You violated the terms of service and the cardinal rule on Upwork by contacting a client outside of the Upwork message system without a contract in place.
Telegram job offers are always scammers that target new freelancer profiles, and demand you send them a security deposit fee for them to release funds to you--once the non-existent job is done. They've been around forever. No need for a scam alert.
You circumvented payment by accepting to be paid outside of Upwork to avoid paying the 10% fee that you agreed to when you signed the terms of service and joined Upwork.
Which could get your account permanently banned since you colluded with a scammer to circumvent Upork's payment system and fee.
You didn't think you needed to read the terms of service before accepting a job offer here?
Or take the Upwork Academy courses to learn how to navigate the platform successfully and safely to avoid scams?
If you'd just taken the time to educate yourself -- before jumping in feet first--you would never have fallen for this obvious scam.
I guess some people like to swim with sharks...
