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Translators please beware of fake email accounts
Thread poster: Somya Translators Pvt. Ltd.
Fady Dagher
Fady Dagher
United Kingdom
Local time: 21:59
French to Arabic
+ ...
Another Ajoy prey! Jun 17, 2009

Hello all,
I seem to be the latest Ajoy Signh's prey! HURRAY!!!
In fact, on May 15, 2009, I received an Arabic proofreading offer and replied to it, without any knowledge about this whole issue, and not having read this forum!
I proofread 4 texts (military training machinery manuals) of a total of 80981 words (I wonder if this isn't the same project that was previously sent to Mohamed for translation).
I accepted the job since he approved my offered rate, and promised to
... See more
Hello all,
I seem to be the latest Ajoy Signh's prey! HURRAY!!!
In fact, on May 15, 2009, I received an Arabic proofreading offer and replied to it, without any knowledge about this whole issue, and not having read this forum!
I proofread 4 texts (military training machinery manuals) of a total of 80981 words (I wonder if this isn't the same project that was previously sent to Mohamed for translation).
I accepted the job since he approved my offered rate, and promised to pay me within 20 days from invoice. Then some weird things started to happen (such as giving me every time less time to deliver the job, then asking me at the same time to translate the figures included in the manuals too, or some missing parts of the texts, etc). He finally asked me if I could translate the fourth text (about 30.000 words) within 5 days max, so I said I couldn't since I doubted something didn't turn quiet round, but couldn't have any material proof, until... after I delivered the fourth (and last) text, I never heard back of this so-called Mr. Ajoy Singh!
So after a few days I called and someone answered my phone saying that he does not know who I am, and denied having assigned me any work.
So now someone out there owes me a bit more than 2.100 euro worth of delivered work, which I apparently won't be getting! (I had to learn my lesson the hard way I guess!).
BTW, I still keep all the e-mails back and forth that I exchanged with him, just in case anybody thinks they might be of any use in order to track this guy.
I hope no one else falls in this (fake??) Mr. Singh's setup.
Kind regards.
Fady.
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Hania Pietrzyk
Hania Pietrzyk
France
Local time: 22:59
Member
French to Polish
+ ...
I have received their 3 messages yesterday (16th June) Jun 17, 2009

Theses messages were addressed to 11 translators in the same time and I ignored them.

"Hello Dears,

We have project need to be translated from English to Polish 7000 words and need the translation by Thursday morning, Please check and tell me if you able to do this project and meet our deadline, Please send your best rate per word.

Looking forward to hear from you.
Many thanks,
Ajoy Singh
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Somya Translato
... See more
Theses messages were addressed to 11 translators in the same time and I ignored them.

"Hello Dears,

We have project need to be translated from English to Polish 7000 words and need the translation by Thursday morning, Please check and tell me if you able to do this project and meet our deadline, Please send your best rate per word.

Looking forward to hear from you.
Many thanks,
Ajoy Singh
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Somya Translators
Phone : +91-11-22484180
Cell : + 91-9990094796
Fax : +91-11-22484180
Email : [email protected]
Web : www.somyatrans.com

Hello,
Thanks so much for your mail.

Please find the file need to be translated in attachment, Please go ahead with the translation and we will pay you within 20 days from the invoice by Moneybookers, Paypal or WesternUnion.
Looking forward to hear from you.
Many thanks,

Hello,

The word count for this project is 7071 words, Please go ahead with the translation and we will send you the third file today within two hours.

Please check and advise me.

Many thanks,. "
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Gyorgy Mathe
Gyorgy Mathe  Identity Verified
Hungary
Local time: 22:59
French to Hungarian
+ ...
confirmation Jun 17, 2009

I have also been approached by said person, and started working on a translation.

Let me thank Mohamed Kamel on this venue again for notifying me.

