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A person with gmail address and Skype id gave me works and disappeared when it was time to pay!
Thread poster: Santosh Rai
Santosh Rai
Santosh Rai  Identity Verified
Nepal
Local time: 15:32
English to Nepali
+ ...
TOPIC STARTER
Thank you Jan 23, 2017

DZiW wrote:

Santosh, there were so many little roaches, big red flags, missing homework, and so on that it's... sad.
Unfortunately, very many decent specialists are rather poor businessmen (running a risky commercial practice).

What about someone in a black cat-burglar costume would cheerfully offer you a "win-win" deal at your expense?

I think you should refer to a local anti-fraud agency/organization and inform other translators, yet still it's more about one's critical thinking and risk-management skills, because even fair players may go wrong or bad, alas.

Cheers

http://www.proz.com/about/translator-scam-alerts

Hi,
Thank you for the tips.

cheers.


 
Santosh Rai
Santosh Rai  Identity Verified
Nepal
Local time: 15:32
English to Nepali
+ ...
TOPIC STARTER
no Jan 23, 2017

Mirko Mainardi wrote:

Santosh Rai wrote:

A person from India recently contacted me for document translation.


Did that happen here on ProZ?


He contacted me via gmail directly. I don't know how did he get my email address.


 
Sheila Wilson
Sheila Wilson  Identity Verified
Spain
Local time: 09:47
Member (2007)
English
+ ...
Try to approach the next job as a business transaction Jan 23, 2017

It seems that you're setting yourself up to be scammed at the moment. It would be nice to assume nobody would take advantage, but that would actually be naïve.

Your mail address is findable within seconds as you've uploaded a CV here that displays it. That's unnecessarily risky, IMHO. I personally take what others consider too great a risk - I make my CV available to potential clients. But it isn't a CV that displays my email address, and I have done what I can to make it less int
... See more
It seems that you're setting yourself up to be scammed at the moment. It would be nice to assume nobody would take advantage, but that would actually be naïve.

Your mail address is findable within seconds as you've uploaded a CV here that displays it. That's unnecessarily risky, IMHO. I personally take what others consider too great a risk - I make my CV available to potential clients. But it isn't a CV that displays my email address, and I have done what I can to make it less interesting to identity thieves. I advise you to remove your email address so that clients contact you through the site instead. Only when you choose to reply do they get to know your personal details.

Maybe Nepal imposes few demands on freelancers, leading you to dispense with some checks. It sounds as though you're working with an agency, but it doesn't sound as though you know the company name and registered company address. In Europe, we can't send a legal invoice if we don't know those details, so only a real amateur would work without these basic facts.

I suggest that you set quite a low credit limit for unknown clients in the future. That can mean you accept a small job and then insist on payment before doing another, or insisting on a partial advance payment for a bigger job. I don't have a set figure but it would be just a hundred or so dollars normally. I would only allow a known reliable client to owe me the amount you're owed. If you only ever risk $100-150 then you can only lose that much, and if you have their full details you're in a better position to chase them. I do sometimes accept far greater risk, but only when I feel really confident about the client. And that rarely happens when they contact me out of the blue.

I certainly wouldn't say that you should ignore all requests from Gmail addresses or from a particular country, or from private individuals etc, as some will suggest. I've had extremely good outcomes from all the above. But you should always do due diligance and act as a business rather than as someone who can be easily scammed.
Collapse


 
Enrique Cavalitto
Enrique Cavalitto  Identity Verified
Argentina
Local time: 06:47
Member (2006)
English to Spanish
A simple but robust 3-step rick management procedure Jan 23, 2017

Hi Santosh,

This 3-step program will protect you from most scams:
  1. When contacted by an unknown entity with a business proposal you should first ask yourself if this deserves further evaluation, otherwise delete immediately.

  2. If you move beyond that point, the next step is getting verifiable contact information and verifying it. If you can't be sure of the other part's identity (especially if the urgency of the matter makes identification impossible) ... See more
Hi Santosh,

This 3-step program will protect you from most scams:
  1. When contacted by an unknown entity with a business proposal you should first ask yourself if this deserves further evaluation, otherwise delete immediately.

  2. If you move beyond that point, the next step is getting verifiable contact information and verifying it. If you can't be sure of the other part's identity (especially if the urgency of the matter makes identification impossible) then delete immediately.

