Freelancers Beware:My Horror Story Avoid Motion_Profit_Revenue
I have been for a good part of my life a bartender who writes. I have decided to flip that script and become a writer who bartends. This is my journey (diary) of that experience. In addition to writing about NFL fantasy football and drink recipes (please read) and SEO Optimization (not as tantalizing but still please read), I decided that on the first Thursday of each month I would take stock of how my journey is going, and hopefully give you my fellow freelancers (readers) some tips.
First, I have joined Upwork, Freelance and Fiverr so I will let you know how that works out next month. But for this month let’s talk about what or better yet whom to avoid.
MOTION_PROFIT_REVENUE and their “contact” nataliadebi314@gmail.com.
I was originally contacted through my email on Fiverr, which gave the enterprise legitimacy. However, after being told to contact Natalia the Fiverr connection was severed.
1st red flag that I was unaware and now you and I both are aware, if you are asked to leave the platform to conduct business do it with the upmost caution if you do it at all.
After contacting Natalia, I was informed that the job would be transcribing a 38 page document to word. If it was done before deadline there would be a bonus. The offer $1520 to transcribe and a $200 bonus if done before deadline. Yes, please.
January 15, 2024 document received and completed. Now if you are a fellow freelancer you know if any type of bonus is included, you are going for it. As freelancers we work for the work, for the love of it, and it helps if that love is accompanied by a monetary incentive.
So like a good little freelancer I sent away the transcription and waited to see if it was satisfactory. And it was. Motion_Profit_Revenue sent me an email via motionrecruitment@projectreviewteam.com to let me know that the project was completed “successfully reviewed and approved” and I needed to “tap in file to contact the payment management” which of course I instantly did. The tap led me to Telegram app. where ‘Gilbert’ from the “payment department” begin a chat.
After much chatter about ‘Gilbert’s’ holiday and his family and the amount owed to me…their next communication “You are offline that’s why I am asking if you are well active with me so we can proceed.”
Now novice that I am, I was under the impression that I was still working under Fiverr, so my reply was, “Oh you can process it through Fiverr payment without me being online.”
The reply, “Why?”
And that my friends was the last I heard from anyone and anything to do with Motion_Profit_Revenue. I emailed Natalia several times asking if it was a scam. She once replied, “What do you mean This is not a scam.” And then when I informed her a week later that I still had not received my payment her rather soothing reply was, “I will reach out to the payment department on your behalf.” That was two weeks ago and no further communication.
So, there is my tale of woe for the first month of my freelancing journey.
Beware and learn from my mistakes and hopefully from my successes, but that remains to be seen.
Until next time, take a look at my soon to be released article “Super Bowl Hype calls for Vegas Bomb Shots” and the less tantalizing “Keywords for SEO Optimization”.
If you have freelancing horror stories and successes, I would love to hear them.