Best regards,

Gyorgy Mathe


 
Mika Regan
Mika Regan
United States
Local time: 14:59
Member (2009)
English to Japanese
I got it today Aug 25, 2009

I received the following message about 10 minutes ago.

+++++++++++++++++++++++
Dear Translators,
We have project need to be translated from English to Japanese, Please send your best rate if you interested to work with us and tell me if you can translate 3000 words and deliver by Wednesday after noon.

Looking forward to hear from you.
Kind Regards,

Ajoy Singh
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Somya Translators
Phone : +91-
... See more
I received the following message about 10 minutes ago.

+++++++++++++++++++++++
Dear Translators,
We have project need to be translated from English to Japanese, Please send your best rate if you interested to work with us and tell me if you can translate 3000 words and deliver by Wednesday after noon.

Looking forward to hear from you.
Kind Regards,

Ajoy Singh
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Somya Translators
Phone : +91-11-22484180
Cell : + 91-9990094796
Fax : +91-11-22484180
Email : [email protected]
Web : www.somyatrans.com
+++++++++++++++++++++++++

I am really glad I checked the BlueBoard.

Mika
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Narasimhan Raghavan
Narasimhan Raghavan  Identity Verified
Local time: 03:29
English to Tamil
+ ...
In memoriam
There should be an appropriate warning of this scam in your Website at a prominent place Aug 25, 2009

There should be an appropriate warning of this scam in your Website at a prominent place. But I am unable to note any such thing as I went there just a few minutes back.

It is not sufficient to have this warning just in the Blue Board. Your site too should carry it.

Don't you think so?

Regards,
N. Raghavan

somya Translators wrote:

Hello,

Myself project manager of Somya Translators Pvt. Ltd. company located in delhi India. From last few months we are receiving invoices through emails and post from different resources coutry wide for the work which we had not assigned them.

Someone is cheating resources by using our name and company details, the email I.D they are using is [email protected]. I want to request all the resource that do not accept any projects from this kind of fake email accounts. We only use our internal company accounts like [email protected] etc. for all the business activities. We never use yahoo, gmail, rediff or any other public accounts for business activities.

Please beware of fake people who are using our name to make their job going.

We welcome suggestions from all of you how we can catch this kind of people.

With Best Regards,

Tina Mittra

Project Manager

Somya Translators Pvt. Ltd.

[email protected]


[Subject edited by staff or moderator 2009-05-29 12:28 GMT]


[Edited at 2009-08-25 08:45 GMT]


 
David Russi
David Russi  Identity Verified
United States
Local time: 15:59
English to Spanish
+ ...
Maybe with time... Aug 25, 2009

Mohamed Kamel wrote:

Dear all,

I think that we can post an announcement on proz and other translators communities by posting the names of the files I translated to know who is the agency or the translator that offered this job originally to this fraud.

What do you think?

Please let me hear from you and I'm ready to post the names of the four technical files I received from this fraud.

Thanks,
Mohamed Kamel


I am very sorry this happened to you. I remember the day, not long ago, when you could trust almost any person who contacted you with a work offer. No longer.... I also received the "offer", but it looked suspicious, precisely because of the generic yahoo address. Luckily for me, I refuse to participate in any sort of bidding process with strangers, on principle (it olly serves to drive rateds even further down than the are already), so I would not have responded anyway.

Regarding your idea, it may not do anything right now, but if it is something that will eventually be on the web, it may, once posted, be identifiable with searches, and may lead you to the people that contracted the translation in the first place; that, in turn could potentially lead you back to the culprit.

But it is a long shot.


 
David Russi
David Russi  Identity Verified
United States
Local time: 15:59
English to Spanish
+ ...
The warning is right there in the email... Aug 25, 2009

Mika Regan wrote:


Dear Translators,
We have project need to be translated from English to Japanese, Please send your best rate if you interested to work with us and tell me if you can translate 3000 words and deliver by Wednesday after noon.

