Interpretation SCAM! Thread poster: Silvina Jover-Cirillo (X)
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Silvina Jover-Cirillo (X)
United States
Local time: 20:01
English to Spanish
+ ...
Hello everybody! I'm not sure if this is the proper forum to post this advice, but I couldn't find a different one.
Anyway, today I received the following email:
I am Mrs. Karen Jones.Am an English speaking pastor from Spain but based in UK where i reside. I will be coming over to Las Vegas NV OK , on holidays from 20th april to 24th of april 2006 for a 4 days Vacation with my Spanish husband, daughter and son of the ages of 3 and 5 respectively. My husband Mr.tery Jo... See more Hello everybody! I'm not sure if this is the proper forum to post this advice, but I couldn't find a different one.
Anyway, today I received the following email:
I am Mrs. Karen Jones.Am an English speaking pastor from Spain but based in UK where i reside. I will be coming over to Las Vegas NV OK , on holidays from 20th april to 24th of april 2006 for a 4 days Vacation with my Spanish husband, daughter and son of the ages of 3 and 5 respectively. My husband Mr.tery Jones only speaks Spanish. We will require the services of a Spanish interpreter for just 3 hours daily, 1pm to 4pm, for 4days, though this will be flexibly to suit both parties, because i will not always be with them on most occasions due to other functions which I most attend.Payment will be made in advance of our intend visit, so He can be assured of an interpreter during his shopping and sightseeing, as this is his first visit to USA.An early reply will be appreciated. Please acknowledge if you can offer this service and give me a price quote, so we can conclude on all other arrangemnts and modalities ASAP.
Remain Blessed,
Mrs.Karen Jones
Send instant messages to your online friends http://uk.messenger.yahoo.com
The sender's email address is:
Karen Jones [[email protected]]
Under different circumstances, I wouldn't think anything bad about it, except that, on Feb 26 I received the following email:
I am Mr. David.Am an English speaking pastor from Spain but based in UK where i reside. I will be coming over to Las Vegas NV on holidays from 16th march to 20th of march 2006 for a 7 days Vacation with my Spanish wife, daughter and son of the ages of 3 and 5 respectively. My wife Mrs.Catherin only speaks Spanish. We will require the services of a Spanish interpreter for just 5 hours daily, 1pm to 6pm, for 7 days, though this will be flexibly to suit both parties, because i will not always be with them on most occasions due to other functions which I most attend.Payment will be made in advance of our intend visit, so she can be assured of an interpreter during her shopping and sightseeing, as this is her first visit to USA.An early reply will be appreciated. Please acknowledge if you can offer this service and give me a price quote, so we can conclude on all other arrangemnts and modalities ASAP.
Remain Blessed,
Mr. David
Sender's email address:
david seal [[email protected]]
EVERYBODY, PLEASE BE CAREFUL!!!!!
Regards,
Silvina ▲ Collapse
| | | | Juan Jacob 
Mexico
Local time: 18:01
French to Spanish
+ ...
Muy chistoso.
Everybody in Las Vegas speaks Spanish, isn't it?
Why a translator?
And, where is the fraude? I can't figure.
| | | | aronakos
United States
Local time: 18:01
English to Hungarian
+ ...
| Here is the fraude... | Apr 13, 2006 |
Juan Jacob wrote:
Muy chistoso.
Everybody in Las Vegas speaks Spanish, isn't it?
Why a translator?
And, where is the fraude? I can't figure.
Than read this link (and some others, just type the Ghana or Nigeria and scam words into the search forums tab)
http://www.proz.com/topic/26069?start=0&float=
| | | | Jeremy Smith
United Kingdom
Local time: 01:01
Member (2003)
French to English
+ ...
| I've seen this several times | Apr 13, 2006 |
And I don't understand how anybody could fall for it. A married couple with no means of communicating with each other without an interpreter? Hmmmmm....
EDIT: Except that's not quite the case with your example, is it. I have seen similar ones where two people are supposed to be getting married and supposedly have no means of communicating, though.
