Translator scam alert reports
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| + | === March 29, 2012 === | ||
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| + | A Proz.com member received a profile message from a non-logged-in visitor who called himself "Robert Hanson", with an address rob.hans2@yahoo.com <br> and an IP address that located him in Chicago, USA.<br> | ||
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| + | The original message simply said "hi. i've got some documents for translation." and the next messages expanded it to ""Yes about 12,000 english <br>words. i will forward the document to you as soon as we complete negociation. what is your rate and what is your mode of payment?" and "it has <br> to do with the climatic change. you can also be paid with a check . i will forward the document to you as soon as possible so you can get back to me<br> with the total cost price."<br> | ||
| + | <br> | ||
| + | When the translator asked the "client" about his current location, "Robert Hanson" declared to be "presently in the south africa to get some <br> informations." Since the IP address located the client in USA, the member demanded identification and other related information and did not hear <br> back from the "client". <br> | ||
| + | <br> | ||
| + | This looks a lot like an advance payment scam attempt cleverly averted by the translator. Also, it may be irrelevant, but I have seen a lot of <br> scams where the pronoun "I" is written like a small "i".<br> | ||
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=== March 27, 2012 === | === March 27, 2012 === | ||
Revision as of 19:22, 29 March 2012
Overview
- This is a service provided by ProZ.com to help professional translators improve their risk management when facing scammers.
- This page presents the translators scam alert reports sent to subscribers to the Translators scam-prevention center.
- If you are a ProZ.com member you can subscribe to the scam alerts.
Scam alerts
- Basic risk management: 3/16/2012
- Impersonated client scam: 2/28/2012, 3/5/2012, 3/6/2012,3/15/2012, 3/20/2012, 3/21/2012, 3/27/2012
- Nigerian scam: 3/2/2012
- Advance payment / overpayment scam: 2/25/2012, 2/29/2012, 3/5/2012, 3/9/2012, 3/13/2012, 3/22/2012
- Pay-to-work scams: 2/27/2012
- Secret Shopper / Western Union testing scam: 2/24/2012, 3/26/2012
- "Wallet lost abroad" scam: 3/1/2012, 3/7/2012
- "Employment abroad" scam: 3/8/2012
- Dating scam: 2/26/2012
- Phishing "data verification" scam: 3/12/2012
March 2012
March 29, 2012
A Proz.com member received a profile message from a non-logged-in visitor who called himself "Robert Hanson", with an address rob.hans2@yahoo.com
and an IP address that located him in Chicago, USA.
The original message simply said "hi. i've got some documents for translation." and the next messages expanded it to ""Yes about 12,000 english
words. i will forward the document to you as soon as we complete negociation. what is your rate and what is your mode of payment?" and "it has
to do with the climatic change. you can also be paid with a check . i will forward the document to you as soon as possible so you can get back to me
with the total cost price."
When the translator asked the "client" about his current location, "Robert Hanson" declared to be "presently in the south africa to get some
informations." Since the IP address located the client in USA, the member demanded identification and other related information and did not hear
back from the "client".
This looks a lot like an advance payment scam attempt cleverly averted by the translator. Also, it may be irrelevant, but I have seen a lot of
scams where the pronoun "I" is written like a small "i".
March 27, 2012
Mr. Trevor Devlin from the company ASTA-USA has reported that another company (which uses the website www.tr-services.us) is using ASTA-USA's
physical address on their purchase orders. ASTA-USA is taking legal actions on this issue. An investigation in the Web lead to two translators who
were abused by these scamers, contact name Silvia. In both cases they delivered a translation, lost contact with the "client" and were never paid.
One of them provided a PO dated Feb 21, 2012 with the header "Translation Services", the physical address of ASTA-USA, the email address
info@tr-services.us and the web address www.tr-services.us. The IP address in the emails corresponds to Egypt.
