Freelance Frauds have increased after covid hit India


Freelance scams have become common ever since the pandemic hit the country. Every person is confined to their homes and has opted for freelancing for passive income. Freelancing might sound easy but is not as it seems to be. If you do not take measures to protect yourself from such scams, you won’t only lose money but you might also lose the determination and willingness to work. 


3500 words for FREE

One fine morning, Sreeparna Mukherjee, a young freelance writer came across a post from Subhadeep Chakraborty a corporate trainer who worked for a company and required an academic content writer. Sreeparna was in the early stage of her career and did not want to miss this opportunity. She pinged Subhadeep and asked him to share the details with her. 

The next morning, Sreeparna woke up to a message from Subhadeep informing her about the work. He mentioned that she needs to write 3500 words and asked for her email to mail her the details and deadline.

Sreeparna got an email with all the details she required and a deadline that was set to the 20th of April. Excited, she did not even ask for an advance and started working on the task provided by him.


She shared the completed assignment on time and waited for Subhadeep to inform her about the payment but he did not respond to any of her messages. On Sreeparna’s constant request for payment, Subhadeep made a thousand excuses. He even said that the mail that he forwarded to Sreeparna was not meant for that task and the deadline was the 17th. 


Sreeparna, without waiting for a second more forwarded a screenshot of his mail to him and asked him to pay. Subhadeep felt he was losing the argument and made another excuse saying that the content that she provided was meant to be a sample, not the task she was hired for.


Sreeparna was shocked to hear this and complained that this fact was not mentioned in the email and she had put in a lot of effort to complete this task. He even said that he never asked her to start at all and even abused her.

Sreeparna couldn’t take it anymore and finally had to give up! She shared her experience through a post in a group on Facebook informing all content writers to beware of Subhadeep and warned them to not work with him.

But asking for an advance is not always a good option because this puts your client at risk of losing their funds and they might not agree to it. Neither of you can afford a loss. 

A Saviour 

​Freelancers should opt for proper digital escrow services like Vouch for taking advances. This not only helps them secure their work but also builds a strong trusted relationship and connection between the client and the freelancer.


What Sreeparna did as a budding freelancer was something that every freelancer should avoid doing in the early stage. 

This is Fraud Chronicle#11. Check back here for more fraud chronicles and frauds that you can protect yourself from.


Safety is not just about protecting your credit or debit card number. It's about getting paid for your hard work!

Note: This is a good-faith initiative to educate the world about how to avoid frauds like these. Do you have a fraud that you would like to report? Please write to us at letstalk@iamvouched.com