Looking forward to hear from you.
Kind Regards,

Ajoy Singh
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Somya Translators
Phone : +91-11-22484180
Cell : + 91-9990094796
Fax : +91-11-22484180
Email : [email protected]
Web : www.somyatrans.com
+++++++++++++++++++++++++

Mika


This is warning number 2: a complete stranger from an unknown yahoo address (oh, that was warning 1) writes not to you, but to an unspecified group. Why would you answer such a message? To participate in a bidding war for a rush job? Sounds like a bad idea to me...
>>>Dear Translators...

Warning number 3: Why would someone who owns a domain use a yahoo address???? Something is clearly fishy
>>>Email : [email protected]
>>>Web : www.somyatrans.com

It behooves all of us to educate ourselves on social engineering techniques, and how to identify scams and fraudulent messages and websites; most can be identified by analyzing the text and the structure of the email in question, only a very few are really so good as to not be spotted, in most cases there are clues that give away the nature of the email.

That said, it can and does happen to anyone, in great part because on some level we don't want to see the scam, we want the offer to be real, and that is what allows us to be manipulated..

Here is a wikipedia article on social engineering. It is very general, but it can be a point of departure to learn to identify social engineering schemes: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Social_engineering_(security)






[Edited at 2009-08-25 04:46 GMT]

[Edited at 2009-08-25 05:15 GMT]


 
Md Abu Alam
Md Abu Alam  Identity Verified
Bangladesh
Local time: 03:59
Member (2009)
English to Bengali
+ ...
SITE LOCALIZER
thanks Aug 25, 2009

I received mails from them. Thanks for the information.

 
Robert Haslach
Robert Haslach  Identity Verified
Local time: 17:59
Flemish to English
+ ...
I am the latest dupe of this Somya scam Oct 5, 2009

Note that the website is legitimate while the email is not.
There goes several hundreds down the drain!

- - - - - QUOTE- - - - - - -

From: Somya Translation
Subject: Re: Dutch to English Translation 3000 words
Date: August 24, 2009 8:45:14 AM EDT
To: {ME}
Thanks so much Robert for your confirmation.

Ajoy Singh
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Somya Translators
Phone : +91-11-22484180
Cell : +
... See more
Note that the website is legitimate while the email is not.
There goes several hundreds down the drain!

- - - - - QUOTE- - - - - - -

From: Somya Translation
Subject: Re: Dutch to English Translation 3000 words
Date: August 24, 2009 8:45:14 AM EDT
To: {ME}
Thanks so much Robert for your confirmation.

Ajoy Singh
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Somya Translators
Phone : +91-11-22484180
Cell : + 91-9990094796
Fax : +91-11-22484180
Email : [email protected]
Web : www.somyatrans.com
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julie08065
julie08065
United States
Local time: 17:59
Member (2009)
Russian to English
+ ...
Fake e-mail Jan 14, 2010

Dear Julie,

We have 3000 words Hebrew to English translation project.
Could you please let me know your rate per word and how many words you can finish within next 4 or 5 hours.

Please reply ASAP.

Regards,
Kanisha


 
Stephanie Ezrol
Stephanie Ezrol  Identity Verified
United States
Local time: 17:59
English
+ ...
Email from "Ajoy Singh" [email protected] Mar 5, 2010

Since Tina said that Ajoy Singh never sends e-mails, I'm checking on this one I received today because it is signed by Ajoy Singh, even though it is not a yahoo.com account. I fear that perhaps someone has figured out how to use Somya's email adress. I have seen this done with another company.

"Hi,

...
We have been asked by our client with a couple of free samples if that's alright?
...
2 x 250 word samples:
....
If you can turn around th
... See more
Since Tina said that Ajoy Singh never sends e-mails, I'm checking on this one I received today because it is signed by Ajoy Singh, even though it is not a yahoo.com account. I fear that perhaps someone has figured out how to use Somya's email adress. I have seen this done with another company.