In the second case the scammers approached a legitimate end client misrepresenting a serious translation agency (different from ASTA-USA), got the
translation job and assigned it to the victim. Scammers got paid by the end client and then vanished. When contacted by the translator, the end
client acted honorably and paid her, even though they had already paid the scammer.
The web page http://www.tr-services.us/ offers many language-related services, shows a list of prestigious clients and invites translators to offer
their services, but it has no contact information besides the info@tr-services.us email address.
Learn more about this kind of scams at http://www.proz.com/about/translator-scam-alerts/default#impersonated_client_scam
March 26, 2012
A new variant of the "Secret shopper" or "Western Union" scam has been reported by several colleagues. The messages are sent by "Joel Greenwood,
Judd Financial Services hiring manager".
The scammer will contact you offering you a job position (you did not requested) in a Payment Protection services company, after reviewing your CV
that you didn't submit). The job is a part-time assignment with good salary and commissions and all you have to do is receive in your accounts the
payments from the "buyers" and, once the transaction was cleared, to keep your remuneration and to wire the remaining amounts to the "sellers".
You will receive checks or similar instruments that you will deposit in your bank account and the bank will credit the money, then you will transfer
the payments to the "sellers". Later, the checks will be found to be forged or stolen and you will lose all the money you transferred and you will
have legal problems for handling bad checks.
Find the text of the message and the contract offered to the victims who play along at
http://wiki.proz.com/wiki/index.php/Detecting_and_reacting_to_false_job_offers_and_other_scams#Variant:_Payment_protection_services
March 22, 2012
Two independent sources have reported scams related to work orders received from "Ashley Williams" or "Ashley Wealthy" through the email address
willsmorgan46@gmail.com (the names are probably fake and no one called that way should be considered related to this scam).
In both cases the translators accepted the job in spite of having no real contact information and in both cases the "client" refused to pay via
Paypal and stated that payment would be by check. In one of the cases a fake check was received for an amount larger than agreed (a classic "excess
payment" scam), while in the other case no payment (long overdue) has been received yet.
Learn more about this kind of scams at http://www.proz.com/about/translator-scam-alerts/#advance_payment_overpayment_scam
March 21, 2012
After the alam was sent yesterday, several translators provided additional information of the scammer impersonating Michael Becker from the email
address becker3e4@gmail.com
The scammer contacts translators making reference to a job published and then deleted at ProZ.com asking for availability. In the second message he
sends a text and asks for a quote. The third message asks for a lot of contact information and says:
"Thank you for your reply.Am out to Sweden at the moment but not a problem working together.I agree with your quoted rate, i will be paying in EURO Bank Cheque.Your full payment will be issued out before commencement of work for i do understand it is necessary since we working online."
The fourth message reveals a classic "excess payment" scam:
"Payment was sent today by my client,but there was a mistake as my client purchase a Bank Draft check of Euro 4650 on your name which include my traveling agent fees to you.After cashing, you will take your down payment.I don't think there is anything to worry about for the trust i have in you.You will send the excess funds to my agent for my trip to France.Please watch out for the payment and let me know when you receive it.Thanks for your understanding."
Of course the check will prove a forgery and the victim risks losing the time invested in the translation and also the "excess payment" wired to the
criminals, plus possible legal problems for cashing a forged check. Remember to get full and verified contact information from any client approaching
you before investing time in them.
March 20, 2012
ProZ.com member Michael Becker has reported that scammers are attempting to steal from translators by posting fake jobs in his name, using the email
address becker3e4@gmail.com (already blocked in ProZ.com). ALERT: The address becker3e4@gmail.com does not belong to Michael and anything
coming from it should be considered a scam attempt.
This operation was detected because two potential victims had the good sense of contacting Michael via his ProZ.com profile asking for him to
confirm the job offer, and because Michael immediately reported this to ProZ.com staff.
Further investigation unearthed a previous job posted in January at ProZ.com (it had been deleted by staff because it was identical to another job
from an unrelated outsourcer) and a currently deleted ProZ.com profile with the username "compase".
