Three Red Flags for the Freelance Scam Artist

For all practical purposes, freelancing is a business. You, the freelancer are the service or product provider and you have your clients. Like all businesses, there is the possibility of you actually being scammed by some of your clients into giving your services for free, with them not paying you. This is a routine happenstance in the world of freelancing. There is no freelancer in this world who has not been duped in freelancing, for amounts ranging from a few dollars to a thousand dollars. However, the good news is that there are several pointers that if you know about before you interact with a scamster, you can walk away from the interaction before you stand to lose money or time. Here are the three red flags for the freelance scam artist that you should be careful about:

Trying to Contact you out of the protocol: This is one of the most common tricks that the scamster may carry, which is mainly seen in the websites that have the 'Bid for Work' model. The scamster will contact you via the website and then lure you to their IMs or the e-mail ids and you will end up doing work for them, which is then dependant only on their good conscience to pay. 

Be very careful while talking to the clients on such sites. Make sure that you do not break any protocol and neither do you allow them to break any. Of course, sometimes it may be possible that the person may tell you to contact them via a mail for better interaction and then return to the website when the required interaction is done with. 

Giving you a lot of work, immediately: And this would typically end with 'Payment on end of project'. Of course, even this happens, but that is when the project is only for say two web pages, or a single graphic, or even ten articles. Make it a point to ask an escrow or half of the money upfront for any projects that are liable to continue for more than a month or so. You will be much happier this way. 

Being Rude: Make no mistake about it, being a stiff upper lip is very different from being rude. Why would a person be rude to you if they actually want to have a long term relationship with you? Some people are of the thought that being rude lets them off many questions, and the freelancer will not question them too much if they are rude. And sadly, this works.