A freelancer asking for payment upfront before starting work is almost always a scam. In nearly two decades hiring remote workers, the speaker has seen this play out repeatedly, with excuses about broken laptops or unpaid bills. Never prepay. Pay after work is done.
Someone in the Philippines should not be asking to get prepaid for work that they're doing. And to me, this is a huge red flag. Almost every single time I've ever seen someone ask for money upfront, whether it be, can you prepay me? Or my laptop is broken, or I have an electricity problem, can you pay my utilities or whatever it is, if they're asking for money before they've worked, it's like almost every single time, it's a scam. Now, I've been doing this since 2005. That makes almost 20 years now. And I've seen this a dozen times, which tells you how seldom this is happening, but it's definitely still happening. So I got this email from an employer recently. He says, I attempted to hire someone from your company, and the person asked for a favor to be paid before he started. Then he disappeared on me. Well, yeah, getting paid first, that's a problem. I. I've been told that because we had one phone call to discuss the job, he deserves to keep the payment, even though I waited a month for him and had to hire someone else. Is this correct? No, that is not correct. That guy is scamming you, and that is super sucky. He doesn't deserve to keep the money. He didn't do any work. Do not prepay for work.
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