| Pages in topic: [1 2 3] > | Need your help about this project from a client! I'm waiting onlie! Thread poster: Serena Li
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Serena Li
United States
Local time: 08:15
English to Chinese
+ ...
Hi, All
I am contacted by a client via proz.com to translate a document ( about 11000 words, 44 pages, in word docx). She has emailed the whole articles and deadline is one month. She will pay a cashier check or bank certified check after the translation done. I just start to jump into the translation field and this is the first job i got. I'm a little worried about the payment. How do you confirm the client will pay after the traslation done, especially the client is not translatio... See more Hi, All
I am contacted by a client via proz.com to translate a document ( about 11000 words, 44 pages, in word docx). She has emailed the whole articles and deadline is one month. She will pay a cashier check or bank certified check after the translation done. I just start to jump into the translation field and this is the first job i got. I'm a little worried about the payment. How do you confirm the client will pay after the traslation done, especially the client is not translation company? We haven't talked about the price for the whole translation. I'd like to seek advice here about your opinion.
Thanks!
Best
Serena
[Edited at 2019-04-10 20:58 GMT] ▲ Collapse
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Make sure the customer is giving you a PO (PURCHASE ORDER) make sure all the information is there, check the blue board and imput his/her name over the Internet and check if there is no a black mark, depending on your customer location either a very small deposit, probe of residence or anything else similar might help you. For big project customer can always deposit a very small amount so you can trace the finances (request a 10/20 usd deposit in order to start and let them know this is for her/... See more Make sure the customer is giving you a PO (PURCHASE ORDER) make sure all the information is there, check the blue board and imput his/her name over the Internet and check if there is no a black mark, depending on your customer location either a very small deposit, probe of residence or anything else similar might help you. For big project customer can always deposit a very small amount so you can trace the finances (request a 10/20 usd deposit in order to start and let them know this is for her/his security and yours). Check the field / content of translation and if possible and you see brands or anything that might guide you to deeper review / search. At last send her/his a questionnaire a simple one where you will ask politely essential data, name, location, bank name, etc...
Good luck on your first project. ▲ Collapse
| | | | | Probably a scam | Apr 10, 2019 |
It's probably a scam. Be extremely careful and read some of the many recent forum topics about scams and the scam advice Proz offers.
The cheque will probably bounce, and before that happens, the 'client' will invent a reason for you to pay a large sum to someone else.
Scammers tend to target beginners with little experience. If it sounds too good to be true, it probably is.
| | | | Samuel Murray 
Netherlands
Local time: 15:15
Member (2006)
English to Afrikaans
+ ...
Serena wrote:
I am contacted by a client via ProZ.com to translate a document (about 11000 words, 44 pages, in DOCX). She has emailed the whole document and deadline is one month. She will pay check after the translation done. I just start to jump into the translation field and this is the first job I got. I'm a little worried about the payment. How do you confirm the client will pay after the translation done, especially the client is not translation company?
With all new clients, you take a bit of a risk. You can assess the risk based on how certain you are of the client's identity. If the client is not a translation company or agency, then I would insist on advance payment of at least a portion of the amount, e.g. 20%. If they're willing to pay 20%, it may mean that they are a legitimate client and would be willing to pay the rest after the translation is completed. Some colleagues here will insist on full payment in advance, especially if the client is not a company that can easily be traced and whose identify can easily be confirmed.
11000 words should take you no longer than 1 week to translate.
Note that if they try to pay with a cheque, or with some payment method where the money is not available immediately or within 2-3 days, then it may be a scam (you work hard, they pay you fake money, they ask you to pay them back something, you lose money).
Thomas T. Frost wrote:
It's probably a scam. ... Scammers tend to target beginners with little experience.
It is *possibly* a scam, not probably.
[Added: the OP added the information about the cashier's check after I posted my reply.]
[Edited at 2019-04-11 06:46 GMT]
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Serena Li
United States
Local time: 08:15
English to Chinese
+ ...
TOPIC STARTER
Thanks for all your prompt reply!
Based on your replies and posts about scam emails from the forum, I feel it's a high risk if the "client" will pay with bank check, especially after the whole project done. Even if I ask her to pay some amounts in advance, it's still a problem due to "check bounce" you mentioned (I'm not sure what it means) and I probably need to pay more from my pocket for some reasons.
| | | | | When a cheque bounces | Apr 10, 2019 |
Serena Li wrote:
"check bounce" you mentioned (I'm not sure what it means) and I probably need to pay more from my pocket for some reasons.
Let me explain. It's much worse.
bounce: '(of a cheque) be returned by a bank to the payee when there are not enough funds in the drawer's account to meet it.'
The typical scam scenario involves a counterfeit cheque. The scammer often makes the victim believe they'll be paid by bank transfer, but the scammer then posts a cheque to the victim's bank to try to hide that it's a cheque. The amount is initially credited to the victim's bank account so they may believe they have been paid.
A few days later, the scammer invents an excuse for asking for some or all of the money back. The project was suddenly cancelled. His cousin suddenly needs a new heart, and he needs the money to pay the hospital. He accidentally overpaid, so please refund the difference. There are many variations.
If the victim thinks they've been paid because the money is on their account, they may return some or all of the amount to the scammer or an accomplice.
