A big industry exists solely for cheating unsuspecting students, retired persons, and work from home moms looking for some extra income through freelance jobs. Learn how you can protect yourself against the frauds who have left tens of thousands of job seekers miserable.

How Fake Freelance Job Sites Work

[advertisement]Fake freelance websites are always beautifully designed. They may also have several pages of content, praising the virtues of working from home. The information they provide through their site, in most cases will be true. They do all these to win your trust and confidence. Once, you start trusting them …

… you will think it is a legitimate opportunity,

… they will make you believe thousands of freelancers work with them,

… they will ask you your personal details like name, email address, Paypal email, physical address, credit card number, bank account details, and more information.

(Keep in mind, legitimate job boards too need information like name, email, and address. However, they don’t want your credit card number or bank account details. The fakes do it just to harvest as much information as possible).

… they will ask you money so that they can send you assignments. (No legitimate job board will ever want you to send them money. They have to pay you once you complete the assignment, not the other way round).

Some websites take your money and disappear. Others will send you freelance job openings sourced from legitimate job boards and freelance job sites. The truth is, you don’t need their help finding those jobs.

The above type of websites dupe you in two different ways:

1. They harvest your personal information, which they will sell to credit card frauds, identity thieves, and all kinds of crooks.

2. They ask you for your money and delivers nothing in return.

Guard Yourself Against Fake Freelance Job Sites

  • If they promise too much for too little, it is a fake.
  • If it is a very flashy website, it is a fake.
  • If there are hundreds of testimonials by anonymous persons, it is a fake.
  • If they want you to give them money, it is a fake.
  • If the payment threshold is higher than $50, it is a fake.
  • If they don’t pay you on time, it is a fake.
  • If they want you to give away your friends’ email addresses, it is a fake.

If they promise unrealistically high payments for unrealistically low qualifications, it is a fake. They will make you believe that you can make $10,000 per month simply by copying and pasting text or images here and there. It is a fake. Run away from them. Don’t enter your personal details. It will end up in the hands of the crooks.

Be vary of high-voltage endorsements. Fake websites make it a point to use several dozens of testimonials and endorsements. All those endorsements and testimonials are fake. The endorsers don’t have a full name or an address. This is a big warning sign.

Legitimate websites will pay you for your work, even if you have earned only $20 or $50 doing their works. If they keep deferring the payments, it is a red signal. They have no plans of paying you for the work you do.

If the websites you come across fall into any of the category described above, it is a fake. Always do your research. Search the name of the website in Google. You will soon find out what others are talking about this particular job site. That should give you a good idea.