Scam Type
Employment Scam
Business Name Used
Goldman Interior Memorial Artistry
Date Reported
Sep 22, 2022
Victim Postal Code
92020
Total Dollars Lost
400
Scam Description
At the beginning of September, I left my job due to an unhealthy work environment and started searching for more of an relax job. I applied to at least 60+ apps a week and then received a text message from an employer from Upwork. That was my first mistake was to talk to him outside the platform. He texted me and told me about the job and then told me that he usually does everything through an app called Signal then told me he waned to do an interview from there (another mistake from my part). I soon downloaded the app and added him to continue the conversation. He started to explain that this was a “Virtual Assistant Job” that was Monday-Saturday and I would work 3-4 hours a day/15 hours weekly and he would pay me $300 for my first week as a trial period then continue paying me $300 weekly. I also had to buy a printer that he requested me to buy and said to reimburse me for. The printer and paper set was around $100 that I never received. The job consist of me making recruiting accounts for him to post the “Virtual Assistant Job” on these platforms, make and maintain an spreadsheet with expenses, orders, etc. I had to send a company a email invoice on their order(it was a artist business that sold peoples paintings). I did all this during the trial week and was told that I was going to get paid either that Thursday or Friday( I started working with him the Friday before my trial week started). When the day came around to get paid, we talked that morning and claim he was going to send an echeck to my email . This was when it all started to get really more fishy. He told me right before he ignored me for 12 hours that “The check will be sent shortly.” I barely heard from him afterwards. This was a pattern for about 2 weeks. He would claim to pay me then disappear for days and hours, claiming he was constantly in and out the hospital. He made me make so many pay accounts to get paid such as a veem account, PayPal accouht and QuickBooks account for him to tell me the next day that none of those services are letting him send money. This was probably the worst situation I was ever in because I was begging him to pay me because I didn’t have any food to eat at all and spend days not eating waiting for him to finally pay me. I talked to him about it but he would always make excuses everytime and after a while, I started getting nasty with him and told him this will turn into a legal matter(he claims that I threatened him when I said this). By the middle of week 3 of still not getting paid for anything I did, I decided to take all the work I did for him and put it under my name and accounts(he also claims that when I told him this “I have the right to take back my work since you haven’t paid me. Please stop making excuses when I was supposed to be paid almost a month ago”. as another threat). He also tried to tell me he didn’t want to pay me after I took back my work because he didn’t think I was real so I proceeded to try and facetime him on signal but he just replied with words that said I threatened him and never tried to facetime back. I wasn’t the only one scammed. I ended up reaching out to someone connected to one of my work emails and explained the situation and she also stated that she felt that this job wasn’t legit as well and left the job without getting paid(she stated $3,000 was supposed to be received, I did not add our conversation to this because she isn’t sure if she will be safe enough to get involved). I hope that this will stop him from scamming anyone else because I felt like his plan was to scam more people on those job websites since he had me make more of those jobs postings. Since applied through Upwork, he does have my address from my resume and he has my email & phone number as well so I am trying to be protected as well.
