Beware of Behance scammers!

Javid Turablı — Wed, 12 Jun 2024 11:39:33 GMT

As a graphic and web designer using Behance, I recently encountered an alarming scam attempt that I want to share to help others avoid falling victim to similar schemes.
A few days ago, I received a message in my Behance inbox from a user named Prisha Rayan. The message was a job offer. The user had no profile picture and did not use a corporate tone, which made me wary at first.
The job was a freelance task with a low difficulty level. Prisha Rayan directed me to contact a user on Telegram named @Lincoln_Quiros. I continued the conversation on Telegram with someone named Lincoln, who claimed to be from a company called RHS Lindley Library based in the United Kingdom.
Lincoln first sent me a small test task: to retype a paragraph from a JPEG image of a book page into a new PDF document. After completing this simple task, he sent me a PDF outlining different project plans and payment methods. The plans were as follows:
Plan A: £2000 for 30 pages, 3-day deadline
Plan B: £3500 for 55 pages, 3-day deadline
Plan C: £5000 for 80 pages, 5-day deadline
Plan D: £10,000 for 100 pages, 5-day deadline
Seeing such high payment for such low difficulty work increased my suspicions. Nonetheless, I chose Plan C. Lincoln then informed me that only Plan B was currently available, and I agreed to it. They requested my email address and a selfie photo, which I provided. Soon after, I received two 55-page book photo files via WeTransfer and began working on them. Given the simplicity of the task, I completed the 110 pages in two days.
I notified Lincoln that I had finished, but I added watermarks to the documents and stated that I would only remove them once payment was received. I also emailed the watermarked documents to rhslindleylibrary@onmail.com, again stating that I would send the original versions after payment.
A few hours later, I was told the projects were approved and to contact a Telegram user @d_ylan_mason for the payment process. I did so, and this user requested the original versions of my work. I reiterated that I could not provide the final versions until payment was made, but he insisted that this was not how their process worked. Given the simplicity of the task, I sent the original documents. For the 110 pages, I was supposed to receive £7000.
Predictably, after sending the originals, Dylan Mason confirmed the projects were okay and moved to the payment phase. He provided various payment methods, and I chose bank transfer, giving him my IBAN number. Moments later, he claimed there were issues with all payment methods and directed me to create an account on https://vidaheritage.com/. At this point, it was clear I was being scammed. Nevertheless, I created an account on the dubious website and provided the account number. My account showed a balance of 15,205 AZN (in my local currency) but was inactive. When I asked the live chat how to activate it, they requested my ID card, which I refused to provide.
Realizing the scam, I informed Dylan Mason that I would report them, and he promptly deleted all our conversations and blocked me. Returning to Behance, I found that Prisha Rayan had also deleted her messages. Searching for her name, I discovered hundreds of profiles with the same name from the same location.
I narrowly avoided being fully scammed, and I’m sharing this experience to warn others. If you receive a job offer from these users or anyone similar, please be extremely cautious.

Stories by Javid Turablı on Medium

Beware of Behance scammers!