What does a scam look like?

[animeshe14]

As freelancers, the best way to protect ourselves as well as our hard earned money is to know whether a job is legit or not.

Well, it is easier said than done. So what does a scam look like? What do scammers offer? And how do we protect ourselves against them?

Please list down scams that you have encountered during your career as a freelancer. Give examples to help everyone to get a better picture of how this is presented in a job post.

 

[sam.hunt0710]

Always ask your clients to make escrow payment if you are using any freelancing site ....If you are getting direct client you can ask him for 50% upfront and 50% after completion of the job.

 

[Dean]

Most of the time scammers tend to be offering too much too easily just to draw you into their scam. They agree to your terms too easily without negotiating, offer you too much from their end or make other offers or agreements that just seem to come way too easily.

They try to prey on your want and/or need to get a better deal, more money, easy money or other things like that.

Basically if it sounds too good to be true or real then it usually is most of the time.

Cheers, Dean.

 

[Maria Marketing]

Sometime it is hard to tell when something is a scam or not so the best thing to do is to use your best judgement and look into anything that doe not sound right. Scammers are getting smarter to attract their victims these days so you must always use caution.

 

[ulterios]

You are never going to be able to know if everything is or is not a scam because some of the scammers are really smart and go to great lengths to scam people. So, I would just check any references if possible, do some research if possible on the suspected scammer and use your best judgement.

Sometimes you just have to trust your instincts and if something seems like a scam then it might be best to avoid it. These days with all the elaborate scams many times it just comes down to if you are lucky or not!