Sometime around 2012 I noticed a massive spike in my daily emails from translators applying to work for my translation agency, from about 4-10 to 30-50 or more a day. I diligently responded to each email, but eventually determined that these new additions were not from real translators.
Below you will find information on the source of these emails and what you can do to protect yourself.
1) What is the source of these fake email applications.
The fake applications come from at least one company masquerading itself as a translation agency but which collects resumes of real translators from the internet and sends emails in their name using newly created gmail, hotmail or yahoo email addresses (sometimes outlook.com or outlook.sa). If you try to give work to any of these fake translators, you can expect to receive a poor quality, google/machine translation.
2) What measures you can take to protect yourself.
You can set up a free filter to block out existing and known fake applicants, or use our filter system to block out existing and new ones, since the scammer companies are creating new accounts on a constant basis.
Not only are these fake applications a headache, but they make it more difficult for real translators to enter the industry and for us to accept new ones.
To expose these email addresses to spam, you may find them posted below.
3) CVs sent through this service, about three a month, use a particular template (although custom is also possible) whose subject always begins with a special code to instruct the 15,000+ recipients that they are from real translators. Read some testimonials to see that this is truly an effective way how to expand your translation client base.
Below is some correspondence concerning this matter and which may shed further light on it.
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I just came across your website. I am getting quite bombarded with these translator CVs. Have you tried discussing this with such organizations as spamcop? A lot of email services base their spam filters on this database. How do you confirm that the email addresses are actually spammers? If this process could be expedited we could nip them in the bud. If they are using their own servers to send out all these emails, as I doubt gmail etc would allow so much messages, their IP address could also be marked as a spammer, and save all of our inboxes in the process. Or gmail etc could close down those email accounts.
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And, what could spamcop (or any other organization) do?
Please send me those CVs for proper exposure. If you could check if they are already in my Directory, that would expedite the posting of their data.
Of particular interest are messages, email addresses, attachments and PayPal addresses used by the scammers themselves (Languagemet, Translator Secrets, etc.)
A lot of email services base their spam filters on this database. How do you confirm that the email addresses are actually spammers?
All these scammers emails are posted on hijacked CVs.
If this process could be expedited we could nip them in the bud. If they are using their own servers to send out all these emails, as I doubt gmail etc would allow so much messages, their IP address could also be marked as spammer, and save all of our inboxes in the process.
Gmail addresses always locate back to Google IP addresses.
Or gmail etc could close down those email accounts.
Then what? It takes 3 minutes to scam someone’s CV and open another Gmail address.
This sort of activity can only be prevented (on the translators/companies side) by a proper risk management attitude.
And by exposing scammers IDs and emails used. They live off people not being aware of their operation.
The more they are exposed, the less chance they’ll have to continue their scamming operation in the open.
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If spamcop and others cooperated they could blacklist these email addresses. That means that any future mailouts from their addresses would end in the spambox of recipients. If google cooperated they could close down the accounts. Or they could go a step further by preventing those people from creating new accounts, but I guess the spammers could just makeup another IP address. But if their outgoing mail ended in the recipient’s spambox, or better their accounts were cancelled by gmail, they’d have to start all over again, for it is usually a timely process to get work from an agency (application forms to fill in, email correspondence and so on). I also probably have the list they are sending to (about 16,000 email addresses), so I can send them an email, such as to inform them they should carefully consider giving work to anyone whose email ended in their spambox (at least check more). More below.
Really, I do not expect any cooperation from Google or any other organization. Really. One of the purposes of having these emails in the open is to make them available to spambots. I even publish a TXT file with other addresses used by scammers.
I do not know which ones are the spammers. How do you find that out before adding an address to your dbase?
If you read the copy of my Directory you’ll get a clear idea of what to look for:
1. Gmail / Hotmail address (a good indication is to have an email from Hotmail that was actually sent by a Gmail address, look at the email header).
3. DOC authored/saved by someone different from the scammer’s name… Look at some of the most common names used by scammers in my Directory.