Please spread the voice among colleagues, including a link to this report. It is likely that many translators have receive these false job offers
and only two (and you) have been told so far that this is a scam.
Read more about this kind of scam at http://www.proz.com/about/translator-scam-alerts/default#impersonated_client_scam
March 16, 2012
A colleague wrote today asking for a risk evaluation of a proposal received from a stranger via her ProZ.com profile.
- The message said: "Am in need of your translation service; English to Polish.Get back to me as soon as possible."
- A name was provided in the header together with a free fantasy email address (unrelated to the name)
- The author of this proposal was not a registered ProZ.com user or was not logged in when the offer was sent. * IP address was from Sylva, NC, USA
There is not enough information to call this a scam. In fact there is not enough information for any kind of evaluation. The message is short to
the point of being unpolite. No "dear xxx", no greetings of any kind, no signature. Not a word about what the job is (except for the language pair).
No explanation on how the translator was selected.
In my personal case this is enough to send the message to the dust bin without further reflection, but if you want to explore this opportunity you
should first find out in a verifiable way who your potential client is (physical address, a phone land line where you should place a call, etc.)
Also you could ask for a sample of the test to be translated and google every piece of data you received from the "client", and anything else required
to have you comfortably convinced that you are dealing with a real person with a real need. The first task when contacted by a stranger is to
verify its identity. Translation comes later.
You could also ask for a 50% advance payment and not start the translation until payment is received. If check received is for a sum larger than
agreed and you are asked to wire back the difference then cut all connections, as scam will be confirmed.
A last note: the colleague wrote "It looks suspicious, though it was sent by ProZ." Please note that this message was not sent by ProZ.com, and not
even by a ProZ.com member. The message states "The author is not a registered ProZ.com user or was not logged in when sending this message." so all
we know is that somebody found the colleague's profile and used the "send message" feature.
March 15, 2012
On February 28, 2012 Mr. Kamran Nadeem, the Operational Manager at www.industranslation.com reported that scammers were misusing his name and
profile to cheat translators from a fake address industranslation001@gmail.com . Translators are offered jobs at good rates and, after delivery,
they are not paid and their emails are no longer answered. Apparently at least six translators have been cheated this way.
Besides issuing the scam alert, the fake address was blocked in ProZ.com and a warning was posted in the Blue Board page http://www.proz.com/blueboard/7728
Now Mr. Nadeem has reported that the scammers keep impersonating him, this time using the fake address industranslation.kamran@gmail.com (also
blocked and added to the Blue Board page)
This is a clasic example of scammers who steal translations by impersonating a legitimate ourtsourcer. Translators should not start working without
a positive identification of the client. In this case a corporate Gmail email address should set alerts, and a verification of the IP address would
locate the scammer in China (the real outsourcer is based in the USA).
Learn more about this kind of scams at http://www.proz.com/about/translator-scam-alerts/default#impersonated_client_scam
March 13, 2012
A colleague received from an unknown person the request to translate an attached text, with a very generous deadline, and she replied with a quite
high rate, bearing in mind she did not know the potential customer, or how he had reached her.
The "client's" wrote in his second email:
"Am very much happy to read back from you. I felt so great and comfortable with the charges for the pages in which am sure it will be well prepared, easy and well understood by the reader. Kindly get back to me with your Full Name to be on the payment, your Address and zip code and your cell phone number so i can instruct my secretary to issue out the full payment as soon as possible for the service.Do note that you will not release the translation to me not until have the payment with you. I will need your immediate response via email assuring me that i can trust you to handle this with care
When the translator, feeling uneasy, tried to get more information on the identity of the client, he never answered back. This was most probably a
failed "overpayment" scam and the professionalism of the translator saved her money, time and troubles.
Remember that when approached with a proposal you need to know (and verify) the real identity of your client. Professional outsourcers will respect
you more if you verify them, and scammers will go away looking for a less careful victim.
