I am not sure whether this scam is active in other countries are not but it is in India!!!
This is my personal experience.
I have registered as a freelancer for doing some work when I am free.
As soon as I registered, I got a notification for data entry jobs. I thought this is the easy work that I can do during my free time.
I have a bid for the job. As soon as I did bid, I got a message from the employer that I am eligible for hire. I didn’t know that my profile is that awesome. The message from the employer didn’t look professional. I got a doubt. I checked the employer's profile, it did look fake. The country mentioned is ‘the USA’. Many people will fall for it as they pay in dollars which will be huge. He sent me a word document to message him on WhatsApp if I am interested to do the job. I did a message to the number which he gave thinking I need to get to the tip of the scam.
I have removed the profile photo of my WhatsApp and removed all the permissions so that he can’t hack my information. I messaged the given number in WhatsApp and I didn’t get a reply. After two days, he messaged me giving me the details. They are I will be hired for data entry throughout 2019 the first project contains two releases and I will be paid 200$. For the first release, I will be paid 40$ and for the second release, I will be paid 160$. But with the condition. I should pay 1000rs from the first release to the employee who had worked for them throughout 2018. I did agree to see to what extent he can scam me. I told OK. As soon as I told OK, my freelancer account is deposited with 40$. Freelancer took 5$ commission and gave me 35$.
I wasn’t even given the project details, release deadlines, etcetera, but got my funds. I confirmed that this is definitely a scam. He messaged me that he deposited the amount and now it's my turn to give 1000rs to his previous employee through my Paytm and send him a screenshot. I was very much aware of the scams happening around. He can take my Paytm details and do sthg with that. I told you that I am not able to take funds from a freelancer wallet, so I will not be sending ing amount to your ex-employee until I get funds from my bank. Also, details which he gave to send 1000rs also didn’t look genuine. He understood that I am not going to be scammed. He started giving warnings that he will file a case on me that I am a scammer. I told him to do it immediately. I blocked him from my WhatsApp and reported to freelancer support. They didn’t respond on time. At night when I opened my freelancer, That person had taken that 40$ back. My account showed -5$. This was the scam he was trying.
If I am not aware of such things, I would have sent 1000rs Paytm also, my funds would have been lost from freelancers account. These are the cheap tricks that became common. This is the main reason I am writing this so that at least one person who reads this will be aware when such a thing happens.