Scam email request: "translate a document am to use for a presentation in 3 weeks"

Yiftach Levy wrote:

I got an email via Proz reading
"Hello, I'm contacting you in regard to an English content
document worth 11,643 words (44 Pages). I need this
document translated into Hebrew . I would like to know if you are
interested and available to get this done for me. Please
get back to me as soon as you can via email
([email protected]). Thank you."

[I redacted the name in the email to avoid libel, but the five zeros at the end should have been my first clue]

I responded asking about a timeline and got a response quickly that it would be "1 month starting from 2/July /2019," "proposing a cashier check or bank certified check for the payment," and with the entire 44 page document attached.

I responded with a quote and got a quick response accepting my rate without question, and (what finally set off my detector) saying "This project is a research paper being sponsor [sic] for a seminar coming up soon, so I would like to make an advance payment or make the full payment so you know you have my job with you" and asking for my name, mailing address, and mobile number.

I then Googled the IP address the ProZ request was sent from and saw that it had been reported for spam a bit over the last month or so, and finally thought to come here to look for similar experiences. I'm fairly convinced this is BS at this point, but would love to hear if anyone has other ideas.

Yiftach Levy wrote:

I got an email via Proz reading
"Hello, I'm contacting you in regard to an English content
document worth 11,643 words (44 Pages). I need this
document translated into Hebrew . I would like to know if you are
interested and available to get this done for me. Please
get back to me as soon as you can via email
([email protected]). Thank you."

[I redacted the name in the email to avoid libel, but the five zeros at the end should have been my first clue]

I responded asking about a timeline and got a response quickly that it would be "1 month starting from 2/July /2019," "proposing a cashier check or bank certified check for the payment," and with the entire 44 page document attached.

I responded with a quote and got a quick response accepting my rate without question, and (what finally set off my detector) saying "This project is a research paper being sponsor [sic] for a seminar coming up soon, so I would like to make an advance payment or make the full payment so you know you have my job with you" and asking for my name, mailing address, and mobile number.

I then Googled the IP address the ProZ request was sent from and saw that it had been reported for spam a bit over the last month or so, and finally thought to come here to look for similar experiences. I'm fairly convinced this is BS at this point, but would love to hear if anyone has other ideas.

aaserv wrote:

Unfortunately our agency dealt with this scammer on a much more serious level. This scammer requested we translate two documents into Spanish for an "event". We quoted a relatively high amount (due to the lengthy and technical nature of the documents). They accepted the quote and agreed to pay in advance.

A couple of days later we received a cashier's check in the mail. This check took our bank almost one full week to identify as a scam (that is how "real" it seemed to be)... which was too late of course and we had done the translation already.

BEWARE! This person went by "Susan McGowan", but "Jeff", "Andrew" and/or "Ahmed" are among the other names that have popped up on various platforms. We don't know for sure how deep this scam goes, but it is a real danger to the Translator Community.

Tony Litrenta wrote:

Thanks to everyone for posting, this saved me from wasting a lot of time! I’m just curious to know, what is the purpose of the scam? They ask for name, address, and phone number and it seems they’ve even mailed fake checks. In my case, the “translation” they wanted was the same one mentioned elsewhere, which apparently someone already did. I’m wondering if there was a virus attached to the document or if anyone had identity theft issues come up after this. Thanks a lot!