mail scams | Karavansara

I just received a mail that promises to solve all my economic problems, and set my writing career on the right path.
No really!
Judge for yourself…

Dear Friend,
An oil business man made a fixed deposit of $26M in my bank branch where I am a director and he died with his entire family in Syria war leaving behind no next of kin. I Propose to present you as next of kin to claim the funds,if interested contact me with your full name, and telephone number to reach you and most importantly, a confirmation of acceptance from you.
Please reply with this Email: xxxxx
Your Truly ,
Ling Lung

Now I’m here preparing a letter for mister Ling Lung.
I think I’ll mention to him that I still have here his grandfather Kai Lung’s wallet. Maybe he’d like to have it back.

The problem with GoogleTranslate of course is, it can’t handle complex texts.
But let’s proceed with order.

As mentioned in an earlier post, I was contacted by some phishers whose hook letter was so good in terms of content and form, and so riddled with grammar and spelling errors, I offered them my translator services.
Well, they got back at me.
Offering me a translation job.
The cheeky bastards!

And so I was contacted by a noted and well respected American author – whose work I translated in the past – offering me the urgent translation of a 12.000 word document.

And to tell you the truth, the first mail seemed legit.
OK, it came through a gmail.com account and sounded like a template job, but that’s ok – for all I knew, it was a preliminary thing sent to me and a dozen other colleagues…
So I replied, quoting a figure for the translation, proposing a standard contract, and asking for details.
I was sold.
After all, translating stuff is my job – currently, my main paying job: it is what puts bread on my table and keeps the light on (and the web connection going!)
So, ok, I mailed back my proposal.

And I got a reply! Continue reading →