What happens next is that the victim's bank notifies the victim that the cheque was fake, so they'll debit the amount they had credited. That leaves the victim with a gaping hole. They may have worked many hours for no reason and no pay, and the money they returned is lost.
I say it’s probably a scam. Samuel Murray says it’s possibly a scam. We approach this differently. I use heuristics (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Heuristic : ‘heuristics include using a rule of thumb, an educated guess, an intuitive judgment, a guesstimate, profiling, or common sense.’) Samuel argues that as long as there is no evidence it’s a scam, it could really be genuine. The problem with Samuel’s approach is that once you have evidence it’s a scam, it’s usually too late to protect yourself against it. I err on the side of caution.
| | | | Kevin Fulton
United States
Local time: 09:15
German to English
| Google is your friend | Apr 10, 2019 |
Use Google to check the e-mail address of this prospective client as well as the first sentence of the e-mail. This will frequently yield information regarding similar scam attempts. Likewise search for the title of the article. Again this will sometimes let you know whether someone else has been sent this article for translation or whether it is on the internet.
Is the person who contacted you a registered member of Proz? If not, it is most likely a scam.
| | | | Andy Watkinson
Spain
Local time: 15:15
Member
Catalan to English
+ ...
Kevin Fulton wrote:
Is the person who contacted you a registered member of Proz? If not, it is most likely a scam.
By that logic, all my clients are scams.
Please....
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Andy Watkinson wrote: Kevin Fulton wrote:
Is the person who contacted you a registered member of Proz? If not, it is most likely a scam.
By that logic, all my clients are scams.
You ought to be grateful to Kevin for making you realise it.
| | | | Serena Li
United States
Local time: 08:15
English to Chinese
+ ...
TOPIC STARTER | not a registered member of Proz. | Apr 11, 2019 |
The person who contacted me is not a registered member of Proz. In the file, I found a lot of contents about"Conflict Management Skills", which seems the content many scam emails contain.
| | | | Andy Watkinson
Spain
Local time: 15:15
Member
Catalan to English
+ ...
Thomas T. Frost wrote: Andy Watkinson wrote: Kevin Fulton wrote:
Is the person who contacted you a registered member of Proz? If not, it is most likely a scam.
By that logic, all my clients are scams. You ought to be grateful to Kevin for making you realise it.
Thank you Thomas.
I now realise why I haven't been paid for the last forty years...they weren't registered with Proz.
| | | | Lincoln Hui
Hong Kong
Local time: 21:15
Member
Chinese to English
+ ...
| Not even worth thinking about | Apr 11, 2019 |
cashier check or bank certified check
This is where you can stop reading. It's a scam.
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| Now, now, boys | Apr 11, 2019 |
Andy Watkinson wrote: Kevin Fulton wrote:
Is the person who contacted you a registered member of Proz? If not, it is most likely a scam.
By that logic, all my clients are scams. Please....
Ha ha... Me too... but I think the point is that someone contacting you through ProZ without having registered with ProZ is less likely to be legit, which seems reasonable.
| | | | Samuel Murray
Netherlands
Local time: 15:15
Member (2006)
English to Afrikaans
+ ...
| @Thomas (and everyone) | Apr 11, 2019 |
Thomas T. Frost wrote:
Samuel argues that as long as there is no evidence it’s a scam, it could really be genuine. The problem with Samuel’s approach is that once you have evidence it’s a scam, it’s usually too late to protect yourself against it.
Yes, it's just a different approach. I'm less concerned with whether it is a scam than with whether it is likely that the client is going to honour his side of the deal. Ultimately the translator has to weigh up all the elements of the risk and decide whether or not to go for it.
Neither the length of the job nor the long deadline nor the fact that the client wants to pay afterwards raised any "scam" flags for me (Serena only later added information about the payment method, which does raise a very bright scam flag for me). But scam or no scam, translators should not do business with clients they can't identify, unless the job is small enough to warrant the risk.
Personally, I would not accept a job of more than 500 words for an unidentifiable client who doesn't pay in advance using a scam-unlikely payment method. I realise, however, that it can be difficult to positively identify a person without encroaching on his privacy.
Anyway, Serena sent me a bit of extra information privately, and I determined within one Google search that the sender is listed as a known scammer on Translator-Scammers.com.
Kevin Fulton wrote:
Use Google to check the e-mail address of this prospective client...
1 result: listed on Translator-Scammers.com.
...as well as the first sentence of the e-mail.
The first 6 results are all from scam reporting web sites. Terry Cole strikes again.
[Edited at 2019-04-11 07:19 GMT]
| | | | Yoana Ivanova
Estonia
Local time: 16:15
English to Bulgarian
+ ...
| Don't touch it | Apr 11, 2019 |
Serena Li wrote:
Hi, All
I am contacted by a client via proz.com to translate a document ( about 11000 words, 44 pages, in word docx). She has emailed the whole articles and deadline is one month. She will pay a cashier check or bank certified check after the translation done. I just start to jump into the translation field and this is the first job i got. I'm a little worried about the payment. How do you confirm the client will pay after the traslation done, especially the client is not translation company? We haven't talked about the price for the whole translation. I'd like to seek advice here about your opinion.
Thanks!
Best
Serena
[Edited at 2019-04-10 20:58 GMT]
That's one of the most popular scams right down to the page and word counts, search on Google or here on Proz for 44 pages, the word count must be 11,643. Do not make the mistake of accepting this project.
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