[Edited at 2006-04-13 05:09]
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Thor Truelson
United States
Local time: 19:01
Swedish to English
+ ...
This is a very well circulated scam. It surfaced about a year and half ago, and sort of peeked out (among ATA members) about a year ago. It rarely comes about anymore. Generally the solicitation sounds too good to be true. I was either the first, or one of the very first people to report this to the ATA board. I was contacted by a man who wanted me to interpret SwedishEnglish for his daughters who he claimed were like 20-26 years old. I was like "Hell Yeah". But this was to take place in ... See more This is a very well circulated scam. It surfaced about a year and half ago, and sort of peeked out (among ATA members) about a year ago. It rarely comes about anymore. Generally the solicitation sounds too good to be true. I was either the first, or one of the very first people to report this to the ATA board. I was contacted by a man who wanted me to interpret SwedishEnglish for his daughters who he claimed were like 20-26 years old. I was like "Hell Yeah". But this was to take place in Minneapolis, in early December. Not an ideal time for visiting Minneapolis, but since we have the Mall of America and a lot of Swedes, I figured it was just an extraordinary lucky job. I wrote him back in Swedish, and he kept responding in English telling me how he wanted to pay me up front. After a couple days of this, I became suspicious and started messing with him in Swedish (since I was pretty certain he couldn't read it at that point). He didn't seem to mind these blatant insults, and just wanted to send me the entire payment up front. In fact, that was really all he cared to discuss. I finally told him off in English and told the ATA. I figured the guy was either a demented flake, or a crook of some sort. As enticing as working with a few young ladies from Sweden would be, I didn't want anything to do with it. It turns out that the crooks want to send you a bad check upfront, then cancel the job under some pretense and ask for a refund from the interpreter. The crooks' goal is for the interpreter to send back the money before the check is reported stolen, thus escaping with "good" money. The interpreter would be out whatever amount, and would have no chance to recover it. Since that original encounter (which was actually the most convincing one of the many solicitations I got), other less probable job offers arrived which were obviously bogus. These usually involve a priest who speaks English (poorly), your language, and then some African dialect, whose family needs interpretation since they don't speak English (but apparently they can speak whatever your language is, no matter how rare it is or improbable it would be for an African bushman to speak it). A rule of thumb, if it looks too good to be true, it probably is. ▲ Collapse
| | | | Thor Truelson
United States
Local time: 19:01
Swedish to English
+ ...
| Of Course Vegas | Apr 13, 2006 |
aronakos wrote: Juan Jacob wrote:
Muy chistoso.
Everybody in Las Vegas speaks Spanish, isn't it?
Why a translator?
And, where is the fraude? I can't figure. Than read this link (and some others, just type the Ghana or Nigeria and scam words into the search forums tab) http://www.proz.com/topic/26069?start=0&float=
Vegas would be a perfect location to try to lure people with. Most adults love Vegas. I have interpreted there before, and would jump at the chance to do it again. They trying to appeal to someone's desire to hang out in Vegas. Pretty clever.
| | | | Silvina Jover-Cirillo (X)
United States
Local time: 20:01
English to Spanish
+ ...
TOPIC STARTER
Thor Truelson wrote: aronakos wrote: Juan Jacob wrote:
Muy chistoso.
Everybody in Las Vegas speaks Spanish, isn't it?
Why a translator?
And, where is the fraude? I can't figure. Than read this link (and some others, just type the Ghana or Nigeria and scam words into the search forums tab) http://www.proz.com/topic/26069?start=0&float= Vegas would be a perfect location to try to lure people with. Most adults love Vegas. I have interpreted there before, and would jump at the chance to do it again. They trying to appeal to someone's desire to hang out in Vegas. Pretty clever.
Well, Thor, I actually live in Las Vegas. They wouldn't get me for that reason.......I'm on vacation 24/7. LOL.
