Established agency with google mail contact ... Avoid ?
Thread poster: Lian Pang
Lian Pang
Lian Pang  Identity Verified
Netherlands
Local time: 04:52
Member (2018)
English to Chinese
+ ...
May 15, 2018

I have seen a couple of agencies which look legit and have positive ratings on blueboard. Credit and payment practices check out too. On their websites they have their own email domains, but in the job postings it's something like "johndoe@gmail/hotmail/yahoo.com".

Is it advisable to avoid them ? Is this some sort of potential scam ?


 
Daniel Frisano
Daniel Frisano  Identity Verified
Italy
Local time: 04:52
Member (2008)
English to Italian
+ ...
An idea May 16, 2018

You can politely tell them that you prefer to communicate via [email protected] or [email protected] for security reasons (which incidentally isn't too far from t... See more
You can politely tell them that you prefer to communicate via [email protected] or [email protected] for security reasons (which incidentally isn't too far from the truth).

The idea is to reply to [email protected] and include [email protected] or [email protected] in CC, see what happens.
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Lingua 5B
Lingua 5B  Identity Verified
Bosnia and Herzegovina
Local time: 04:52
Member (2009)
English to Croatian
+ ...
May or may not be. May 16, 2018

Lian Pang wrote:

I have seen a couple of agencies which look legit and have positive ratings on blueboard. Credit and payment practices check out too. On their websites they have their own email domains, but in the job postings it's something like "johndoe@gmail/hotmail/yahoo.com".

Is it advisable to avoid them ? Is this some sort of potential scam ?


Not necessarily. I used to have a direct corporate client, they would sometimes communicate from their corporate email and other times from their gmail (probably for their own reasons). I for once prefer gmail for variety of reasons and used to have a domain email that I dropped for gmail (for technical reasons).

There may be a number of reasons an established client would do this. First thing that comes to mind is that if they leave their corporate email out in the public space they will be receiving large amount of unsolicited applications from translators, it will clog the email and they will have issues. They can take that risk with a spare gmail. Remember, never mind how many times you tell translators "no unsolicited emails" you will still be receiving tons of them and afterwards you have no any control over it - the only option is to close down the email account.


 
Lian Pang
Lian Pang  Identity Verified
Netherlands
Local time: 04:52
Member (2018)
English to Chinese
+ ...
TOPIC STARTER
Great idea ! May 16, 2018

Daniel Frisano wrote:

You can politely tell them that you prefer to communicate via [email protected] or [email protected] for security reasons (which incidentally isn't too far from the truth).

The idea is to reply to [email protected] and include [email protected] or [email protected] in CC, see what happens.


That is actually very clever ! Thank you so much Daniel I will try ccing [email protected]


 
Lian Pang
Lian Pang  Identity Verified
Netherlands
Local time: 04:52
Member (2018)
English to Chinese
+ ...
TOPIC STARTER
Valid point May 16, 2018

Lingua 5B wrote:

Not necessarily. I used to have a direct corporate client, they would sometimes communicate from their corporate email and other times from their gmail (probably for their own reasons). I for once prefer gmail for variety of reasons and used to have a domain email that I dropped for gmail (for technical reasons).

There may be a number of reasons an established client would do this. First thing that comes to mind is that if they leave their corporate email out in the public space they will be receiving large amount of unsolicited applications from translators, it will clog the email and they will have issues. They can take that risk with a spare gmail. Remember, never mind how many times you tell translators "no unsolicited emails" you will still be receiving tons of them and afterwards you have no any control over it - the only option is to close down the email account.


Thank you, this indeed could be a reason. I wouldn't mind switching to free mails if I have been working with the client for some time. But I am very skeptical if they use gmail or whatever to contact me right from the beginning. hmm...


 
Thomas T. Frost
Thomas T. Frost  Identity Verified
Portugal
Local time: 03:52
Danish to English
+ ...
Difficult to prove May 16, 2018

It can be difficult to prove to whom a Gmail account belongs. In case you need to enforce payment, and the orders came from a Gmail account, a shady outfit could claim it has nothing to do with them, and that someone else must have sent the emails. In the meantime, they may have removed their Gmail address from any public profile. Gmail will not tell you anything, so how do you prove that the order came from them?

And there is a further risk coming with Gmail: their self-deleting em
... See more
It can be difficult to prove to whom a Gmail account belongs. In case you need to enforce payment, and the orders came from a Gmail account, a shady outfit could claim it has nothing to do with them, and that someone else must have sent the emails. In the meantime, they may have removed their Gmail address from any public profile. Gmail will not tell you anything, so how do you prove that the order came from them?

And there is a further risk coming with Gmail: their self-deleting emails:

https://mashable.com/2018/04/27/new-gmail-expiring-emails-confidential-mode/#jqUsxc4m5ZqM

http://reporttechnews.com/2018/04/gmails-massive-redesign-is-now-live-heres-a-look-at-the-new-features/

If an email is sent this way, it may be automatically deleted on a preset date, and you don't get a copy of the text. It will disappear from your Gmail system if you use that. If you are using another email system, you will only have an email with a link to the text, but the link will stop working. If orders and contractual conditions were sent this way, they'll all suddenly disappear, and the shady outfit can claim that they never ordered anything.
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Established agency with google mail contact ... Avoid ?







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