  3. Once you get confirmed ID of the contact, you should verify creditworthiness in the BlueBoard and other similar tools.


Learn more about scams in our scam alert center.

Regards,
Enrique
Collapse


 
José Henrique Lamensdorf
José Henrique Lamensdorf  Identity Verified
Brazil
Local time: 06:47
English to Portuguese
+ ...
In memoriam
On creditworthiness... Jan 23, 2017

Enrique Cavalitto wrote:

Once you get confirmed ID of the contact, you should verify creditworthiness in the BlueBoard and other similar tools.


With all due respect, Enrique, it should be mentioned that while the Blue Board and similar tools are quite valuable to pinpoint "rotten apples" in our trade, they are not a reliable source for assessing creditworthiness.

The problem is that they don't take into account the amounts involved, just the unweighted average of the translators' "Likelihood of Working Again".

Therefore 10 translators, each having done a $ 1 or 2-digit worth translation job for an outsourcer, "weigh" 10 times more than one translator who did a $ 3 or 4-digit job for the same. If they paid the tidbits COD, however paid the big job translator 6 months late - or never! - their average LWA will be:
[(10 translators x LWA 5) + (1 translator x LWA 1)] / 11 = (50 + 1) / 11 = LWA 4.6
... so they'll still look pretty good.

I happen to have spotted a few rogue agencies who now and then, when their composite LWA on the Blue Board goes below a certain level, run a "campaign" to get plenty of inputs from their happy low-value one-night-stands in order to shift it up.

I have learned to initially distrust agencies that have just too many LWAs on their Blue Board record. It leads me to try reading between the lines in the Comments column. They know that if they default payment on one 5-digit job, that LWA=1 won't rock such a heavy boat.


[Edited at 2017-01-23 14:49 GMT]


 
Katarzyna Slowikova
Katarzyna Slowikova  Identity Verified
Germany
Local time: 10:47
English to Czech
+ ...
No title Jan 23, 2017

Santosh Rai wrote:

...found the person's google plus and Facebook account. I contacted him and ask him to pay the money but this person says that he doesn't know me. I explained and he said that I was being victim of a fraud and these accounts are fake.


Why would you believe it? Surely anybody can say it?

Also, you can use the Skype ID to find this person's IP, providing he comes online again (a quick google search returned e.g. this: http://www.wikihow.com/Find-the-IP-Address-of-a-Skype-User) and from there, their location - which you could then compare to that FB profile location (if it's stated there.... I'm not on FB, so am not familiar with that, nor whether you can find out an IP of an individual profile).
The point is, if you knew the true identity of that person you can threaten them with spreading the info about their non-payment practices around the internet. It worked for me in the similar situation.
Good luck!
Katarzyna

[Edited at 2017-01-23 15:21 GMT]


 
Santosh Rai
Santosh Rai  Identity Verified
Nepal
Local time: 15:32
English to Nepali
+ ...
TOPIC STARTER
Hi Sheila, Jan 24, 2017

Sheila Wilson wrote:

It seems that you're setting yourself up to be scammed at the moment. It would be nice to assume nobody would take advantage, but that would actually be naïve.

Your mail address is findable within seconds as you've uploaded a CV here that displays it. That's unnecessarily risky, IMHO. I personally take what others consider too great a risk - I make my CV available to potential clients. But it isn't a CV that displays my email address, and I have done what I can to make it less interesting to identity thieves. I advise you to remove your email address so that clients contact you through the site instead. Only when you choose to reply do they get to know your personal details.

Maybe Nepal imposes few demands on freelancers, leading you to dispense with some checks. It sounds as though you're working with an agency, but it doesn't sound as though you know the company name and registered company address. In Europe, we can't send a legal invoice if we don't know those details, so only a real amateur would work without these basic facts.

I suggest that you set quite a low credit limit for unknown clients in the future. That can mean you accept a small job and then insist on payment before doing another, or insisting on a partial advance payment for a bigger job. I don't have a set figure but it would be just a hundred or so dollars normally. I would only allow a known reliable client to owe me the amount you're owed. If you only ever risk $100-150 then you can only lose that much, and if you have their full details you're in a better position to chase them. I do sometimes accept far greater risk, but only when I feel really confident about the client. And that rarely happens when they contact me out of the blue.

