Sudden inquiries "for personal use" - possible scam
Thread poster: Susan Welsh
Susan Welsh
Susan Welsh  Identity Verified
United States
Local time: 16:50
Russian to English
+ ...
May 28, 2020

I received two inquiries last week for translation, one RU>EN and the other DE>EN, both from gmail or hotmail addresses, no company name, just an individual. I asked for more information (who are you and what is the audience for the translation?), and in both cases they told me the document was "for personal use" and they did not provide any more information. In the RU>EN case, the document was originally written in English and is available online, and somebody had translated it into Russian. I ... See more
I received two inquiries last week for translation, one RU>EN and the other DE>EN, both from gmail or hotmail addresses, no company name, just an individual. I asked for more information (who are you and what is the audience for the translation?), and in both cases they told me the document was "for personal use" and they did not provide any more information. In the RU>EN case, the document was originally written in English and is available online, and somebody had translated it into Russian. I pointed this out to the person who had inquired, and asked if he wanted it back-translated. He said he did.

I find this odd, never having had inquiries of this sort during all my years as a freelance translator. I wonder if it has to do with COVID-19 social isolation somehow -- e.g., possibly students who find they have to write a term paper or thesis for a remote education program and grab something that they think the teacher/professor will not be able to trace through plagiarism software, because it was written in a foreign language. Just a guess.

Anybody else having such inquiries?
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Katarzyna Slowikova
Katarzyna Slowikova  Identity Verified
Germany
Local time: 21:50
English to Czech
+ ...
The mother of all scams May 28, 2020

Susan Welsh wrote:

I received two inquiries last week for translation, one RU>EN and the other DE>EN, both from gmail or hotmail addresses, no company name, just an individual. I asked for more information (who are you and what is the audience for the translation?), and in both cases they told me the document was "for personal use" and they did not provide any more information. In the RU>EN case, the document was originally written in English and is available online, and somebody had translated it into Russian. I pointed this out to the person who had inquired, and asked if he wanted it back-translated. He said he did.


This must have been the first time the guy heard the term. But of course he did, why not.


I find this odd, never having had inquiries of this sort during all my years as a freelance translator. I wonder if it has to do with COVID-19 social isolation somehow


No, it has not.



Anybody else having such inquiries?


Almost every topic-starter in this forum. It's literally the most common scam since many years (decades, I dare say). Google "overpayment scam" or read just any random thread (or two) in this forum.


Philippe Etienne
Thomas T. Frost
Jorge Payan
Liviu-Lee Roth
Walter Landesman
Aline Amorim
Philip Lees
 
Mervyn Henderson (X)
Mervyn Henderson (X)  Identity Verified
Spain
Local time: 21:50
Spanish to English
+ ...
Doesn't matter ... May 28, 2020

... what he wants it for. What does matter is if and how he'll pay you, but I suspect he has no intention of doing that. Smells like one of those overpayment-mistake cheques to me.

[Edited at 2020-05-28 17:38 GMT]


Sheila Wilson
Aline Amorim
Philip Lees
 
Susan Welsh
Susan Welsh  Identity Verified
United States
Local time: 16:50
Russian to English
+ ...
TOPIC STARTER
You guys are totally right! Jun 1, 2020

I just saw this post, and it's the same guy:
https://www.proz.com/forum/scams/344065-scam_german_to_english_climate_change_in_coastal_marine_systems.html

Today he wrote to me:
"I sent my sponsor an email a few min ago regarding the payment and he responded by saying the payment has been made with a cashie
... See more
I just saw this post, and it's the same guy:
https://www.proz.com/forum/scams/344065-scam_german_to_english_climate_change_in_coastal_marine_systems.html

Today he wrote to me:
"I sent my sponsor an email a few min ago regarding the payment and he responded by saying the payment has been made with a cashier's check with the USPS tracking # ( 9405598878734590858602 ). But with a slight mix-up.

"The mix-up is that you will be getting the amount that was meant for the event planner which is way more than the initial agreed payment while the amount meant for the translation was sent to the event planner.

"I believe it is something we can work out as soon as you deposit the check and have funds available in your account then we can sort out the difference. I will get back to you as soon as the amount has been confirmed. Thank you so much for your time, patience and understanding. Kindly let me know as soon as you receive the payment."

I cancelled the so-called job.
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Fatine Echenique
 
Mervyn Henderson (X)
Mervyn Henderson (X)  Identity Verified
Spain
Local time: 21:50
Spanish to English
+ ...
Get inside their heads Jun 2, 2020

The scammer-baiting site 419eater.com was good for a laugh back in the day. It was mostly the Nigerian scam, though, whereby Dr Blessed G. Vintermaier or the like sent e-mails "From the desk of The Vice-President" with some story or other of a reward of a few million dollars for helping them retrieve a cache of the stuff in some bank, with an elaborate scenario.

The 419eater baiters feigned interest, and then took the scammers on at their own game to curious and unbelievable lengths
... See more
The scammer-baiting site 419eater.com was good for a laugh back in the day. It was mostly the Nigerian scam, though, whereby Dr Blessed G. Vintermaier or the like sent e-mails "From the desk of The Vice-President" with some story or other of a reward of a few million dollars for helping them retrieve a cache of the stuff in some bank, with an elaborate scenario.

The 419eater baiters feigned interest, and then took the scammers on at their own game to curious and unbelievable lengths, saying they were willing to make a donation to whatever they needed help with, but kept stringing them out over months and months by various means. They would send the scammers fake Western Union wires, or just kept on having them go to check at the Western Union office, again and again and again.

Some even went a step further and arranged to be met at Lagos airport by them for a long-term financial cooperation, sending them bogus copies of air tickets, and then apologised with any old excuse when the scammer of course found nobody arriving at the airport. They even set weird conditions such as obliging the scammers to have tattoos made on their bodies with their organisation's slogans and sending proof of this, and scammers were so desperate for money that they sent photos of themselves with what looked like very cheap and painful tattoos. On occasions they even got the scammers themselves to pay out money for certain things, but they certainly wasted their time and frustrated them no end. Some just gave up, and sometimes the baiter just got bored with it all, or it was too much work, because occasionally he was working more than one scammer at once, and one fine day wrote to tell them how stupid they were for believing it all.

One very elaborate baiter was actually talking to the scammer on an (untraceable) phone when supposedly about to meet him on a certain street in a certain city. The baiter was actually thousands of miles away in his office in the UK, and then suddenly he pressed a recorder with a screech of brakes, a loud thump and screaming all around, and then let the phone go dead. A few days later the baiter wrote to the scammer again as an "associate" of the first man, explaining to the scammer that unfortunately his contact had been killed in a tragic car accident, but that he had found the documentation among his papers, and was willing to take up where his contact had left off, and so the scam started again.

The chains of e-mails were a hoot, and the over-payment scammers are probably not in the same league, but in general you have to be very careful with the details you give out, because some scammers can be very dangerous people who would seek revenge for those who mess with them. The idea of taking a flight to actually go and meet them or telling them real address details or writing from a traceable e-mail would be a bad one.
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Sudden inquiries "for personal use" - possible scam







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