Stage Freelance Services

Check Stage Freelance Services reviews to see if it is legit.

Gabriel –

Victim Location 97210

Total money lost $2,510

Type of a scam Employment

I think I fell for an elaborate job scam. I will begin with my backstory of how I become such a coward to get myself into this position. Ever since I moved to Portland, I’ve had the worst luck keeping jobs. I’ve been fired for being to slow, been let down by temp agencies, and quit some of the jobs because of the toxic work environment. I applied to JobCorps earlier in 2017, but then cancelled my application because I knew my parents and fiancé wouldn’t make enough to pay my bills while I was there. I was starting to think I was useless and a failure. However, I still wanted to try a work from home job. I thought working from home would allow me to work at my own pace without the boss complaining I was too slow and would give me time for college. So I applied to a craigslist post for a work from home data entry position on October 6th, 2017. On October 10, 2017, a man that went by the name of Francis Nguyen began speaking with me. He claimed he was from “Stage Freelance Services, a subsidiary of American Freelance Enterprise” and offered me a job posting ads on craigslist selling electronics for $4 an ad and $4 each reply( yes I know this doesn’t look good on my part). He said it was for marketing and to provide a service to attract customers. The phone number he used to contact me showed it was from Dayton, Nevada. So I began working for him just posting ads in the beginning. Then on October 25th, Francis offers me a second job. This job was to receive money via paypal from people who I assumed were his managers or co-workers and use this money to send other freelancers their pay via moneygram for their work.

Each day, Francis would have a manager send me the money and give me the freelancer information. I sent a different freelancer their pay with my paypal business debit card. The pay for this was a portion of each transaction. For example, if I sent a freelancer $2500, then I would make $250 for completing the task. The names of the people who sent me the money to pay the freelancers were Carole Wood, Terry Wech, Chrissy O’neal and Cheryl Hanover. Carole sent me payments 4 times totaling $6084. Chrissy sent me payments 4 times totaling $11,211. Terry sent 2 payments totaling $5415. Cheryl sent just one payment of $2832. None of the four have addresses on file with paypal, just their Comcast emails. Back then, I didn’t think much of it that Francis had these people send me the money. Francis offered me this job because he said that paypal wouldn’t let his freelancers secure their paypal account and he couldn’t afford to lose them. He also did not want to drive 3 hours to the nearest Walmart to send the moneygrams himself. I thought it sounded reasonable. I was also so charmed by making good easy money, as I was burned out from factory jobs that paid way lower for more work. So I took his offer. I had to upgrade to a paypal business account because Francis said they were not letting him send to my personal account.

Things were going great, then this work from home job turned into a nightmare on November 3rd, 2017. That day,I logged onto my paypal account and noticed my account was negative 6,510.99 because Carole opened up disputes against me saying the payments she sent were unauthorized. I immediately texted Francis about this and he texted back “Hold. We’ll fix it within 24 hours. We made the mistake”. I sent him a picture of my laptop screen showing my negative account. The next day, I texted him about the issue. He didn’t text back until Sunday and said he was working on it. Then he asked me to send the moneygram of the day and that he would pay me back. Since my account was negative, I had to use my personal bank debit card to send the freelancer $600. I thought of Francis as a boss. I was scared to say no because I didn’t want him to lash out at me. He also said it was very very important to him and I wanted this job more than anything. Then on November 8th, Terry files his claims. I texted Francis, this time I asked if they were scamming me. He called me at 11:33am that day and said paypal was giving them headaches, his freelancers were mad and asked me to send another moneygram because he claimed one of his freelancers got really angry. He said he was going to pay me back as soon as the paypal issues got resolved. He also said he would give an extra 100 for the trouble(another tactic). I guess another tactic he used was being able to come up with the right words to say at the right times to make things sound realistic. This phone call was the last time I heard from him. For a week I was left hanging and hoping everything would go back to normal. Then on November 15th, Chrissy opens disputes against me. I texted Francis and he doesn’t text back at all that day. I emailed him on the 16th and left him a voicemail on the 17th wanting to work things out. I also called paypal on the 16th. I spoke with a woman named Kimberly. I told her about this job thing, I could not get ahold of Francis and that the money those people sent me were for my job. She emailed me a link to upload proof of this, so I did. On November 9th, I also told them that Terry didn’t buy me anything, that the money was to complete a task for my job. On November 19th, I get paypal emails that said they refunded Terry and Chrissy and that $15,231.99 was debited to my account. I might as well had a heart attack, because there is no way I would be able to pay that back. Why should I pay them back if they really are taking advantage of paypal buyer’s protection to fraud me? On November 27th, Carole reopens her claims but paypal decides I was covered under seller protection and did not refund her. I was surprised, since they said they refunded Terry and Chrissy because I wasn’t covered for their disputes. That night, I emailed Carole, Terry, and Chrissy as an attempt to work it out. I told them about Francis and this work at home job. They have not emailed me back. On the 28th, Chrissy O’neal reopens his/hers disputes. Cheryl opens hers for the first time and reopens it again today(December 2, 2017) for her one time payment. I called Francis again on November 29th, only to find out the number he used to contact me had been disconnected. He never paid me back for paying his freelancers and owes me the money along with my other work I’ve done. I spoke with a mental health crisis counselor today because this has made me depressed and have suicidal thoughts. I’m just ashamed myself for being so stupid. My paypal account is negative 29,294.99 thanks to these fraudsters. All I wanted was a work from home job, not this mess. I’ve seen all the stories about paypal letting fraudulent people get away with it, and I wish I would’ve saw them before this happened.

Website:

Phone:

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *