Escrow account promise fell apart 2 weeks before settlement

Back in March I took a freelance contract gig reviewing leases for a small firm in Austin, and they promised my fee would sit in escrow until they got paid by their client. The day before the payment was due, I found out the escrow account was just a folder in their Google Drive with a signed agreement, no actual funds anywhere. Has anyone else gotten burned by a fake escrow setup, and what do you check before trusting one?

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kellyallen2d ago

...and honestly that sounds like something my buddy Mike went through last year with a client who promised him a "secured retainer." He did everything right, got the contract signed, even had the guy send him screenshots of the account balance. Turns out the screenshots were just edited copies of a fake bank page. The client kept saying the funds were "processing" for three weeks, and Mike only found out when he tried to withdraw and the bank had no record of the account at all. He lost about two grand in work and learned the hard way that if you can't see the actual account yourself, it doesn't exist. These days he only takes jobs where the client pays a deposit straight into his own bank account first, or he just walks away. What a mess, and I hope you can still get some money out of them.