I have done some work on Upwork for extra money, however, recently I have encountered scams on the jobs I have applied for. The first was a game testing job. Now, I cannot say for sure these are scams, but, there are some red flags that made me backout of each of these jobs.

For the game testing job. They began a chat with me and were requesting information about my phone. Then they started asking for screen shots of my phone. The first screen shot seemed harmless as I did not see any information on there that could be compromised. The next screenshot that they wanted did have some numbers and dates that I thought were too specific to give a screenshot to them. So, I said thanks but no thanks.

The next one is even worse. Be very careful of this. This was a digital marketing opportunity. First they requested a resume. I do not have a current resume so I said I did not have one. They then asked me off-site to Skype for some chatting. (going off site is a red flag as they can talk to you on upwork safely).

I went off-site and began a skype chat. This was supposed to lead to a 40 minute interview. There were some things said within the chat that did not seem like correct responses. I was getting a feeling that something was wrong. I went back to upwork to re-check the job post and found it had been removed, yet I still had a pending interview.

In the skype chat, I asked about this and if I would still be paid through upwork. They said that I would be paid through upwork but the job had been removed because they got enough applicants.

I then asked for the company website. They provided a website that had a bunch of links to amazon products. There was only 1 page, no real address (just a po box) and no phone number. The business name was listed on the bottom of the page as an LLC. I looked up the business in the state they said they were in and there was no business with this name listed. Then I questioned this on the skype chat. They did not answer the question. They responded with a copy of the job proposal.

At this point I said cancel the interview.

Beware of any job on Upwork. After this, I wanted to speak to someone at Upwork about this issue. I went to the app and attempted to contact them. All I could get was a chat robot that would give me pre-made answers. I could not get to talk to a real person. What this means is Scammers have the upper hand because there is no way to report them. There was one thing about marking a job listing as a problem but , as I stated, they had removed the job listing so this was not something I could do.

Beware on Upwork and be very careful of any information you give. Once they bring you off-site you are on your own and could easily be scammed.