreciate it. Thank you 


Mane G wrote:

Hi there, honestly said today I had such a contract but I told the client I will send his money in case my money is available and he agreed. I was paid 300$ for 100$, on Wednesday my money should be available, as soon as it is I have to send his 100$ to his Payoneer. Now I have to wait untill the payment process reaches available phase. I hope everything will be okay. If you have additional information please provide 🙂 I will highly appreciate it. Thank you 


You're being scammed and will not get paid - this person is probably using a stolen credit card, and the funds will be reversed. Anytime a client offers to give you money for doing nothing, you can assume that it's a scam. It's also against the rules for you to send payments off of Upwork. Go through the Upwork Academy materials and learn how to use Upwork properly before you lose your money and your account.

 

Edited to add: Unbelievable! This scammer has already hired 8 different freelancers and has 4 other "jobs" in progress, paying ridiculous amounts like $800/hour. The current job post has been up for 11 days, apparently without anyone being smart enough to flag it. Maybe it's time to bring back the readiness test?

What should I do now?? The contract successfully ended, I trusted him because he has several positive feedbacks on his account. Besides, he agreed to be paid only in case of  my money's availability. He told me that it was as a business investment. I don't know all the details why he needed it, but it seems everything is still going well. Can he deceive me even in case I have money available?? what should I do in this case? I am rising talent on Upwork and my career is priceless for me. )


Mane G wrote:

What should I do now?? The contract successfully ended, I trusted him because he has several positive feedbacks on his account. Besides, he agreed to be paid only in case of  my money's availability. He told me that it was as a business investment. I don't know all the details why he needed it, but it seems everything is still going well. Can he deceive me even in case I have money available?? what should I do in this case? I am rising talent on Upwork and my career is priceless for me. )


You will not see the money.
- https://community.upwork.com/t5/Freelancers/To-all-freelancers-looking-for-help/m-p/1222058#M731117

- https://community.upwork.com/t5/Community-Blog/Top-Red-Flags-for-Scams-From-Community-Member-Wes-C/b...

Have you heard of chargebacks?  Even if the payment clears on UpWork, a client can file a chargeback on the credit card which will reverse the payment, even 30 - 45 days from now. At that point you will owe UpWork whatever money they have paid for the job, all of it.

 

Most likely the "client" is using a stolen credit card, when the owner sees the charges they will simply claim a chargeback and you will be out of pocket.  Under NO CIRCUMSTANCES should you pay anything on behalf of a client, ever, you will always end up scammed.


Mane G wrote:

What should I do now?? The contract successfully ended, I trusted him because he has several positive feedbacks on his account. 


Look at the amount of money he has ACTUALLY paid the freelancers that he's hired. Eight jobs posted, $33 total spent. Not one person has received a multi-hundred dollar payment, but by giving some freelancers a $1 or so each, now he has good reviews to fool more people like you. (And fool Upwork too, apparently - the job post is still up.) Why do you think that he gave you a good review before you did anything? 

 


Mane G wrote:

Besides, he agreed to be paid only in case of  my money's availability. He told me that it was as a business investment.


What kind of a "business investment" involves paying a bunch of people hundreds of dollars and getting a lot less money back? He was going to give you $300 and you give him $100, so he loses $200? That's a pretty stupid investment, don't you think? And why would he need to hire you? Are you an investment advisor who normally gets paid hundreds of dollars per hour? No, you are not. Listen to me: there is no such thing as a legitimate entry level job that pays $100-$780/hour. Stop applying for such nonsense; you will lose your money, and it looks very bad on your profile. (And even if the job WAS legitimate, you would be breaking Upwork's terms of service by sending money off of the platform - people have had their accounts banned for that.)

 

Thank you very much, now I got what's happening. Please could you help me to get rid of this headache without any problem? He promised to provide feedback after he receives the money. How can I be protected from it? I will highly appreciate it 🙏

He already gave you feedback - isn't that the $1 job in your profile, or have you fallen for this scam twice now? Just stop talking to him. Block him if you've been communicating outside of Upwork.

the first time I was paid 1$ and got a good feedback, but I don't know why I was being stupid later and gave him a chance to start a new contract 🥺 Now, that I have a lot of information I know that all these are scammers. I have not talked to him outside of Upwork. But this evening I tried to enter our conversation, I noticed that our conversations disappeared, I entered our ended contract and tried to hit him up again, but there was no option to write him. Maybe he blocked me, I don't know. The good news is that I haven't sent him any money. But in work in progress it shows 300$, Please tell me what my next step is so that I can completely get rid of him. I am so concerned 😞 I put the flag as inappropriate, maybe that's because I cannot write him (

and may he give me a bad feedback after all this? and if yes, how can I prevent it? 

If i understood you correctly, you have agreed not to send money until the payment is available to you - that takes a few days so hopefully you have not yet sent this client any money. 
DO NOT send any money, instead flag the job post and it will be removed - its almost a certainty that the money they sent will get returned.

There are many things that are strange about the contract -
- If the client wants you to send money to their Payoneer account, why dont they send your money through Payoneer account as well?
- If the client has dollars, why would they want your dollars and pay you more for them?
- Why is the contract an hourly one? 

The way scams work is they put you in a position where they try to get you to think without logic. Not only online, even in our day to day.

if you have already transfered money:
Maybe try contacting Payoneer and see if they can help you reverse your funds. 

For people reading this


Luqman M wrote:

There are many things that are strange about the contract -
- If the client wants you to send money to their Payoneer account, why dont they send your money through Payoneer account as well?
- If the client has dollars, why would they want your dollars and pay you more for them?
- Why is the contract an hourly one? 


These questions are meant to represent a logical approach. 
These scammers understand the terms of service of Upwork and use that to their advantage and there are many ways for them to take away from you.

Read through this link for top red flags to watchout for:
https://community.upwork.com/t5/Community-Blog/Top-Red-Flags-for-Scams-From-Community-Member-Wes-C/b...

For Upwork ToS, you can start here:
https://support.upwork.com/hc/en-us/articles/1500007569061-Our-most-important-policies

Then dig deeper into:
https://www.upwork.com/legal#clientpayments


It is still active, it is incredible that they have not done anything!

renata101
Community Member

Luqman,

Thanks for calling attention to that one. Unfortunately, there are currently five of those jobs posted on Upwork:

https://www.upwork.com/nx/jobs/search/?q=%22We%20Need%20Today%20Dollars%20Urgent%20For%20Business%20...

I wrote this post in March, there were about 20 posts then.
I like how you link the search engine lol, thats a nice way to do it and i think it doesnt get editted for community guidelines.

https://www.upwork.com/nx/jobs/search/?q=%28Dollars%20AND%20Payoneer%29&sort=recency
I found 20 😁

Hi Renata,

 

Thank you for contacting us. I shared your report with our team to investigate and take action based on our internal processes. 

 

Thank you,

Pradeep

Upwork

Thanks, Pradeep. So far, so good. It looks like they're gone for now.

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