March 12, 2012
A member reported a classing phishing scam targeting PayPal users:
Subject: Warning! Your PayPal account was limited! Dear Customer, Warning! Your PayPal account was limited! As part of our security measures, we regularly activity in the PayPal screen to learn recently you were contacted after finding a problem on your Account. at the request of information from you for the reason follows:What's the problem? -Our system detected unusual charges to a card Credit linked to your PayPal account. Click To Confirm PayPal Email ID: 5138-8872 Department of examining the accounts of PayPal. The PayPal Corp. Copyright 1999-2012. All rights reserved Sincerely, PayPal
This is a basic version of phishing scam, were the victim is induced to click on a link, or sometimes on an image with an embedded link that will
install a trojan or virus in his/her computer.
Please note that no serious institution will write a personalized message like this to a customer addressing him/her as "dear customer" (they should
have at least an user name). Also the description of the problem is confusing, close to meaningless.
If you receive a mesage like this allegedly from Paypal, a bank, a government institution, etc. just delete it without a second thought.
Read more at http://www.proz.com/about/translator-scam-alerts/default#phishing_data_verification_scam
March 9, 2012
A ProZ.com member reported today that she recently received a request for translation of a document, from a person who claimed to be a student.
The level of English in the email exchanges was very poor.They agreed on a fixed price of 400 USD and she completed the translation, but she kept
it while waiting for the check "which is in the mail". Increasingly concerned, she investigated the IP address of the email to discover that it was
from Nigeria, so it is most likely an overpayment scam.
When you get a job offer from a stranger you should first do your risk management homework until you are reasonable sure that this is a real client
and you have consistent contact information. This kind of inquiry should be done before you start translating and we should be as professional when
we evaluate a job as we are when we translate it. If we fail in this area we are at the mercy of criminals who are experts in exploiting the good
faith of decent people.
March 8, 2012
A colleague reported a situation when he answered to an ad that apparently was from the Ritz Hotel in London, asking for an in house translator
with a rather generous salary, room and board and a lot of other fringe benefits. All his exchange with who apparently was the real HR Hotel’s head
went well, until the time to processing the work permit came and he was asked to contact “their” immigration agent. He did and then was asked to
send certified copies of the related documents and along with them the “agent’s fee” that was about 700 British pounds.
When he wrote back to the HR head and told her that in the Hotel’s ad, it had said the hotel would cover those expenses and the plane ticket, she
answered back and said that it was correct and that the translator would get a reimbursement upon his arrival. It was then when he Googled the
immigration agent’s name and found out that he was a swindler. Of course, if he sent the money he was going to get no job, and definitely no refund.
Learn more about "Employment abroad" scams at http://www.proz.com/about/translator-scam-alerts/default#employment_abroad_scam
March 7, 2012
A variant of the "wallet stolen abroad" scam where the need is due to a medical emergency was reported by the alleged sender of the distress
message, sent from her hacked msn account.
Hi All, Hope all is well. I've have spent most of Tuesday and Wednesday here in Madrid,I had a trip to Madrid (SPAIN) to be with my ill Cousin,whom is a student here.I'm writing this with sadness right now,cuz am facing a terrible situation right now. She was admitted because she had an impaired vision on the left-hand side of her eye. So we assumed that this was migraine (without the headache), which we taught was her normal sickness, and would disappear in around half an hour. It didn't. It continued all day and was still there when she woke up on Thursday, though slightly improved. So we took her to the doc who suspected a stroke and sent her straight off to Acute Stroke Assessment Unit. Nothing showed up on the CT scan, luckily, and they discharged her with a bag of drugs.. I am deeply sorry for not writing or calling you before leaving, the news of her illness arrived to me as an emergency and that she needs family support to keep her going, I hope you understand my plight and pardon me. So I want to transfer her back home to have the surgery implemented with my Doc,the cost of the surgery here is very expensive, and again i need to monitor her while she's in town with me.So i was wondering if you can help me out monetarily,what i was looking for was about €2,600 to make the necessary arrangement but right now i have raised €1450 from my family.I traveled with little money due to the short time I had to prepare for this trip and never expected things to be the way it is right now,please what am looking for right now is €1150 and i will be so glad if you can help me and I'll surely pay you back upon return, I need to get her home ASAP because she is going through a lot of pain at the moment and the doctor have advised that it is necessary that the tumor is operated soon to avoid anything from going wrong. I'll reimburse you upon my return. kindly let me know if you can be of any help ? Love,
In order to prevent your accounts from being stolen you should change passwords frequently and be specially careful when using the account in a
shared platform (such as an Internet cafe computer). Passwords should not be stored in unencrypted text files in your computer and the antivirus
should be active and updated.
