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Possibly scam.
Thread poster: William Sun
William Sun
William Sun  Identity Verified
Taiwan
Local time: 18:55
English to Chinese
+ ...
Jan 11, 2013

I was careless and replied to a potential scammer;in hindsight, it looks extremely fishy.

You have been sent a message via ProZ.com.
Author: (forum rule #8) [NOTE: The author is not a registered ProZ.com user or was not logged in when sending this message.]
Author's IP address: 173.200.22.248
-----------

How are you doing? I'm in need of your translation service.
English to Chinese. Get back to me as soon as possible.

... See more
I was careless and replied to a potential scammer;in hindsight, it looks extremely fishy.

You have been sent a message via ProZ.com.
Author: (forum rule #8) [NOTE: The author is not a registered ProZ.com user or was not logged in when sending this message.]
Author's IP address: 173.200.22.248
-----------

How are you doing? I'm in need of your translation service.
English to Chinese. Get back to me as soon as possible.


I replied to the mail to ask about the details and got a reply in half a day, pretty efficient:


Thanks for getting back to me. My name is (forum rule #8) ; a University student, I want you to translate this documents for me. The source language is English and the target language is Chinese. The document are attached for you to review and perhaps get back to me with an estimation [price]. The deadline is 3 weeks, is that possible? Payment will be made through Check. Let me know how it goes and please reply to this email for any other question.
Thanks in advance.


The attached document seems to be a chapter on puberty from a textbook. Suspicion arose: Why would a University student[sic] want a Chinese translation of a whole textbook chapter?

So I double-checked the email; it turns out that his ip is 41.190.3.94, EMTS Limited / Etisalat Nigeria.

It also turns out that that they used the same tactics for a cashier scam over at multitran.ru

Появилась новая (?) афера с оплатой перевода банковским чеком.
Заказ по электронной почте на небольшой (около $100) перевод документа с английского на русский для бизнес-семинара по организции нового бизнеса. Был указан лондонский адрес, прочие реквизиты и оплата банковским чеком. После выполнения работы пришел банковский чек на $2850. На запрос прислать правильный чек пришла просьба прислать обратно разницу по Western Union в Лондон. Местный банк, от имени которого послан чек подтвердил, что чек фальшивый. Эта афера работает поскольку деньги по банковскому чеку приходят через 1-2 дня, а его подделка выясняется через 2-3 недели.


But now the scammers have my primary email address and know me for a sucker, what should I do?

[Edited at 2013-01-11 09:53 GMT]

[Edited at 2013-01-11 09:55 GMT]

[Edited at 2013-01-11 09:56 GMT] ▲ Collapse
 
Lennart Luhtaru
Lennart Luhtaru  Identity Verified
United States
Member
English to Estonian
+ ...
Ignore Jan 11, 2013

Just ignore such e-mails or write back "nice try, scammer".
 


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Possibly scam.







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