"Hi,

...
We have been asked by our client with a couple of free samples if that's alright?
...
2 x 250 word samples:
....
If you can turn around these quickly for me, written with great quality and grammatically perfect, both of us may stand a good chance of getting more work from this client.
..

Thanking you,
With best regards,
Ajoy Singh"



[Edited at 2010-03-05 13:30 GMT]
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Somya Translators Pvt. Ltd.
Somya Translators Pvt. Ltd.
India
Local time: 03:29
Member (2008)
English to Hindi
+ ...
TOPIC STARTER
Its the Genuine Email sent by our company Mar 5, 2010

Hello Stephanie,

This is the genuine email what we sent yesterday for sample writing. Moreover all of you can trust if you receive email from somyatrans.com domain names. We are responsible for every project given to you through our domain name. But Stephanie I want to raise one thing is that its very unprofessional to post the emails with all assignment details in public forums. If you were having any doubts you should have cleared this in the beginning, before posting this email i
... See more
Hello Stephanie,

This is the genuine email what we sent yesterday for sample writing. Moreover all of you can trust if you receive email from somyatrans.com domain names. We are responsible for every project given to you through our domain name. But Stephanie I want to raise one thing is that its very unprofessional to post the emails with all assignment details in public forums. If you were having any doubts you should have cleared this in the beginning, before posting this email in public forum. This kind of project disclosure in public forum is not at all acceptable.

Regards,
Tina Mittra Mukhrejee
Somya Translators Pvt. Ltd.

[Edited at 2010-03-05 05:31 GMT]
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Stephanie Ezrol
Stephanie Ezrol  Identity Verified
United States
Local time: 17:59
English
+ ...
Email from "Ajoy Singh" [email protected] Mar 5, 2010

I was alarmed at receiving an email signed by Ajoy Singh because Tina wrote in an earlier posting:

[QUOTE]Hello All,

Please note that no has been cheated by us means Somya Translators Pvt. Ltd., neither Mr. Ajoy Singh has contacted anyone for the translation project.

Please also note, Mr. Ajoy Singh is Managing Director of our company i.e. Somya Translators Pvt. Ltd., he never approch any translators by himself as we have a dedicated team for Vendor Manage
... See more
I was alarmed at receiving an email signed by Ajoy Singh because Tina wrote in an earlier posting:

[QUOTE]Hello All,

Please note that no has been cheated by us means Somya Translators Pvt. Ltd., neither Mr. Ajoy Singh has contacted anyone for the translation project.

Please also note, Mr. Ajoy Singh is Managing Director of our company i.e. Somya Translators Pvt. Ltd., he never approch any translators by himself as we have a dedicated team for Vendor Management.

Anyonce can help us to identify this man who is using e-mail ID, will be just great...

Best regards,

Tina Mittra[QUOTE]

I have edited out details from the earlier post as requested and will be more careful in the future. I have seen company email addresses stolen before and therefore felt that it was important to quickly post this as potential problem. Particularly as Tina had so explicitly said that Mr. Ajoy Singh never appoaches translators directly. I now understand Tina to mean that he never uses his own email address. I'm glad that Tina has clarifed her earlier warning, but rest assured that my intention was to protect the professional integrity of Somy Translators, as this type of email theft is much more damaging than a yahoo account posing as a representative of a firm.
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Milos Prudek
Milos Prudek  Identity Verified
Czech Republic
Local time: 22:59
English to Czech
+ ...
Ignore offers from freemail accounts Apr 12, 2010


Any quote request coming from a personal-looking Yahoo! or Gmail, or Hotmail address should, if not ignored, at least investigated before supplying.


This is exactly right. Ignore all offers that do not come from the agency's own domain. For additional security, make a phone call to a phone number listed on the company website (not to a phone number in the email message!).

Always request a purchase order, with a purchase order number and fixed, agreed price.


 
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Translators please beware of fake email accounts







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