Upwork Scammers and I – How to Spot and Avoid Scammers on Upwork

Do you know that Fraudsters can steal your money through Freelancing platforms?

 

I recently dug out a tricky format that cyber fraudsters employ to defraud unsuspecting freelancers of their funds.

 

The Fraudsters connect with victims via Freelancing platforms like Upwork and disguise themselves as employees of established organizations.

 

The contracts these fraudsters propose can be valued up to $4,000 or even more. They clone Wells Fargo email addresses to send messages to victims and set up fake accounts to receive funds from unsuspecting freelancers.

 

Read on to learn how to Spot and Avoid Fraudsters on Upwork.

Timeline

July 9, 2023

I went to Upwork to source clients. I usually do this once in a while, even though only about 5% of my clients come from Upwork. While on the platform, I saw a job posting that requested the services of professional writers.

 

However, the client dropped their email address (applicationdesk6@gmail.com) and asked interested freelancers to reach out to him via email.

 

That was suspicious. Fraudulent people are quick to move their gigs away from Upwork because it is easier to get away with scams outside the platform.

 

You know, when you propose a contract as a client, you have to deposit the agreed amount in the escrow. This amount will eventually be released to the freelancer as long as he delivers the work.

 

But a scam on Upwork sounded strange. So I decided to follow up to learn their strategies. I copied the email address and quickly shot a simple message to them.

 

They responded promptly, told me I was hired, and redirected me to telegram.

 

But hold on! I was hired without any interview or call. Are you for real? Well, pretend you didn’t read that.

 

Again, I wondered which organization used telegram as an official communication channel, but scratch that.

 

What about the first line of his response? What about the poor use of punctuation in his response?

 

These three observations proved once again that this guy isn’t authentic. But never mind. Let’s get on to business.

 

I walked to telegram and Messaged Mr. Frank Markson (Obviously not Real Name/identity).

With so many grammatical errors, he claimed he worked for Adthrive. I’ve never heard of Adthrive before. So I quickly went to Google to make inquiries.

 

I discovered that Adthrive is a fairly established entity and can’t have a representative working in this manner. This is another proof that something is wrong. But let’s groove.

 

I responded to his questions and he unveiled the project for me.

There was a PDF of 200 pages with written content converted to images. I was to transcribe these images to Word documents. Ah!

 

With what I saw about Adthrive, what would it take them to sign up for an online converter and convert these things within a few minutes?

 

Now here is the funny thing, the fake company needs the project to be ready within 3 days. How on earth would someone manually transcribe 200 pages in 3 days? Unless it’s an Agency owner or someone who can hire a lot of freelancers within a few hours, it won’t be easy for a single freelancer to pull this off.

 

Mr. Markson claimed that their budget for the project was $4,200. That’s $21 per page. Honestly, this would be a fair rate if they truly want a human transcribed work. But a lot of things are already wrong.

 

He listed Payday, Skrill, Payeer, Bitcoin transfer, or direct bank payment as available payment options. I opted for direct payment into my dollar account.

10^th July

Mr. Markson tried to blackmail me with trust issues. By requesting my assurance, he is trying to prove that he is authentic. And in fact, the person to be suspected is me. This is a popular trick employed by cyber fraudsters.

At this point, it is already clear that I was chatting with a scammer. But then, I haven’t heard of anyone trying to scam freelancers of their money. I have only heard of occasions where freelancers complete projects without receiving payments. So I decided to see this format off to the end.

 

The document was sent via Linkfileshare, and I was meant to download it through a link. I wasn’t sure if the link contained malicious files, so I decided to thread with caution. Checking the link with my PC might be a risky gamble. For context, this laptop is my office.

 

But I recently retired my old PC which served me for almost 4 years – September 2019 till April 2023. The PC was still functional, but tired.

 

So I brought my Old Guard up and accessed the link with it. The link was clean and I downloaded the file.

 

Another problem came up when I downloaded the file. The PDF contained 200 pages of written content randomly culled from different Wikipedia articles.

 

They were disorganized, not arranged in any order, and over 70 pages had some words completely cut out – apparently during the series of conversions they did from Word docx to Images, and finally to PDF.

 

What I saw when I opened the document gave me two conflicting impressions:

1. These guys were patient enough to Google information about COVID-19 and compile 200 pages from it.
2. They were too lazy and reckless. Hence, they just lumped the pages together without bothering to arrange them. If the document was arranged, it may inspire a freelancer to take the gig more seriously.

 

Again, I observed that there was no trace of the authoring organization. I only saw snippets of Wikipedia. So who are these guys that copied Wiki word for word?

To my complaint about the arrangement, Mr. Markson advised that I work on it as it is. To my second query about the authors, he claimed once again that he represented Adthrive.

 

Well, I assured him that I would get to work immediately. But guess what, I ignored it and almost forgot it completely.

 

Meanwhile, I expressed my concern about my payments since we are operating outside a regulated freelancing platform like Upwork. On his end, he guaranteed that my payment would be made.

July 11^th, 2023

Mr. Markson messaged me, but I forgot him completely and never visited Telegram for days.

July 13^th, 2023

The day I was meant to submit the work, I was going through my inbox and saw the mail I got from Mr. Markson.

