| Pages in topic: < [1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9] > | SCAM: translation of a 11,643-word document (various email addresses, payment with a check) Thread poster: Thomas Szabo, MD, MS
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Marcia Gascon 
Brazil
Local time: 19:39
English to Portuguese
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| Today, July 4th, 2023, I received an email about the same content from this forum. | Jul 4, 2023 |
I received an email via G-mail from Wendy-Conroy-025 with a text of 12,714 words to translate from Spanish to Portuguese. I realized that it's neither from an agency nor a company. I did a Google search on a part of the text and it showed that this text is on this forum. Therefore, I'm reposting it here to alert other translators about this. The title of the text is: INVESTIGACIÓN DE LOS PROCEDIMIENTOS DE UNA ORGANIZACIÓN PUBLICAS.
The same payment about Check.
Be ca... See more I received an email via G-mail from Wendy-Conroy-025 with a text of 12,714 words to translate from Spanish to Portuguese. I realized that it's neither from an agency nor a company. I did a Google search on a part of the text and it showed that this text is on this forum. Therefore, I'm reposting it here to alert other translators about this. The title of the text is: INVESTIGACIÓN DE LOS PROCEDIMIENTOS DE UNA ORGANIZACIÓN PUBLICAS.
The same payment about Check.
Be careful!!! ▲ Collapse
| | | | conejo
United States
Local time: 17:39
Japanese to English
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| In July 2023, I received this scam email too! (11,643 words (44 Pages)) | Jul 6, 2023 |
First email received 7/3/2023 from a gmail email address:
Subject: Service Needed...
"Hello, my name is Natasha Jackson. I'm contacting you in regard to a Japanese content document worth 11,643 words (44 Pages). I need this document translated into English. I would like to know if you are interested and available to get this done for me. Please get back to me as soon as you can. Best regards."
They claimed to be a freelance researcher and that this was a research paper f... See more First email received 7/3/2023 from a gmail email address:
Subject: Service Needed...
"Hello, my name is Natasha Jackson. I'm contacting you in regard to a Japanese content document worth 11,643 words (44 Pages). I need this document translated into English. I would like to know if you are interested and available to get this done for me. Please get back to me as soon as you can. Best regards."
They claimed to be a freelance researcher and that this was a research paper for a seminar. This was a totally unknown person not affiliated with any company, so I said up-front payment only via PayPal, this person insisted they were going to mail a physical check with a partial payment and I would start the job while the check was in transit (before it arrived), and they would mail the rest of the payment later. I said no, and they disappeared.
Now today, 7/6/2023, I received an identical email from from a gmail email address:
Subject: Service Needed...
"Hello, my name is Latisha Kenya. I'm contacting you in regard to a Japanese content document worth 11,643 words (44 Pages). I need this document translated into English. I would like to know if you are interested and available to get this done for me. Please get back to me as soon as you can. Best regards."
[Edited at 2023-07-07 11:01 GMT] ▲ Collapse
| | | | Liviu-Lee Roth
United States
Local time: 18:39
Romanian to English
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The narrative for these overpayment scams is sold and bought on the dark net. (If I am not mistaken, about $2.00 for the US)
Nothing new, just recycled!
Stay safe
| | | | Liviu-Lee Roth
United States
Local time: 18:39
Romanian to English
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| Just got it in today's SPAM | Jul 7, 2023 |
conejo wrote:
First email received 7/3/2023 from a gmail email address:
Subject: Service Needed...
"Hello, my name is Natasha Jackson. I'm contacting you in regard to a Japanese content document worth 11,643 words (44 Pages). I need this document translated into English. I would like to know if you are interested and available to get this done for me. Please get back to me as soon as you can. Best regards."
They claimed to be a freelance researcher and that this was a research paper for a seminar. This was a totally unknown person not affiliated with any company, so I said up-front payment only via PayPal, this person insisted they were going to mail a physical check with a partial payment and I would start the job while the check was in transit (before it arrived), and they would mail the rest of the payment later. I said no, and they disappeared.
Now today, 7/6/2023, I received an identical email from from a gmail email address:
Subject: Service Needed...
"Hello, my name is Latisha Kenya. I'm contacting you in regard to a Japanese content document worth 11,643 words (44 Pages). I need this document translated into English. I would like to know if you are interested and available to get this done for me. Please get back to me as soon as you can. Best regards."
[Edited at 2023-07-07 11:01 GMT]
I'm contacting you in regard to an English content document worth
11,643 words (44 Pages). I need this document translated into
Romanian.I would like to know if you are interested and available to
get this done for me. Please get back to me as soon as you can. Thank
you.
Best regards.
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| A copy&paste message | Jul 8, 2023 |
conejo wrote:
First email received 7/3/2023 from a gmail email address:
Subject: Service Needed...
