In April, a client reached out to me via Telegram for a writing project. Eager to do this job, we agreed on terms, and they committed to paying $4000 for the job. An upfront payment of $2500 was made, setting the stage for what seemed like a promising collaboration.
I don't know what made that client to pay you upfront as most of the times the clients don't pay in advance but in your case the client send you $2500 out of $4000 which is really crazy. The client that you had might be so rich that sending $2500 doesn't impact him that much. It would be great if you can share more about the project I mean it's really crazy to see someone sending $2500 upfront to a writer without hesitation.
Fast forward more than seven months later (yesterday), a flicker of hope emerged. A Telegram notification lit up my screen, and to my surprise, it was from the long-lost client. Excitement quickly turned to suspicion as the messages unfolded. The person chatting with me was definitely not the client becase he knew nothing about our deal and rather was fishing for information from me.
Red flags waved as I realized that the digital landscape had shifted. The client's display name was the same until 24 hours later when it was changed from Alex Merg to John B. (so obviously fake).
Your client might have forgot about that payment as he might be too busy or you can say too rich to not care about the project. Sometimes as humans we lose our memories after a long period and that's not a thing to be worried about and changing of name doesn't proves that he isn't the same client that payed you upfront for doing that job.
I'm not sure if that happened in real or you're just making up a story but I'm pretty sure if that happened in real then there's something wrong with that client as no one would pay that beefy amount to a stranger freelancer whom they even don't know personally and no-one leaves the money the paid without getting the things from the one whom they paid that money.
