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Sending certificates/diplomas ?
Thread poster: Lian Pang
Lian Pang
Lian Pang  Identity Verified
Netherlands
Local time: 07:07
Member (2018)
English to Chinese
+ ...
May 28, 2018

Good Monday folks !

Recently I've seen quite a few job posting asking service providers to send in their diplomas / relevant certificates. I have never been a fan of doing so as I consider diplomas sensitive information. Especially the serial number and birthday.

What do you think ? Have you ever sent your diplomas/certificates to agencies/clients ? Should we avoid such clients all together ?


 
Eva Stoppa
Eva Stoppa  Identity Verified
Germany
Local time: 07:07
English to German
+ ...
You are not applying for a job May 28, 2018

Why do they need your diplomas? You aren't applying for a job. There have been cases where agencies asked for degree certificates in order to apply for some projects -- say -- by the European Union. Once they got awarded the project, they used cheaper translators without any qualification.

 
Lian Pang
Lian Pang  Identity Verified
Netherlands
Local time: 07:07
Member (2018)
English to Chinese
+ ...
TOPIC STARTER
huh May 28, 2018

Eva Stoppa wrote:

Once they got awarded the project, they used cheaper translators without any qualification.


Shouldn't that be considered as fraudulent conduct ?


 
Lincoln Hui
Lincoln Hui  Identity Verified
Hong Kong
Local time: 14:07
Member
Chinese to English
+ ...
Birthday? May 28, 2018

Your diploma has a birthday on it?

I don't see anything wrong with this on principle; most professionals display their diplomas in their office. I just can't be bothered to dig them up for just one potential client out of dozens on the year, even though I'm sure I have a scan lying around somewhere.

[Edited at 2018-05-28 10:02 GMT]


 
Lian Pang
Lian Pang  Identity Verified
Netherlands
Local time: 07:07
Member (2018)
English to Chinese
+ ...
TOPIC STARTER
Yep May 28, 2018

Lincoln Hui wrote:

Your diploma has a birthday on it?


Yep. It does have my birthday.


 
Christophe Delaunay
Christophe Delaunay  Identity Verified
France
Local time: 07:07
Spanish to French
+ ...
I love innocence :-o May 28, 2018

Lian Pang wrote:

Eva Stoppa wrote:

Once they got awarded the project, they used cheaper translators without any qualification.


Shouldn't that be considered as fraudulent conduct ?


 
Marjolein Snippe
Marjolein Snippe  Identity Verified
Netherlands
Local time: 07:07
Member (2012)
English to Dutch
+ ...
No problem May 28, 2018

I am usually happy to send my diplomas, although I don't always see the relevance.
What is the point of having a diploma if you don't allow anyone to see it?


 
Woodstock (X)
Woodstock (X)  Identity Verified
Germany
Local time: 07:07
German to English
+ ...
It might be a way to confirm you are not a fraud May 28, 2018

I suspect it's to make sure you are who you say you are in light of the abuses when scammers steal a translator's CV to get jobs (and then do shoddy work or machine translation). It's much harder / impossible to steal certificates! Can you cover up the information you don't want to reveal without too much hassle? I wouldn't have a problem with it if that were possible.

 
Maria Teresa Borges de Almeida
Maria Teresa Borges de Almeida  Identity Verified
Portugal
Local time: 06:07
Member (2007)
English to Portuguese
+ ...
I don't send my diplomas! May 28, 2018

I don’t send any of my diplomas; they are no longer relevant for the simple reason that I’ve been translating for over 40 years and I earned most of them some 50 years ago. Anyway, I think that my diplomas are in a box that I never unpacked when I moved from Brussels to Lisbon...

 
Lian Pang
Lian Pang  Identity Verified
Netherlands
Local time: 07:07
Member (2018)
English to Chinese
+ ...
TOPIC STARTER
Identity theft May 28, 2018

Woodstock wrote:

I suspect it's to make sure you are who you say you are in light of the abuses when scammers steal a translator's CV to get jobs (and then do shoddy work or machine translation). It's much harder / impossible to steal certificates! Can you cover up the information you don't want to reveal without too much hassle? I wouldn't have a problem with it if that were possible.


I understand that it might be a concern for the clients. If I had an office, I'd display it on the wall without a problem. But I do have second thoughts about sending a scan to a client I don't know . I worry that it might get manipulated by scammers even if I blur out the sensitive info.


 
José Henrique Lamensdorf
José Henrique Lamensdorf  Identity Verified
Brazil
Local time: 03:07
English to Portuguese
+ ...
In memoriam
Scams & other tricks May 28, 2018

Degrees seem to be extremely important in scam-generating countries. A significant number of scam e-mails I get begin with My name is Attorney Mwamba Robada... If I intended to reply, I'd feel tempted to write Dear Attorney, may I call you Tony?

On another front, there seems to be a widespread demand for 'people who can wing at translation for despicable rates'<
... See more
Degrees seem to be extremely important in scam-generating countries. A significant number of scam e-mails I get begin with My name is Attorney Mwamba Robada... If I intended to reply, I'd feel tempted to write Dear Attorney, may I call you Tony?