"Hello, my name is Natasha Jackson. I'm contacting you in regard to a Japanese content document worth 11,643 words (44 Pages). I need this document translated into English. I would like to know if you are interested and available to get this done for me. Please get back to me as soon as you can. Best regards."
They claimed to be a freelance researcher and that this was a research paper for a seminar. This was a totally unknown person not affiliated with any company, so I said up-front payment only via PayPal, this person insisted they were going to mail a physical check with a partial payment and I would start the job while the check was in transit (before it arrived), and they would mail the rest of the payment later. I said no, and they disappeared.
Now today, 7/6/2023, I received an identical email from from a gmail email address:
Subject: Service Needed...
"Hello, my name is Latisha Kenya. I'm contacting you in regard to a Japanese content document worth 11,643 words (44 Pages). I need this document translated into English. I would like to know if you are interested and available to get this done for me. Please get back to me as soon as you can. Best regards."
[Edited at 2023-07-07 11:01 GMT]
This Jackson person is so ignorant that she wrote "11,643 words" for translation from Japanese to English. As you are fully aware but for people who do not know, Japanese is not counted by words, but by characters. Plain dumb.
| | | | Mariana Landeau
United States
Local time: 18:39
English to Portuguese
+ ...
| and still the same email... | Jul 30, 2023 |
Tai Fu, you got the email in n2019. Today is July of 2023 and I just got the same email from [email protected] from my AAIT directory (Atlanta Association of Interpreters and Translators).
Of course, I know it is a scam and I didnt reply it.
Tai Fu wrote: I just got this: Hello, I'm contacting you in regard to a Chinese content document worth 11,643 words. I need this document translated into English. I would like to know if you are interested and available to get this done for me. Please get back to me as soon as you can via my email ( [email protected]). Thank you. Best regards. And when I replied, I got this: Hello I'm pleased to know you are interested in handling this project. However, I will require your service to translate the attached Chinese document. In the mean time, could you also confirm your charges per page, per source word or for the entire translation? The deadline for this Project is 1 month starting from 27/November/2019. Finally, I'm proposing a cashier check or bank certified check for the payment. Please do not hesitate to confirm if this is okay with you? I look forward to reading from you soon. Best Regards, (attached a 20,000 word document in simplified Chinese) I told them that I will only start the work if the check clears... so far I have not started the work. They said it has to be a US address so I gave them my dad's address. I told him that if the check clears to tell me, but otherwise I'm not doing anything. I get semi-regular work from The Translation Gate anyways...
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July 29, 2023. I received a translation offer a few days ago, from Portuguese to English (no variant specified) for an upcoming "seminar." We agreed on the terms (I proposed USD 0.11 a word). We continued to exchange emails, and they said they wanted to my full name and address to send me a check in advance. I responded that I did not want to receive payment in advance and also asked for more information on the seminar. No reply. That was the last of it.
| | | | | Another one: Lisa Lewis | Aug 1, 2023 |
Hello,
I also received something similar from someone called Lisa Lewis:
"Thank you for your response, I'm pleased to know you are interested in handling this project. However, I will require your service to translate the attached document. In the meantime, could you also confirm your charges per page, per source word or for the entire translation? The deadline for this Project is 1 month and a week starting from 5/August 2023. Finally, I'm proposing a cashier's check o... See more Hello,
I also received something similar from someone called Lisa Lewis:
"Thank you for your response, I'm pleased to know you are interested in handling this project. However, I will require your service to translate the attached document. In the meantime, could you also confirm your charges per page, per source word or for the entire translation? The deadline for this Project is 1 month and a week starting from 5/August 2023. Finally, I'm proposing a cashier's check or bank certified check for the payment. Please do not hesitate to confirm if this is okay with you? I look forward to reading from you soon.
Regards"
I think I saw something along these lines in another post. Fortunately for us, they are so obvious we can easly spot them
Cristina ▲ Collapse
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| Same Scam happened to me, but I fell for it | Aug 14, 2023 |
I also received an email from Elzabeth Flickinger, requesting a Portuguese to English translation, 12,242 words, with the document attached. she also said she was a student,that it was for a seminar and that her Sponser would pay up front by certified check. Didn't seem too strange, we agreed on rates, and she said the check would be sent soon. The due date was in 30 days. I sent her an invoice, clearly stating that if no payment was recevied by August 15, the work would not be performed. Elza... See more I also received an email from Elzabeth Flickinger, requesting a Portuguese to English translation, 12,242 words, with the document attached. she also said she was a student,that it was for a seminar and that her Sponser would pay up front by certified check. Didn't seem too strange, we agreed on rates, and she said the check would be sent soon. The due date was in 30 days. I sent her an invoice, clearly stating that if no payment was recevied by August 15, the work would not be performed. Elzabeth came back to life, saying that her sponser had just sent the check, and that there would be a second seminar, so they were paying the whole amount upfront, based on the agreed rate. However, no document attached. The check arrived and was deposited. However, I did inform her that I would not be able to deliver the second translation for the same date as the original translation, since it was much bigger. She responded that the second seminar was in November and I would have plenty of time to once she had the sign off on the document from her sponser.