Learn more about this kind of scams at http://www.proz.com/about/translator-scam-alerts/#wallet_lost_abroad_scam
March 6, 2012
A ProZ.com member contacted Support to report that she completed a job for an agency and then, after delivery, the project manager stopped answering
her emails and disappeared. Looking into the case, the alleged representative from the agency performed all communications with the translator from
the email address translatorquote1@gmail.com
The "contact" tab in the web page corresponding to the agency includes the following email addresses for communication:
- For general information: info@{agency_name}.com
- For submitting résumés: resumes@{agency_name}.com
This strongly suggests that the translator has been victim of a scam by impersonation as described at http://www.proz.com/about/translator-scam-alerts/default#impersonated_client_scam
The first risk management action to perform when offered a job from a new client is to positively identify this client. No honest client will be
offended if you do your professional homework.
March 5, 2012
Scammer contacted victim from a @rambler.ru email address claiming to be representatives of a legitimate company called Rambler Internet Holdings.
After performing several small editing jobs, the victim found out that Rambler is a common search engine and email provider like Google, and
ramble.ru is an email address that anyone can get. The "jobs" were often "letters" to their US employees praising their work and telling them about
the thousands of dollars in commissions they were racking up (the bait).
After about a week and a half (a few days before they would have had to pay the victim) they lowered the hook. They offered him one of those jobs
receiving payments from their US customers, hoping that his greed would have been piqued by the huge sums mentioned in the editing "jobs". The
victim politely told them that he was not interested (as he was beginning to suspect that this was just a money laundering scheme) and he has not
heard from them since.
A report from another victim published at http://wordsmithforhire.blogspot.com/2011/08/rambler-internet-holdings-scam.html hints at an overpayment
scam, so this is a case that combines impersonation of a legitimate company and advance payment.
March 2, 2012
A member reported receiving the following message from a ProZ.com profile (removed immediately after receiving the report):
"Hello Dear, How are you today? I hope by the special grace of God you are doing wonderfully well! I will like to apologize for contacting you in this manner over a transaction of this magnitude since we all know that the internet is not a safe means of communication but it was due to a matter of necessity, i had to do a thorough search on the internet and finally came across your email. I will rather start by introducing myself, I am Mrs. Olga Patarkatsishvili, the wife of late multimillionaire Badri Patarkatsishvili, he was found dead at about 10.45 pm, Tuesday February 12, 2008 at our Surrey mansion in United Kingdom, at the age of 52, a month after running unsuccessfully for the Georgian presidency.My husband was one of the "oligarchs" who made a fortune from the privatization of state-owned industries during the Yeltsin era and eventually found a haven in Britain, where he was recently linked to a possible bid for West Ham football club. My marriage to Badri came as a surprise. http://www.geotimes.ge/index.php?m=home&newsid=11794 I hope after reading through the above websites, you will see that me and my little son is in a very tough and difficult situation, as we are currently battling with my husband's wife, business partners, Georgian authorities, cousin and his solicitors over his wealth because he did not leave any will behind, this has made life so frustrating for me and my little son David. Everything he left for us secretly which includes, banks accounts (both foreign accounts) and properties were confiscated except for a profiling cash amount of Ten million eight hundred thousand United States dollars that he deposited as diplomatic baggage with a European firm shortly before he died. I have all documents relating to these deposit and every other information to proof my legitimacy, this I will definitely sent to you only once you prove to me that you are genuine, honest, transparent and dedicated to help us. We want you to stand as a beneficiary to retrieve the above quoted sum as my representative. Please Do email with these mrs.olga00@gmx.es for more details many thanks. Thanks for your understanding. Remain blessed, Mrs. Olga Patarkatsishvili"
This is a classic "Nigerian scam" and, according to law enforcement agencies, lots of educated people fall for this kind of trap every year. IP
address 41.218.247.151 tells us that the scam was sent from Accra, Ghana.
