Chris O'Reilly 28, turned to the freelancing website Upwork when he lost his job in March after the country went into lockdown to reduce the spread of the coronavirus. After applying for a handful of job postings he was invited to a Skype interview for a proofreading and editing job at the pharmaceutical company Sanofi.
Things were looking up. A few days later he got an offer letter on what appeared to be an official Sanofi letterhead and an emailed check to buy supplies that his new employer said were for his home office.
O'Reilly deposited the check, and, once it seemed to have cleared, he used the funds to send money to accounts listed on an invoice sent to him by his new boss. He sent one payment, which he thought was for office supplies, through the money transfer app Zelle and a second via Venmo.
Minutes later, he received a notice that his bank account was overdrawn by nearly $3,000.
O'Reilly had fallen victim to an elaborate and updated version of a classic check scam that has found renewed life on freelancing platforms like Upwork, where victims said they have been defrauded of thousands of dollars while looking for work-from-home options during the pandemic following one of the steepest economic downturns in U.S. history.
Since the pandemic began, resulting in nationwide lockdowns, AARP's fraud tip line has been receiving over 100 more calls a day than it did in the months before the country went into lockdown, said Kathy Stokes, AARP’s director of fraud prevention programs.
The Justice Department has gone after scammers of all stripes capitalizing on the coronavirus, catching scams purporting to sell protective equipment and scams designed to pilfer Americans' IRS relief payments or install malware. As of May 21, the Federal Trade Commission said it had received more than 52,000 reports of coronavirus-related fraud costing people almost $40 million.
"We're seeing people accepting offers to do basic accounting work, but what it ends up being is money muling," Stokes said.
The scammers don't start and stop on Upwork. Fraudsters looked on Freelancer.com for people who would be willing to hand over their Upwork accounts to be used to run scams for a cut of whatever is made. Once victims are in the throes of a scam, they're implored to send money through peer-to-peer money transfer apps, like Venmo, Cash App and Zelle.
Venmo, Cash App and Zelle all said in emailed statements that they encourage customers to contact their customer service departments immediately if they believe they've been the victims of a scam.
Upwork said in a statement that users agree to its terms of service when signing up, which requires all communication and transactions to occur on the Upwork platform. When users take their conversations off Upwork, the company can no longer monitor for or address suspicious activity, the statement said.
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