Translators & Translation Companies: LinkedIn SCAM Alert!

Dear LinkedIn friends,

If you recently got an inquiry of translation project which contained hundreds of pages of business documents from a UK engineering company, and the client easily accepted your offered rate but insisted to send you the hard copy of the documents instead of sending in editable electronic version for translation, keep your eyes open.

They may pretend to send the documents to you by an international courier service which you never heard of (unlike Fedex, DHL, UPS, etc.), and then send an email to you, saying that the parcel is On Hold By Airport Authorities, and ask you to pay US$1,000+ to their local handling agent for custom clearance. There were translators who paid this $1,000+ fee but never get the job.

When I get suspicious of my own experience with the above situation, I did some research on the internet, and below is Malay translator Ms. Suhaiza Ibrahim’s story that I came across:

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About a couple of weeks ago, I've been contacted by a Kenneth Lee, a Linkedin member and supposedly the CEO of a UK company called Ramboll Engineering. He wanted me to translate some of his company business documents to my native language. The documents is in hardcopy only and it will be sent to me by post once we have agreed on the translation rate.

As usual, before accepting any job, I will check about the client's information that is available on the Internet. Everything seems to be legit. The website is okay, and it also stated that Kenneth Lee is the CEO of the company. This would be a VERY BIG project for me, since the pages that I need to translate is nearly 500 pages, and the CEO also agrees to the rate I am offering.

So, after signing an agreement, Kenneth emailed me afterwards about the shipment of the document from UK to Malaysia, using a UK courier service called Kub Express. A receipt of the shipment was also attached to inform me about the tracking number. I can see that the charges for the courier service was 490 British Pound. Hmmm... quite a lot of money for a shipment. The company must be a big company, I thought.

A day after that, I received an email from KUB Express stating that my parcel would be arriving in 2-3 days business days. Hmm.. so fast from overseas? Usually it would take 2-3 weeks to arrive here. But I thought, maybe that's why the courier's payment was so expensive. Maybe Kenneth needed the document to get to me urgently.

Then, a couple of days after that, again I received an email from KUB Express, saying that my parcel had arrive safely in Malaysia but it was detained by customs. In order for it to be released, I needed to pay a fee of USD1000++. Whattt?!!! That was unbelievable. And the customs didn't even contact me to informed me about the parcel.

So, I decided to contact the customs myself. Gonna deal with this problem myself. When I finally talked to one of the customs officer, she said that the courier service didn't exist in the system, and she haven't even heard of the name before. So if the courier doesn't exist, there's no way to locate the parcel. When I told her that I was told to pay over USD1000 to have the parcel released, she said that it was ridiculous. Customs never charged that high to release any item, and then she said that it maybe a scam. I was shocked.

Then somehow everything seems to fall into pieces. To cut the long story short, I did some digging on the Internet and found out a few interesting things. 1. Ramboll Engineering is actually a true company with a valid website. But the CEO is not Kenneth Lee. I was given a fake website where it portrays Kenneth Lee as the CEO; 2. The picture of Kenneth Lee was also a fake. I discovered there's another engineering website (didn't remember the name) that is similar to the fake Ramboll website, that have the fake picture of Kenneth Lee as CEO. But in this website, the name wasn't Kenneth Lee, it was different; 3. KUB Express is also a fake courier service. I've checked the ip address, and it was only created in early June this year, same as the fake Ramboll website. So, I guess maybe Kenneth Lee and KUB Express's staff which had emailed me was the same person.

This is a truly professional scammer, maybe a syndicate of online scammers. Thank God that I managed to escaped from this one. I'm telling you of my experience here so that every translators would be aware about any client that approaches them, do some checking first before accepting any job. Don't let the big sum of money cloud your judgement.

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Well, I had the same experience as Ms. Ibrahim had and now I'm 100% sure that this is scam and is a very professional one. Below is the email I received from the engineering company:

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Hello. Thank you for your response to my message on Linkedin and also your interest in translating our company business documents.

After a brief board meeting where we reviewed your quotation and are satisfied with it, we have decided to allow you translate some of our business documents.

We need this project to be done neatly and be delivered on or before three months time. But before we proceed, we have attached "Confidentiality Agreement" for you to sign before we can send you the hard copy documents for you to start translating them as fast as you can. Once you sign this agreement, you are to send it back to us via email with your shipping address and phone number. Due to the fact that counting these words will be very tedious on our own side, you are to use any convenient software to check the words count when you receive the hard copy documents and send us final invoice, and if there are extra charges for that you have to specify accordingly. The documents have a total page of 487.

Note that this attached "Confidentiality Agreement" is one of the documents to be translated, but a template of it will be sent along with other documents.

We will transfer 50% of the total charge once we receive your final invoice before you commence translation, and the remaining 50% will be paid 2 days after we confirm the work okay after translation.

Kindly send me your WhatsApp Number or WeChat for easy communication.

Regards

Dan Xue

CEO, Hallrite Engineering Limited

Phone: +44 7441 391623

Email: dan@hallriteengineering.com

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Below is the email from the international courier company "RFT EXPRESS":

Subject: Acknowledgement of Package - RFT44567323CN

Dear Changsha Trueword Translation Co. ltd,

This email is to notify you that we have received your package here in our office and have commence shipment to the specified address which the sender provided.

The delivery will take about 2-3 working day to get to you. We will notify you in case of any delay.

Kindly write to us if you need to make any changes to your details. Our Head office will contact you as soon the package arrives.

Visit our website and input the tracking number/AWB below to track your package:

Tracking Number/AWB: RFT44567323CN

If you have any questions regarding your package, kindly call or email us.

Thanks for using our services. We are always pleased to serve you.

Track your shipment: https://rftexpress.com/track-your-shipment/

RFT EXPRESS

Email:info@rftexpress.com

Phone: +447441392544

Website: www.rftexpress.com

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Below is the other email that gets me suspicious:

Subject: Package Status Notification - On Hold By Airport Authorities

Hello Changsha Trueword Translation Co. ltd,

This is to inform you that your package has arrived China and sent for routine custom clearance but unfortunately, your package could not pass the final clearance stage because it has exceeded the Customs requirement for your country.

According to the Customs Regulation Act, the package contains business/commercial documents which attracts duty.

On this note, the Customs has requested a fee of ¥7490 CNY which must be paid immediately before the package can be delivered to your address by our local handling agent.

We kindly urge you to make the necessary arrangement to provide the required amount in order to ensure the safety and fast delivery of your package. On this note, kindly reply us as soon as possible to arrange sending the fee to our agent handling your package.

We apologize for any inconvenience caused, and we look forward to hearing from you soon based on this issue.

Track your shipment: https://rftexpress.com/track-your-shipment/

RFT EXPRESS

Email:info@rftexpress.com

Phone: +447441392544

Website: www.rftexpress.com

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I've also searched the "RFT Express" domain name, contact phone number. And it appears that the domain was registered just a few weeks or less before they contacted me, and this international courier company's customer contact phone number is a mobile phone number (see attached screenshots), quite interesting.

I have a LinkedIn network of 6700+ first degree connections, and most of my connections are in the translation related industry. I feel that I have a moral duty to warn my friends about this scam. Please spread the above to as many people as you can if you are also a professional in the translation industry.

Thanks for reading.