Or by having Arabic words in the File properties, in CVs not belonging to Arabic translators.
2. Funny CVs: Italian name, female, born in France, educated in Cameroon, worked as a “removal man”??? Would you believe it that a translation company in the USA has been tricked by a CV like that?
I don’t believe there is a solution, or a silver bullet for this.
Exposure, awareness and, above all, good risk management from translators and companies.
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To help with the cause I used to post the email addresses found on this site below.
- Translation memory software - August 4, 2018
- Work on an older, slower computer - August 3, 2018
- Machine translation - August 3, 2018
Laurent Chevrette IS THE WORSE.
He is actually a real person, with fake business addresses on Google, who does OK tests for companies, but then outsources all the jobs he gets to people he either does not pay, or pays 0.04CAD or less.
He’s then always “in a meeting” or ‘hopping on a plane” and cannot answer calls/meetings requests.
I had MULTIPLE businesses fire him over the years, but he still lists them as happy clients on his Web site… (Google and Apple notably)
I’d say 80% of the formal quality complaints I’m asked to investigate are done by him.
What he delivers IS WORSE than the output of a machine translation… that says a lot!
He is a textbook case of why translation firms don’t trust professional translators!
Hello,
I am one of the victims of those scammers. However, the way you mention my name here sounds misleading: “Loay Al-Dakhlallah (AE) Posing as translator…”, because it is the scammers who are posing as me, rather than me posing as translator! Please correct. Thank you
Hi,
This is the real Arvind Raman. My CV was stolen back in 2012-14 I think. One of the agencies pointed out to me and thats how I got to know. I don’t know who did it. Please note my email id are [email protected] and [email protected]. I dont use Hotmail. Thanks for the great work you are doinf. I have a suggestion, maybe you should highlight the original persons email along with the fake so that people can look and would have an idea who is dealing with them.
Regards
Arvind Raman
Hi, my name is Tanguy Przybylski (the real one). Thank you for your interesting article and list of scammer, I just checked your list because “Mika Sager” stole my CV and tried to use it. A nice person who has been contacted by this so called “Mika”, probably a false name, found out that this person sent her a copy of my CV which was on PROZ. It’s at least the third time (I know of) that someone stole my CV in order to get a job. If you find any, please contact me to my REAL email address (silverwolf.japon [AT] gmail [DOT] com). Unfortunately it’s a gmail address, I am really thinking of creating a new one without google address but too may of my clients contact me through it so it’s not easy to change. I hope we will be able to limit the damages caused by the scammers by being vigilant and take action whenever we find one of them.
Hey Tanguy, yah, it’s a horrible infection in the industry, this practice. I took the liberty of protecting your posted email address against spammers, and if you like you can send me a link to your website or online CV and I will post it in the comment above so that others can contact you easier. If you like, for $20 I can also create an email address, such as tanguy [AT] translationstop.com, which will automatically forward to your gmail address. Otherwise your clients should know what your real email address is and not farm out work to any other.
Check out languagemet.com. We traced some of the scamming to their company, and have been threatened by one of the scammers. I reported it to WC3.
Thanks for the tip, and kudoz for taking action. Checked them out on Proz’s BlueBoard and they are banned from posting jobs, and are indeed based in Palestine, so looks like it can be them for sure.
Yes, that is precisely how they work. It is mostly one or a couple companies whose business model is based on hiring someone to collect such legitimate CVs from the internet and pretend they are a translator offering the same, then offer a google or other poor quality translation. The best response perhaps is to inform your customers of this fact, but I believe agencies are wising up to this scam and slowly the scammer’s strategy will hopefully stop working and put them out of business.
Please note that the scammer using a gmail address they created in my name, as it appears on my Facebook logo here, has also stolen my CV. I am a bona fide medical translator, working through my own registered (England & Wales) limited company. Fortunately, going by communications I’ve received from long-standing clients, it appears that the spammer’s poor command of English gives them away immediately. Unfortunately, Google refuses to take responsibility for addresses created on their systems for fraudulent purposes!