Learn more about this kind of scams at http://www.proz.com/about/translator-scam-alerts/default#nigerian_scam
March 1, 2012
A ProZ.com member reported receiving the following message, allegedly from a colleague, sent from that colleague's email address:
"Hope you get this on time,sorry I didn't inform you about my trip in Spain for a Program, I'm presently in Spain and am having some difficulties here because i misplaced my wallet on my way to the hotel where my money and other valuable things were kept. presently i have limited access to internet,I will like you to assist me with a loan of 2,950 Euro to sort-out my hotel bills and to get myself back home. i have spoken to the embassy here but they are not responding to the matter effectively,I will appreciate whatever you can afford to assist me with,I'll Refund the money back to you as soon as i return,let me know if you can be of any help.I don't have a phone where i can be reached. Please let me know immediately. Best Regards"
This is a classic ""Wallet lost abroad" scam, where the scammers first capture somebody's email account and then use it to scam others (probably
taken from the email contacts list). IP address was not reported in this case but it is likely to be located outside Spain.
Learn more about this kind of scams at http://www.proz.com/about/translator-scam-alerts/default#wallet_lost_abroad_scam
February 2012
February 29, 2012
Several ProZ.com members reported via Support the following scam submitter from two profiles that were deleted as soon as the first reports were eceived:
hello I am pastor rick zebb from leeds, UK.I will need the service of an English to french Interpreter while i will becoming to grace a wedding ceremony in france(paris) as the SpecialGuest Speaker of the occasion on the Friday 23th and Saturday24 of march 2012.The duration will be from 2pm-4pm on Friday and 10am-12pm on Saturday. If available for these days and hours, do not hesitate to get back to me with the fee involved so i work towards booking the space. Very Best Regards rick zebb 447011149073 rick_zebb@yahoo.com
This is the classic "bishop" version of the advance payment scam. Please note the poor level of English for pastor residing in Leeds.
The IP address was 41.184.17.29 and it traces the sender to Lagos (Nigeria) instead of Leeds (UK). This very simple risk management verification is
enough to protect you in this case.
Read more about this kind of scams at http://www.proz.com/about/translator-scam-alerts/default#advance_payment_overpayment_scam
February 28, 2012
Kamran Nadeem, the Operational Manager at www.industranslation.com has contacted ProZ.com to report that scammers are misusing his name and
profile to cheat translators. To do so scammers have created an email address industranslation001@gmail.com and use it to contact translators,
impersonating Kamran and sending them to Indus Translation Services' blueboard http://www.proz.com/blueboard/7728
Translators are offered jobs at good rates and, after delivery, they are not paid and their emails are no longer answered. Apparently at least six translators have been cheated this way.
The IP information in the mails received from the scammers locate them in China and further investigations suggest that they could be linked to http://www.proz.com/blueboard/11110
This is a clasic example of scammers who steal translations by impersonating a legitimate ourtsourcer. As usual, the main line of defense for
translators is a solid risk management procedure, and in particular to get a positive identification of the outsourcer.
Two details should warn translators in this case:
- Emails allegedly sent by a corporate outsourcer from a free email account (Gmail in this case) should always ring alarms.
- IP addresses of the scammers located them in China while the company is based in the USA. IP addresses of mails from new people contacting us should be always checked, see http://wiki.proz.com/wiki/index.php/Risk_management:_Email for information on how to do it.