Regards.
| | | | | Similar experience | Apr 13, 2006 |
I got a very similar e-mail from someone recently, I'll try to dig it out and post it so everyone knows the address to avoid. Chris
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Woodstock (X)
Germany
Local time: 02:01
German to English
+ ...
| How to deal with these scams | Apr 13, 2006 |
Please take this very seriously. Innocent people have been murdered, or kidnapped for ransom, when they were naive (ok, maybe greedy) enough to meet up with some of these criminals. I firmly believe that the more these scam attempts are reported, the faster new people would be discouraged from even trying them or stopped before getting very far.
Rule No. 1: NEVER respond to these people.
Rule No. 2: Report them to the authorities
Here are some URLs about how to re... See more Please take this very seriously. Innocent people have been murdered, or kidnapped for ransom, when they were naive (ok, maybe greedy) enough to meet up with some of these criminals. I firmly believe that the more these scam attempts are reported, the faster new people would be discouraged from even trying them or stopped before getting very far.
Rule No. 1: NEVER respond to these people.
Rule No. 2: Report them to the authorities
Here are some URLs about how to report this. It may help prevent a further crime if you do.
http://www.fraudaid.com/ScamSpeak/Nigerian/I'veReceivedaNig erianLetter-WhatDo-I-Do.htm
http://home.rica.net/alphae/419coal/
http://www.potifos.com/fraud/
http://cybercrime.planetindia.net/nigerian_scam.htm
Spamcop is another good address. They try to find the ISP of the email sender and report them to the ISP, so the account is shut down at the source.
There are also groups who "scam the scammers". If you are interested in learning more, just Google the phrase.
When I read that in some cases there had been murders, I stopped thinking it was just a tired joke, and am trying to make sure everyone else knows that they can help stop potentially more serious crimes than fraud if they report these e-mails. ▲ Collapse
| | | | | old scam, new variation | May 2, 2006 |
I wanted to tell everyone about yet another variation on this scam.
My friend who is a translator also teaches Chinese. She was recently contacted by email with a request to teach someone's son Chinese. She and the client exchanged several emails regarding these lessons and agreed a price for 3 months worth of lessons.
Then a cheque arrived in the post for £5,000 . When she contacted the client he asked her to forward the excess to his cousin.
Alarm bells - my friend took th... See more I wanted to tell everyone about yet another variation on this scam.
My friend who is a translator also teaches Chinese. She was recently contacted by email with a request to teach someone's son Chinese. She and the client exchanged several emails regarding these lessons and agreed a price for 3 months worth of lessons.
Then a cheque arrived in the post for £5,000 . When she contacted the client he asked her to forward the excess to his cousin.
Alarm bells - my friend took the cheque to the bank and lo and behold it was fake. When she tried to contact the client - no reply. Of course she hadn't been supplied with an address or anything traceable.
I think a lot of translators also teach, so this is a new version of the old scam to look out for.
PS When I got the "interpreting" scam email recently the "client" wanted an Italian interpreter to spend a whole week in Skelton (where I live). I don't speak Italian at all and Skelton is a one-eyed village you'd be hard pushed to spend an hour in! Please, all you scammers out there - do your research before you contact us! ▲ Collapse
| | | | Robert Forstag
United States
Local time: 20:01
Spanish to English
+ ...
| Similar experience II | May 9, 2006 |
I had a similar experience, also regarding a man who said he was from Spain, was sending his two daughters to Cleveland, wanted me to take them sightseeing, pay me a small fortune, promised the money up front, and then kept postponing the date of visit.
The letters closed with the same "Remain blessed".
Read all about it h... See more I had a similar experience, also regarding a man who said he was from Spain, was sending his two daughters to Cleveland, wanted me to take them sightseeing, pay me a small fortune, promised the money up front, and then kept postponing the date of visit.
The letters closed with the same "Remain blessed".