On another front, there seems to be a widespread demand for 'people who can wing at translation for despicable rates', whose delivery I've had the chance to witness... their quality being roughly equivalent to the raw output of free online machine translation, or worse, though the nature of the flaws will be different.

I wondered... Why do such bottom feeders hire cheap, lo-grade translation labor, if they could get about the same result from free online machine translation? The only answer I got so far is BLAME. They are not hiring translators, but merely scapegoats.

If an end-client complains, say, in a technical translation, that something like "chevron packing" was translated as "military rank stuffing" in the target language (YES! I've seen this very one happen, back in the early 1970s), they might challenge the translator's credentials. When they do, the cheap agency will show a target-language-country diploma in Mechanical Engineering, to show their due diligence.

When my diplomas are required, I don't send pristine hi-res scans.

I scanned my diploma in Engineering in lo-res, from a not-so-neat Xerox copy, with some notarial stamps on the reverse side showing through. No chance they'll even guess the size of the original parchment.

My sworn translator diploma was badly scanned from the original. Nevertheless, I tell them that it's worth nothing on its own. If they want to check it, I give them the URL where my name must be in the official directory, to evidence that I am STILL licensed as such.

In both cases, though the diplomas are easily readable, not even the best Photoshop artist would be able to rebuild these scans to look like originals, much less to replace my name there with any other without making it stand out like a sore thumb.

If their intentions are good, they can see and read these diplomas. Otherwise, they'll delete them pronto.
Collapse


 
Samuel Murray
Samuel Murray  Identity Verified
Netherlands
Local time: 07:07
Member (2006)
English to Afrikaans
+ ...
Simply cross out any sensitive information May 28, 2018

Lian Pang wrote:
Recently I've seen quite a few job posting asking service providers to send in their diplomas / relevant certificates. I have never been a fan of doing so as I consider diplomas sensitive information. Especially the serial number and birthday.


Such clients usually want to see an image of something that looks like a diploma, with your name somewhere on it.

If the diploma contains sensitive information, make a copy of it and cross out the sensitive information. If the diploma is a JPG image, you can use an image program to hide the sensitive information. For example, in XnView, select the text you want to hide, then use Filter > Effects and choose e.g. the "spread" effect.

There is nothing wrong with asking for identifying evidence or evidence of your qualifications. There is no need to avoid such clients.


 
Lian Pang
Lian Pang  Identity Verified
Netherlands
Local time: 07:07
Member (2018)
English to Chinese
+ ...
TOPIC STARTER
indeed May 28, 2018

Samuel Murray wrote:

There is nothing wrong with asking for identifying evidence or evidence of your qualifications. There is no need to avoid such clients.



Thank you ! I think I indeed have been overly cautious on this front.


 
Lian Pang
Lian Pang  Identity Verified
Netherlands
Local time: 07:07
Member (2018)
English to Chinese
+ ...
TOPIC STARTER
great tips ! May 28, 2018

José Henrique Lamensdorf wrote:

Degrees seem to be extremely important in scam-generating countries. A significant number of scam e-mails I get begin with My name is Attorney Mwamba Robada... If I intended to reply, I'd feel tempted to write Dear Attorney, may I call you Tony?

On another front, there seems to be a widespread demand for 'people who can wing at translation for despicable rates', whose delivery I've had the chance to witness... their quality being roughly equivalent to the raw output of free online machine translation, or worse, though the nature of the flaws will be different.

I wondered... Why do such bottom feeders hire cheap, lo-grade translation labor, if they could get about the same result from free online machine translation? The only answer I got so far is BLAME. They are not hiring translators, but merely scapegoats.

If an end-client complains, say, in a technical translation, that something like "chevron packing" was translated as "military rank stuffing" in the target language (YES! I've seen this very one happen, back in the early 1970s), they might challenge the translator's credentials. When they do, the cheap agency will show a target-language-country diploma in Mechanical Engineering, to show their due diligence.

When my diplomas are required, I don't send pristine hi-res scans.

I scanned my diploma in Engineering in lo-res, from a not-so-neat Xerox copy, with some notarial stamps on the reverse side showing through. No chance they'll even guess the size of the original parchment.

My sworn translator diploma was badly scanned from the original. Nevertheless, I tell them that it's worth nothing on its own. If they want to check it, I give them the URL where my name must be in the official directory, to evidence that I am STILL licensed as such.

In both cases, though the diplomas are easily readable, not even the best Photoshop artist would be able to rebuild these scans to look like originals, much less to replace my name there with any other without making it stand out like a sore thumb.

If their intentions are good, they can see and read these diplomas. Otherwise, they'll delete them pronto.


Thank you very much for your insight and tips !

Time to de-make my scans.


 
Trevino Translations (X)
Trevino Translations (X)
France
Local time: 07:07
French to English
+ ...
Diplomas...they'll just have to trust me. May 28, 2018

I wouldn't feel comfortable sending copies or scans of my diplomas to complete strangers in a company I know little or nothing about. Someone could then pass it on, photoshop it, and it could end up getting used by scammers somewhere. If any company ever asks me for my diplomas, I think I'll ask to see their diplomas first.


Trevino Translations


 
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Sending certificates/diplomas ?







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