Beware of fraudsters
I would like to share my experience with a fraudulent request for a document translation, to prevent colleagues falling into a trap.
At the end of February I received a request for an Armenian translation from the US. After some negotiations we agreed the fees but I was told that they couldn't make the payment to the UK account and could only pay to any US bank. The first phase of the translation was 11,667 words long and as I didn’t want to lose this work, I asked my nephew in LA for help.
They also said that the second phase of the translation would be about 3 times bigger than the first document and they were sending a check for entire work of $4,980.80 The check was sent to my nephew’s address and deposited to his account. I clearly stated that I was not going to start the work until the check was cleared. Then they wrote to say that they were cancelling the second phase and wanted the remaining amount to be transferred to the account provided by them. Several emails followed with the request for money. They sent the account number and the name of person who had nothing to do with the check issuer and was about 1,500 miles away. I asked them whether they were dragging me into some illegal activity but no answers were received.
Yesterday I reported the issue to FBI and Pennsylvania State Police.
Please beware of any requests as fraudsters turned their attention to the translation business.
