Fake agency warning - Smartrays Inc Thread poster: Joe Needham
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There is someone posing as a translation agency called Smartrays Inc. based in Canada. I came into contact with them on the Translation Directory, but they also have a profile here. I contacted them and the onboarding process seemed relatively normal, the email address had the same domain as the site, English wasn't too bad, although the initial e-mail I responded to had poor English so I assumed they were not in an English speaking country, and forgot about this once they emailed back claiming ... See more There is someone posing as a translation agency called Smartrays Inc. based in Canada. I came into contact with them on the Translation Directory, but they also have a profile here. I contacted them and the onboarding process seemed relatively normal, the email address had the same domain as the site, English wasn't too bad, although the initial e-mail I responded to had poor English so I assumed they were not in an English speaking country, and forgot about this once they emailed back claiming they were Canadian. They got me to sign an NDA and forward it to them (slightly odd request) which wasn't poorly written but I assume copied from somewhere else.
Sadly I ignored some red flags on their website despite thinking I had done my due diligence (after reading up on this I realise I clearly had not) such as it not being secure and signed this, and sent some references to them. I went back on the site after and realised that it just wasn't quite right and that they had copied it from another agency site and some other fishy details I didn't pick up first time round. After the NDA they will ask you for proof of ID, address and certificates. I believe this is a scam to get translator's info to scam other agencies based on the info they obtained. Once I realised they were obviously lying about their identity, I checked the IP address in the NDA and saw its geolocation was in India, not Canada. Oops!
[Edited at 2023-01-16 12:33 GMT]
[Edited at 2023-01-16 12:36 GMT] ▲ Collapse
| | | | | Same experience. But after that all my accounts were hacked. | Jan 22, 2023 |
Same experience. But after that, all my accounts were hacked. In the same day, I signed the NDA. Including telegram, emails, Instagram, Amazon account, and unknown amazon orders as well.
| | | | Liu Peng 
France
Local time: 15:41
Member (2011)
English to Chinese
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| I have also received their email for collaboration | Feb 2, 2023 |
I agree. I could not find their website. In addition, they even don't have a profile in Proz. I won't reply anyway.
| | | | | Smartrays Scam | Feb 16, 2023 |
Thank you all for posting your messages about Smartrays. It is a scam. No website, no Proz.com profile!
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Arianne Farah
Canada
Local time: 09:41
Member (2008)
English to French
| Same, but I didn't bite & sent it straight to spam | Feb 16, 2023 |
Here is the body of the email - this way it'll pop up in the future if someone tries to use it :
Hi Partner,
Hope this email finds you well
My Name is Logan Tremblay, I am a part of SmartraysInc.
I am contacting you to check your availability for our regular project with a daily volume of 500-1000 words.
Domain - Automotive & Marketing
Volume - 500-1000 Daily
Tool - TW (Translation WorkSpace)
Please reply in a sep... See more Here is the body of the email - this way it'll pop up in the future if someone tries to use it :
Hi Partner,
Hope this email finds you well
My Name is Logan Tremblay, I am a part of SmartraysInc.
I am contacting you to check your availability for our regular project with a daily volume of 500-1000 words.
Domain - Automotive & Marketing
Volume - 500-1000 Daily
Tool - TW (Translation WorkSpace)
Please reply in a separate email with a copy of your updated CV and per-word and per-hour rates and mention the subject line Eng into fr-CA.
Please reply only if you have TW installed on your system and are ready to start the work immediately.
Our payment term is 45 days from the date of invoice, we pay via PayPal, Payoneer, and Bank transfer
Warm Regards
Logan Tremblay
http://smartraysinc.com/
Site didn't work, couldn't find the BB and who uses 'Hi Partner' outside of Western movies? Marked it as spam & moved on. ▲ Collapse
| | | | IrinaN
United States
Local time: 08:41
English to Russian
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Hi Partner for a first attempt to establish any kind of business relationship should be enough to ask them to shove it... At least in thought, and hit Delete next. Scam or no scam.
| | | | SUE Hoff
Namibia
Local time: 15:41
English to German
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| Smartrays Inc | Feb 17, 2023 |
the company is recruiting via TRANSLATIONDIRECTORY again. It already raises eyebrows when the terms and conditions as well as the volume of the project are too good to be true. There is another company with a similar trick. Name is OKTA. They are looking for people translating books. It's urgent they want to pay quite a lot. Although you do everything through website and email, one of the so-called managers contacted me via telegram. I was given the book to work on - and when I asked for the sig... See more the company is recruiting via TRANSLATIONDIRECTORY again. It already raises eyebrows when the terms and conditions as well as the volume of the project are too good to be true. There is another company with a similar trick. Name is OKTA. They are looking for people translating books. It's urgent they want to pay quite a lot. Although you do everything through website and email, one of the so-called managers contacted me via telegram. I was given the book to work on - and when I asked for the signed contract to be returned to me, they claimed that was not the usual procedure and company would keep it. Guess their trick is to let you sign the contract, you do the translation, and then they tell you to get lost... ▲ Collapse
| | | | | SmartRaysInc scam | Mar 15, 2023 |
The same happened to me. After signing the NDA, and asking for the jobs, I've got a few excuses like "we are waiting for the client to green light the project" etc. Now the site is gone. Any suggestions what to do in such a case (they have NDA with my name, copy of my ID and my postal address)?
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