Hi i contacted through linkedin website for freelancer customer service representative for uk based company.He took my interview in whatsapp chat and selected me.I told him to send me the same account no from which i got cheque but he never interested on that. Then he gave me a warning that if i ll not return his amount then he will report the authorities for theft and i will be blacklisted.I told him to come to me and i will return as i am not able to deposit. his linkdin account is also deleted now. Can you guide me what it seems , does he seems a genuine person to you or it feels like a scam?

Hi Sam, so one company contacted me via Freelancer and did the interview over hangout chat. I got selected within 15 minutes of the interview. They asked me the details about my address and phone number and after that my photo and photo ID. I’m not quite sure if this is legit or not. Can you suggest something here, please? thanks

Hi there, This sounds just like a job offer I’m working on right this moment through Freelancer. They contacted me based on my resume and like you, I was selected within 15 minutes. Today I received a request via email to sign an employment-at-will document and a PDF W-4. The company has what looks like a well-done website, they’re based in Munich, and no scam alerts pop up when I researched them. The spelling errors are to be expected, I suppose, but I’m more concerned about the seemingly scripted chats, which are very close to another company that reached out to me and did this same process yesterday. I’m hopeful but terrified as well! Not sure what to do next.

Hi Julie! I just saw your comment and wanted to let you know that companies sending cheques to buy equipment etc are usually a scam. If you google that, they will bounce the cheque and you will loose money. I am going through the google hangouts interviews and they are all the same, so damn strange. Apparently I got a job and was asked if I have specific equipment and after asking if it has to be exact same one, nobody bothered to answer.

For example, this job posting on Craigslist provides no way to tell whether the job poster is trustworthy enough to pay for completed work. There’s also no way to tell whether he or she isn’t just phishing and hoping to steal information from applicants.

I’m not quite sure I’m following your issue here, but it *sounds* like someone’s asking you to pay money to get money you’ve earned

He tried to show me his Upwork profile using a dead link, for example, despite his claims that he had a solid profile. If it had existed at some point in the past, it was certainly no longer active. It didn’t take long before he dropped the obvious scam bomb on me.

In all cases, it’s best to not give clients access to your social media accounts, if you can avoid it. The only exception may be LinkedIn, where adding your clients may help increase your business opportunities and give you a chance to investigate the trustworthiness and history of a client.

I have recently made a freelancer account and today i got my first project but the client is asking to communicate outside freelancer on emails and asking for security fee from my side so that i can work with them. Should i accept the offer or decline it?

Hi Sam, A question about tax forms – what if the request is coming from an editing company that screens and hires freelancers to me part of their editing teams in various speciality areas (companies like Enago or Edanz)? Similarly, what if they ask for a scanned copy of your highest education degree? Thanks in advance!

Their website doesn’t inspire a lot of confidence, but that isn’t enough for me to determine one way or the other. I haven’t heard of them prior, but for your own sake, you may want to choose a business with a more established web presence.

Hope it isn’t a case

Hi Sam Recently I’ve come across what seems to be legit opportunities for work only to get asked to send between $200-$400 to have a laptop and phone shipped to me so I can start working. The other day I had one. I asked what do they do when people can’t pay upfront. The answer was ‘what can you pay now’ erm, nothing! Another I was then asked if I could purchase an PlayStation gift card for $50 so they could have the product key and then this would grant me access to the payroll system so I could begin work. I’m sure it’s all a scam, and I’ve not sent any money, but I’m finding it hard to find any decent work that doesn’t involve money upfront for equipment!

As far as PayPal goes, there’s no protection against chargebacks for *digital* goods. PayPal offers seller protection for physical goods, but not for digital ones. So unless you’re set up with a client who’s paying you with direct deposit, you’re pretty much at risk of chargebacks.

As a general rule, you should not have to pay money to work jobs from providers. The only edge cases here are paying services like Upwork or Freelancer to use their platforms. But when it comes to client-to-freelancer work, you should not be paying the client to work for them, or paying them before you can receive payment yourself.