I had not started the original translation yet. A few days after I sent her the deposit receipt, whe wrote tom me saying there had been a deathe in the spnsor's family and that the project would be on hold, so could I please refund the additional funds for the second transfer. Pretty sick to pretend someone died to scam a person. she was very insistent and kept sending me the request, and sent me the details of a bank account to make the transfer. When I told her it would take five days, she told me to send it to a Zelle account (not in her name). My bank has a low transfer limit, so I made the first transfer to [email protected], Jum Nugget. It cleared without a hitch. Then she sent me a different Zelle account for the balance. Boy am I thick! I did not send her the second amount to the new Zelle Account [email protected], but the name on the account was Clara Tapia.
During that week, one by one, my bank accounts were blocked, credit card was blocked and finally accesss to online banking was blocked. I spent almost 2 hours everyday on the phone with the bank to get unblocked, only to find the next day, something new was blocked. Until they finally told me that the check had not cleared. then I saw the debit in my account for the full amount fo the check.
Sad but true. I am not currently residing in the US, and where I have my account, money is not credited to it until the check passes clearing. And here checks are very unusual. That is why I fell into this trap, and when I asked my bank why they credited my acount with funds they had not received, I was told it was an acto of good faith since I am a long-time client with a good record. But their act of good faith was with a total stranger.
Anyway, poorer but wiser. ▲ Collapse
| | | | Daryo
United Kingdom
Local time: 23:39
Serbian to English
+ ...
| As it happens ... | Aug 15, 2023 |
Katarzyna Slowikova wrote: Daryo wrote:
was done by whoever introduced this "modern" idea to do any kind of business just based on emails (talking to live people gone out of fashion?), So what do you suggest? Inviting every prospective client into your town first, have a beer together and then deciding if you want to work for them? Just as there're digital tools of communication, there're ways to verify somebody's identity online, to a reasonable degree. Asking for a pre-payment is not one of them, as writeaway pointed out.
As it happens ... I did meet ALL of my own clients in person. But not for a beer - not my modus operandi.
You may think whatever you want, but it worked fine for me. Never felt the need to risk wasting my time on chasing unrecoverable debts from someone on the other end of the word. I'd rather go for a walk or read a book.
At any rate, as far as I'm concerned, anyone unwilling to talk on the phone and insisting on "any communication must be via only text" would be instantly dismissed as potential client.
| | | | Michael Newton
United States
Local time: 18:39
Japanese to English
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my "sponsor" = standard wording for Nigerian scammers.
| | | | Gina W
United States
Local time: 18:39
Member (2003)
French to English
| Allan George now | Aug 24, 2023 |
I got this one today, and happened to recognize the number of words as being this scam:
Allan George
3:17 PM (5 hours ago)
to me
I'm contacting you in regard to a French content document worth
11,643 words (44 Pages). I need this document translated into
English. I would like to know if you are interested and available to
get this done for me. Please get back to me as soon as you can. Thank
you.
Best regards.
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| Scam: How come the 11,643 words (44 pages) isn’t translated yet in all languages? | Sep 19, 2023 |
Different name, another strike...
I'm contacting you in regard to an Spanish content document worth
11,643 words (44 Pages). I need this document translated into
Portuguese .I would like to know if you are interested and available to
get this done for me. Please get back to me as soon as you can. Thank
you.
Best regards.
| | | | finnword1
United States
Local time: 18:39
English to Finnish
+ ...
| Received the same inquiry yesterday | Sep 22, 2023 |
I was tempted to inform the sender that the 44-page document in question was already translated 11 years ago, but then decided not to do it.
| | | | | This is still doing the rounds in 2024... | Jan 11 |
Yes, it's January 2024, six years after the initial post on this thread, and this scam is still going around.
I received this today:
I'm contacting you in regard to an English content document worth
11,643 words (44 Pages). I need this document translated into
Spanish.I would like to know if you are interested and available to
get this done for me. Please get back to me as soon as you can. Thank
you.
Best regards.
... See more Yes, it's January 2024, six years after the initial post on this thread, and this scam is still going around.
I received this today:
I'm contacting you in regard to an English content document worth
11,643 words (44 Pages). I need this document translated into
Spanish.I would like to know if you are interested and available to
get this done for me. Please get back to me as soon as you can. Thank
you.
Best regards.
Only this time, the email address was: [email protected] ▲ Collapse
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