Sorry but the 2000-dollar Job was for Free

I’ve had a very long week, and as I begin this new one, I hope to change my fortunes. They say when the deal is too good to be true then it probably is. I have been wandering online as a copywriter hoping to get my “hail Mary”- a deal that would end all my problems. This was perhaps a doing of my ego and I almost paid dearly.

I decided to market my services on Legiit about a month ago. As you see from the picture above, my profile is new and a work in progress. To my surprise, I started receiving dm’s on opportunities that I could be offered. As a person who believed in beginner’s luck, I ate up the propositions with a lot of ego.

I marveled at how someone with no experience yet on the platform got jobs. Maybe they knew I was experienced but not on their platform. The weird thing was they all directed me to trade with them out of the platform. I didn’t mind because I’d get paid either way so I decided to do it.

The person who texted gave me details of the project on Telegram. The communications were prompt and most part the texts were professional so I believed in all that was said. I decided that I’d blow my client’s brains off with quality service and retain them for life.

Above are the instructions I was given. To even think that I’d be paid $2000 for the project gave me butterflies. Make no mistake, it was not an easy task and it had to be submitted within 24hrs. I decided I’d work together with friends and pay them a fraction of what they’d pay.

On the day of the project, I got engaged somewhere else and suspended the work. This meant that I had lost the money and I was fine with it. The ‘client’ got into contact with me again and urged me to finish the project and submit it regardless. I did that.

I obviously did a clean job as I always do and forgot about the project. I had no hope whatsoever of it and embarked on finding more freelance gigs for myself.

I couldn’t believe my eyes. The project was all good and now was time for me to collect. Before contacting the financial manager who happened to be the client who gave me the project, I shared the news with anyone who cared to listen.

The 80/20 principle rang in my head. You know, how 80% of results are achieved by 20% of effort. I viewed the small project and the immense success it brought as the embodiment of this principle. After saying a short gratitude prayer I proceeded to contact the ‘financial manager’.

We discussed briefly my preferred method of payment which I shared(Google Pay) and the financial manager went dark for two days. I can attest that I’ve never seen longer days. I was anxious to be paid what I was owed and I couldn’t sit still on the ideas I had.

They sent me that invoice in pdf format. I now believed it. An invoice existed and there’s nothing more legit than that, right? Wrong. I couldn’t see the payment in my Google Pay account so I inquired about the problem and the script below was emailed.

Where in the world does a bank ask for refundable fees? Now the pink flags were becoming red and my spidey senses buzzed. I asked them to reverse the payment as it was not in my account yet and credit the amount as I couldn’t send them the money out of the blue.

I informed my client of the issue and he advised me to do as the bank instructed. He even offered to pay $50 for me if I raised the remaining amount. I still couldn’t wrap my head around why they couldn’t credit the amount in my account. I was worked up.

To cut a long story short, I confronted both accounts -the client and the bank- for being conmen. The tone of our conversations changed. They became offensive and asked me to move along if I couldn’t pay the linking fees.

I decided to forgo the whole project and forget about the ordeal. How in the world would someone use a fake job to try and con me off $100? It sounded like a lot of trouble for just $100.

I know it sounded like something that should be in my journal but I shared it to show you just how thorough cons can be. I am interested in hearing any stories of how you were almost conned or how you were conned.

I believe the more we shed light on this the more we can shame cons. Please comment below and also share your thoughts on the issue. Is it possible that it was legit and I was the skeptical one? I look forward to hearing your view on it.