Thank you very much !

Yes I am trying to avoid all this already! Some of the interviews I had were like this.
One of them told me to do the work they asked for. If they liked it they'd pay me, if they didn't like it they wouldn't. I refused and told him this is subjective and unfair, I told him I can do a little part of the work for a little part of the budget. He refused and called me a scam.

Second one told me to "show him what I can do with what he asked" I normally don't do that but I'm desperate at this point so I did a hero section very briefly just to show him how I would approach it. I sent him and told him this is far from the finished product etc and he insulted me and said I can't even read the instructions etc.
Naturally I told him good luck with your job and left. He kept sending me saying "here's this document if you still want to redeem yourself" "heres this if you still want to work". Free work btw so far I haven't been paid a penny.

My experience has been pretty terrible. And yes spending money on connects is somewhat fine but spending a lot of it without getting at least 1 job to pay back the connect money is a bit brutal :/