 

I remembered I had a project to turn in, so I went to Telegram to assure Mr. Markson that his work would be submitted when due.

 

I quickly converted the document to MS Word and started arranging the texts. I got tired around page 50 and submitted it that way.

I sent the file to the email that Mr. Markson used to contact me earlier. However, he gave me another email address to submit my work for review. I did as he said.

July 14, 2023

I got an email from the review team. Ladies and gentlemen, I got a 5-star rating for a work that I didn’t pay attention to. This still confirmed to me that these guys are not real.

I ignored the mail but Mr. Markson called my attention to it via telegram. I sent him the image of the rating as he requested.

 

Then to the big moment: The Payday. Mr. Markson gave me a supposed email address of Wells Fargo to send my account details to as they are in charge of payments. Here, they embarrassed themselves again. Even if you bank with Wells Fargo, does it mean that your creditors should send their account details directly to the bank?

Again, the Wells Fargo email address they provided is a Gmail address – wellsFargobankingteam@gmail.com. Lol. How can an institution like Wells Fargo not have a company mail?

 

At this point, I became uncomfortable with sharing my account details with these guys. So I requested for change of payment method to Bitcoin transfer on the grounds that it would be more convenient for me. I sent my wallet address to the email Mr. Markson shared with me, just to follow them up till the end.

July 15, 2023

I got another email from the supposed Wells Fargo, still with half-baked grammar (but we are not here to review Grammar).

The summary of their mail was that I was to pay $300 to facilitate my payment due to reasons they do not even understand. They were only stringing different technical terms together to either make sense or confuse their victims.

 

I ignored the mail, but Mr. Markson called my attention to it once again. At this point, I had become aggressive with my response, but Mr. Markson seemed either not ready to pick up the signals from my tone, or he was just determined to see out his scheme.

He insisted I share the mail I got with him. I did, and he tried to explain or guide me to make payment, but I was already fed up.

 

He finally threw the punchy question: “Are you ready to make the deposit for your portal creation?”

“Clap for yourself,” I replied.

Still in his careless thoughts, he queried “What do you mean?”

 

I knew he would block me once he noticed that he had hit a dead end. So I got screenshots of all our chats and kept them safe in my gallery.

Then I shared my disappointment in his approach: “I wanted to follow you up till the end.. but I must tell you, I am not impressed with your level of thinking.”

I quickly screenshot the last chat. Now I am grateful that I did because he blocked me immediately after he saw the message. And with that, all our chat disappeared. Maybe that’s how Telegram works, I don’t know. I haven’t been blocked by anyone before.

 

If I hadn’t saved screenshots, I wouldn’t have any evidence now.

How Did I know that Mr. Markson was a Scammer and that the Supposed Gig was a Fraud?

1. He requested to be communicated outside upwork. If he was not a scammer, he wouldn’t have any problem using Upwork messaging.
2. His messages were filled with grammatical errors. This may not be a concrete indicator, but a statement like “I have hire you” sounds disturbing.
3. Markson hired me without any interview. How did he find out that I was the right fit for him? This only shows that he has ulterior motives.
4. He claimed to work for an established entity but does not have a company email address. This shows that he is not honest.
5. The disorganized nature of the document and Mr. Markson’s insistence that I treat it as it is show that he is not legit.
6. Markson tried to play a psychological trick on me. By requesting for assurance, he tried to present himself as an authentic client who was afraid of being failed by me. That’s a popular fraud trick.
7. The supposed review team gave me a 5-star rating for a work that I didn’t even pay attention to. That shows that they are not real about what they claim.
8. I requested that my payment be made via Bitcoin transfer, but Mr. Markson directed me to write a Bank. What’s the business of a bank with Bitcoin transfer?
9. Markson’s team said my payment was to be done by Wells Fargo. This is false. Even if Mr. Markson’s team maintains an account with Wells Fargo and wants the bank to make payment on their behalf, the team would send a written instruction to the bank directing it to make a payment to the account I provided. I shouldn’t be the one to write the Bank. This shows that they do not know what they are doing.
10. The supposed Wells Fargo contacted me and started explaining how there was a problem in the payment gateway between my account and the sender’s account. Lol. How does this concern the Bitcoin address that I sent? I only sent a wallet address and not a bank account number. So what’s all that about payment gateway and banks?
11. The Supposed Wells Fargo email address Mr. Markson sent to me was a Gmail address. If it was a Wells Fargo address, it would have been a company email address. This shows that the whole project was a scam.
12. The team asked me to pay money for portal creation. No real client or any of their representatives will ever ask you to pay money upfront before you get paid.

How to Avoid Being Scammed on Upwork

To avoid being scammed on Upwork:

• Do not apply for gigs that ask you to reach out to their email or to contact them Via phone.
• Once you and your client have agreed to contract terms, do not agree to take the gig out of Upwork. Complete the project and get paid on Upwork. However, if you and the client have built a significant level of trust, you can decide to move out. But still, it’s not advisable.

Final Thoughts

I don’t know if any freelancer has ever fallen victim to this kind of scam. That’s painful. If not, let this be an eye-opener to avert any possible occurrence.

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