Read all about it here:
http://www.proz.com/topic/43787?post_id=317372
REMAIN BLESSED
 ▲ Collapse
| | | | Trustlations
United States
Local time: 20:01
English to Spanish
+ ...
| Same interpretation scam - same text, different name and e-mail | Jun 16, 2006 |
THIS IS ALMOST THE FULL STORY OF WHAT HAS HAPPENED:
I own a translation and interpretation agency based in Florida, USA, and received a scam by e-mail, and am totally unsure of what will happen. This scammer told me he was an English-speaking pastor from Spain, who was to go with his wife and two children to Salt Lake City, Utah and that his wife needed an interpreter. His English was very bad so I had doubts, but since the proposal came in through Proz.com (a site where translator... See more THIS IS ALMOST THE FULL STORY OF WHAT HAS HAPPENED:
I own a translation and interpretation agency based in Florida, USA, and received a scam by e-mail, and am totally unsure of what will happen. This scammer told me he was an English-speaking pastor from Spain, who was to go with his wife and two children to Salt Lake City, Utah and that his wife needed an interpreter. His English was very bad so I had doubts, but since the proposal came in through Proz.com (a site where translators and interpreters are listed to exchange language services and language proposals for potential jobs and customers, and that I totally TRUSTed), I responded. If it would've been a direct e-mail, there would've been NO WAY that I would've responded. So, he said he wanted to pay in advance and that he needed us to provide him with our banking info. I told him that I had no one in Salt Lake City and preferred not to do the job, and he insisted I help him find an interpreter, and although I had doubts, I ended up providing our banking info. After that he said that his sponsor would only do a wire transfer if I had an account in Wells Fargo, and I told him that we wouldn't get an account in Wells Fargo. At some point I decided to write in Spanish, since he said he was from Spain, and he responded in his broken English and I thought he was just trying to practice it, but he did not understand pretty much anything I said. Then I had even greater doubts so, since it was past 6 pm EST, I called our bank's 1-800 number and spoke to a rep, who said that he (the alleged scammer, which was really a scammer, but which at that point we didn't know) couldn't do anything with that info except do a wire transfer; so I thought, then this is not a scam. I still had doubts, so next morning I went straight to the bank and at the customer service, two representatives told us there would be no problem, that there wasn't anything he could do with that info, which in some way reassured me. Later on, after receiving two more e-mails from this criminal, and since I had searched his name on Google and had found nothing, I decided to look his e-mail address up instead, and what results did I get: a link to e-mails of scammers. The e-mail address is [email protected], and the link is http://www.datingnmore.com/fraud/scam_email1.htm; today I decided just to look up the first part of the e-mail address (name4less01) and found yet another link to another site: http://www.romancescam.com/album/displayimage.php?pos=-2378. I obviously called the bank again immediately and they told us that they were aware of this type of scam, and so I closed the bank account and transferred all the funds. I even had to change our address, because by this point, through our Outlook e-mail signature and the information I provided they had:
- Our company name
- Our mailing address
- Our bank
- The branch location of our bank
- Our banking account number and ABA number
- My full name
- Our office phone number
- Our office fax number
- Our e-mail
and who knows what other information, which they can use for their malicious intents. So, it is scary, since your identity and the identity of your company is revealed to a criminal who can use it in ways I cannot even begin to imagine. The last piece of information he requested, was allegedly in order to send us a check, and he needed the company name and address, and I provided that to him.
MY QUESTION IS: WHAT CAN I DO ABOUT IT NOW? SHOULD I REPORT/POST THIS SOMEHERE ELSE? I wrote an e-mail to the scammer, telling him I know what is going on, and informing him that he has been reported to the IC3 (a combination of the FBI and NW3C) so that he might be prevented from using the information…
This is the first e-mail I received:
Date: Fri, 9 Jun 2006 10:05:11 -0400 [06/09/2006 10:05:11 AM EDT]
From: [email protected]
To: [email protected]
Reply-To:
Subject: [ProZ.com mail] hello
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Notice: Profile mails are being sent using the Unicode character set. Email support for this character set can often be problematic, so the contents of this message might be illegible. If this is the case, please follow the provided link to view the message properly via a web browser.
http://www.proz.com/?sp=mailread&message_id=992921
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You have been sent a message via your ProZ.com page.
