I work at oDesk and am very sorry to hear you had this experience. Clients should never request any type payment from a freelancer, including payment to start a

I work at oDesk and am very sorry to hear you had this experience. Clients should never request any type payment from a freelancer, including payment to start a contract or buy software. For your protection, all financial transactions should take place on oDesk. The best thing to do in these situations is exactly what you did: contact the oDesk support team so they can investigate and advise you on the best course of action. Please note that the team does need some time to do a full investigation, however I've escalated your ticket internally and you should receive a reply soon. For future reference, this article from our help site has some tips for identifying suspicious behavior: https://support.odesk.com/entries/23110778 https://support.odesk.com/entries/23110778.