I certainly wouldn't say that you should ignore all requests from Gmail addresses or from a particular country, or from private individuals etc, as some will suggest. I've had extremely good outcomes from all the above. But you should always do due diligance and act as a business rather than as someone who can be easily scammed.


Thank you for taking the time to put these tips. Really helpful.


 
Santosh Rai
Santosh Rai  Identity Verified
Nepal
Local time: 15:32
English to Nepali
+ ...
TOPIC STARTER
Thanks Enrique Jan 24, 2017

Enrique Cavalitto wrote:

Hi Santosh,

This 3-step program will protect you from most scams:
  1. When contacted by an unknown entity with a business proposal you should first ask yourself if this deserves further evaluation, otherwise delete immediately.

  2. If you move beyond that point, the next step is getting verifiable contact information and verifying it. If you can't be sure of the other part's identity (especially if the urgency of the matter makes identification impossible) then delete immediately.

  3. Once you get confirmed ID of the contact, you should verify creditworthiness in the BlueBoard and other similar tools.


Learn more about scams in our scam alert center.

Regards,
Enrique


Hi Enrique,

I have subscribed to the scam alert.
And thank you for the tips.


 
Santosh Rai
Santosh Rai  Identity Verified
Nepal
Local time: 15:32
English to Nepali
+ ...
TOPIC STARTER
Thanks Jan 24, 2017

José Henrique Lamensdorf wrote:

Enrique Cavalitto wrote:

Once you get confirmed ID of the contact, you should verify creditworthiness in the BlueBoard and other similar tools.


With all due respect, Enrique, it should be mentioned that while the Blue Board and similar tools are quite valuable to pinpoint "rotten apples" in our trade, they are not a reliable source for assessing creditworthiness.

The problem is that they don't take into account the amounts involved, just the unweighted average of the translators' "Likelihood of Working Again".

Therefore 10 translators, each having done a $ 1 or 2-digit worth translation job for an outsourcer, "weigh" 10 times more than one translator who did a $ 3 or 4-digit job for the same. If they paid the tidbits COD, however paid the big job translator 6 months late - or never! - their average LWA will be:
[(10 translators x LWA 5) + (1 translator x LWA 1)] / 11 = (50 + 1) / 11 = LWA 4.6
... so they'll still look pretty good.

I happen to have spotted a few rogue agencies who now and then, when their composite LWA on the Blue Board goes below a certain level, run a "campaign" to get plenty of inputs from their happy low-value one-night-stands in order to shift it up.

I have learned to initially distrust agencies that have just too many LWAs on their Blue Board record. It leads me to try reading between the lines in the Comments column. They know that if they default payment on one 5-digit job, that LWA=1 won't rock such a heavy boat.


[Edited at 2017-01-23 14:49 GMT]


Hi Jose,

Thank you for your time.


 
Santosh Rai
Santosh Rai  Identity Verified
Nepal
Local time: 15:32
English to Nepali
+ ...
TOPIC STARTER
Since I don't have proof yet, he can say anything. Jan 24, 2017

Katarzyna Slowikova wrote:

Santosh Rai wrote:

...found the person's google plus and Facebook account. I contacted him and ask him to pay the money but this person says that he doesn't know me. I explained and he said that I was being victim of a fraud and these accounts are fake.


Why would you believe it? Surely anybody can say it?

Also, you can use the Skype ID to find this person's IP, providing he comes online again (a quick google search returned e.g. this: http://www.wikihow.com/Find-the-IP-Address-of-a-Skype-User) and from there, their location - which you could then compare to that FB profile location (if it's stated there.... I'm not on FB, so am not familiar with that, nor whether you can find out an IP of an individual profile).
The point is, if you knew the true identity of that person you can threaten them with spreading the info about their non-payment practices around the internet. It worked for me in the similar situation.
Good luck!
Katarzyna

[Edited at 2017-01-23 15:21 GMT]


Hi Katarzyna,

Since I don't have proof yet, he can say anything. I am working with local authorities in India for this.
There is still hope.

Thank you for your time.


 
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A person with gmail address and Skype id gave me works and disappeared when it was time to pay!







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