Author: andrian white
Author's Profile: http://www.proz.com/pro/570401
Author's IP address: 196.220.0.74
Message type: Job-related
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I am Mr.andrian.Am an English speaking pastor from Spain but based in UK where i reside. I will be coming over to Salt
Lake City , Utah on holidays from 20th june to 27th of june
2006 for a 7 days Vacation with my Spanish wife, daughter
and son of the ages of 3 and 5 respectively. My wife
Mrs.Catherin only speaks Spanish. We will require the
services of a Spanish interpreter for just 5 hours daily,
1pm to 6pm, for 7days, though this will be flexibly to suit
both parties, because i will not always be with them on most
occasions due to other functions which I most attend.Payment will be made in advance of our intend visit, so she can be assured of an interpreter during her shopping and sightseeing, as this is her first visit to USA.An early
reply will be appreciated. Please acknowledge if you can
offer this service and give me a price quote, so we can
conclude on all other arrangemnts and modalities ASAP.
Remain Blessed,
mr andrian white
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Your profile: http://www.proz.com/pro/56744
Login at: http://www.proz.com/pro/
Edit your profile mail preferences:
http://proz.com/?sp=ef&show_mode=profmail
Block profile messages from this sender:
http://proz.com/?sp=ef&add_ip_block=196.220.0.74&add_email_ [email protected]&add_eid_block=570401
Unsolicited advertising? Submit a support ticket: http://proz.com/support
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I can provide you with the series of e-mails I received. As I mentioned, we closed the bank account and changed our mailing address at the bank. This is apparently some sort of dating scam in which they can use the information to scam someone else into getting their money; I read that, on those two links I provided earlier where the aforementioned e-mail address is posted as being a scammer’s e-mail address.
Sincerely,
Bryan Lattke, Very concerned fraud victim-to-be (or hopefully not-to-be) ▲ Collapse
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| Bryan is this you? | Jul 23, 2014 |
Bryan Lattke wrote:
Sincerely,
Bryan Lattke, Very concerned fraud victim-to-be (or hopefully not-to-be)
Bryan,
Are you sending e-mails from referralkey? I just recieved one with your details.
PrintScreen of the email:
http://prntscr.com/45ot3d
[Edited at 2014-07-23 22:54 GMT]
| | | | | Telltale signs | Jul 24, 2014 |
Whenever I see...
I am Mr./Mrs./Miss/Ms. so-and-so
or...
My name is Dr./Prof/General/Attorney/Barrister so-and-so...
... I know immediately it is a scam.
For some reason beyond the limits of my culture, Nigerian-style scammers seem to be absolutely certain that if they introduce themselves m... See more Whenever I see...
I am Mr./Mrs./Miss/Ms. so-and-so
or...
My name is Dr./Prof/General/Attorney/Barrister so-and-so...
... I know immediately it is a scam.
For some reason beyond the limits of my culture, Nigerian-style scammers seem to be absolutely certain that if they introduce themselves merely with a name & surname, nobody will take them seriously.
They also never fail to assert the importance of their (or their deceased spouse's) position.
I never got an e-mail, say, from a Jane Doe saying that her late husband, John, made a bundle selling corn flakes to supermarkets, before explaining that she has no heirs, and doctors say she won't live long enough to spend it. They are always high-rank military, bankers, government officials, etc.
Now and then I read some of the spam I get, hoping that someone will get creative, invent something new, however I get bored every time. ▲ Collapse
| | | | | Remain Blessed... | Jul 25, 2014 |
... is certainly a giveaway.
I have had mails asking me to take care of the family while the scammer was in Copenhagen... Which I have reported to Proz.com immediately.
Mails are not vetted, for reasons of confidentiality among others, so you cannot blame staff it you do get scam mails. However, they do take action.
Unfortunately these scammers ARE quite creative in one way - they find new ways of spreading their mails...
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