Dodgy things you should look out for if you're a writer online and contacted about a writing opportunity (a non-exhaustive list):

1) Someone approaches *you* about your work offering paid contracts through PM on your writing platform.

2) They are reluctant to let you see a contract or withdraw the right to let you see a contract if you mention an agent.

3) They don't respond to questions and try to steer you to another platform (email, discord, etc.) to discuss things further with you.

4) If you see a contract, check the rights and working conditions with a lawyer or agent. Check specifically for when the rights return to you (never sign anything that's in perpetuity).

5) Check that you aren't expected to supply a minimum number of words or meet tight deadlines/face penalties for not meeting deadlines.

6) Check the company's website for professionalism and check for reviews from other authors about that website that *aren't* on said website's own forums.

7) Check the website's catalogue and see if it has a lot of content that you would think is copyrighted (i.e. using fanart covers etc.) This will show how committed the website is to protecting IPs of others/you.

8) They don't refer to you by name (Dear Author) or they list the books of yours that they're interested in without saying what, specifically, about those books they found a good fit for their catalogue.

This is not an exhaustive list, but these are some of the red flags that should make you question whether or not an entity is legitimate. Keep your work safe and only upload to websites that you trust that allows you to keep full control of your work.

And yes, I'm looking at you 'Catnovel', 'Rnovel', 'Xnovel' and 'Webnovel' specifically here.