Lear more about this kind of scams at http://www.proz.com/about/translator-scam-alerts/default#impersonated_client_scam
February 27, 2012
Earlier this month a ProZ.com member reported at http://www.proz.com/topic/217853 that an alleged translation agency based in Australia had
offered her attractive work with the condition that they "accepted to cooperate only with WTACA verified members.”
Then they added “WTACA is an international Organization focusing on translation certifications, for more details you can visit their web site
www.wtaca.eu.tc” and they requested scanned copy of the translator’s WTACA membership as requirement for incorporation into the agency’s database.
Admission onto WTACA costed €100 so this has all the look and feel of a classic “pay to work” scam, where the victim is asked to pay first as
condition for getting access to an attractive job offer.
Further investigation showed that several of the “agency” contact addresses belonged to real translators who were unaware of this misuse of their
data. Later the web pages corresponding to both "agency" and "association" became inactive.
Now another ProZ.com member reported at http://www.proz.com/topic/219194 that an allegued Australian agency contacted her indicating that "To ensure
high quality translation, we only accept STO (Successful Translators Organization) certified Member. we invite you to visit their website www.sto.eu5.org”
The “agency” presents a PO box as contact address, while the association shows no contact information at all. Admission fee into the STO association
is casually €100. At this point the risk management evaluation lights a big red alarm indication.
Learn more about this kind of scams at http://www.proz.com/about/translator-scam-alerts/default#pay_to_work_scams
February 26, 2012
The following email was reported by a ProZ.com member through support:
Hello My Dearest one Hello My Dearest onernMy name is Sandra Williams i saw your Email today, when i was browsing i then made up my mind to contact you as my friend so i will also like you to reply back to me, i have some thing to discuss with you, i will also send you my picture,s and for us to know each other very well, I believe that distance can never be a barrier but let's love connect us because love is a bridge that connected far distance to be close to each other it will be my pleasure to hear from you soonestrnFrom Sandra,please reply me with this email, sandra5_williams@yahoo.com
This is a classic example of dating scam, where the scammer attempts to establish a relationship with the victim to ask for the transfer of money
once this was achieved.
The profile used for sending this message was deleted and the corresponding email address was blocked.
Read more about this scam at http://www.proz.com/about/translator-scam-alerts/#dating_scam
February 25, 2012
A ProZ.com user wrote in a support request: "I received a false request from a scammer and fell for it (see copy of the scam email below). Please
notify all your members about this scam as many other translators might fall for it.
Greetings! I'm Alan Cox from Atlanta,Georgia and i'll be leaving here in Atlanta for the United Kingdom on a business trip tomorrow.However,i will need your service to translate some documents for me.I need to make a presentation to some groups of german speaking people in Munich,Germany on 5th of March,2012.I will need you to help me translate the papers from English to German,so each of my audience can have a copy in german language and they can follow through.I will also need that the work be delivered by March 2,2012.Please,let me know your rate for a total of about 4626 words presentation and your methods of payment.I look forward to hearing back from you soon. Best Regards, Alan alan.cox.914@gmail.com
This is a classic text found in advance payment scams, including the poor writting and the fact that the translation will be used to be given to
the assistants to a presentation.
Read more about this scam at http://www.proz.com/about/translator-scam-alerts/default#advance_payment_overpayment_scam
February 24, 2012
The "Secret Shopper" scam has been going strong for the past few months and continues to affect translators. Please help spread the word in the
interest of protecting other language professionals who may fall victim.
A ProZ.com user reported today via the Support service: "I was contacted by a Tom Baker, from a company called Secret Shopper, claiming to be a
Proz.com member, ... with a job involving the evaluation of Western Union Services in France. The transactions I carried out were by means of
travellers cheques which my bank now informs me are fakes, and of course it is impossible to contact this company. I have been defrauded of 4000 €."
Read more about this scam at http://www.proz.com/about/translator-scam-alerts/default#secret_shopper_western_union_testing_scam
Discussion related to this article
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