I was almost scammed but the joke was on them

Canada
October 4, 2017 8:21am CST
Recently I have started to do some translation work and I joined a couple of translation sites such as translatorscafe. Three weeks ago, I was contacted by a woman who stated she worked for a health management company and who had seen my profile on translatorscafe. She was offering me a translation job that I readily accepted. I checked out the website of the company that she stated she worked for and it seemed a very legitimate site. So I started to translate very happily. One week after I had started, I received another email from a gentleman who said that he worked in the financial department of the company. The email contained a PDF cheque for the work that I had done. Great... But as I opened the PDF, I saw that the cheque was for twice the amount that I had charged and also contained instructions to send the remainder of the money to a third person for publishing purposes on the translation piece that I had done. Well, bells and whistle started to ring in my little brain. What, I am supposed to deposit that cheque and then send money (through Western Union according to the instructions) to a person that I do not know at all. Ya... Who do they think they are dealing with. I was not born yesterday. Plus this scam has been running on the internet and in the online job sector for years. I remember because I lived it about ten years ago. But even ten years ago, I waited patiently for 6 days as my bank instructed me only to find out that the cheque had no funds attached to it. So I let go of my rage and send both the woman and the gentleman an email stating that it is not my responsibility as a translator to perform such a task and that I was not continuing with the translation. How is that for being polite and nice compared to them.
3 people like this
4 responses
• United States
15 Aug 19
i'm glad ya were familiar with these tactics 'n 'voided troubles. soooo many scammers out there 'n most think they'd be most clever. 'nly coz they've been quite successful stealin' funds from folks :( i sure 'dmire yer poise'n handlin' such.
1 person likes this
• Canada
15 Aug 19
Yes I consider myself lucky to have been able to detect and not lose any of my precious and needed funds to these los life scammers... Thank you for reading and commenting...
1 person likes this
• United States
15 Aug 19
@frankie2013 yer welcome :)
1 person likes this
@dgobucks226 (34356)
4 Oct 17
Yes, there are always scammers out there sending e-mails saying you won a prize or wire me money. I guess it only takes one unsuspecting person for them to have success. And some have people's name I never heard of, why would I respond?
1 person likes this
• Canada
4 Oct 17
Not only saying that you won prize but that you inherited money from a distant relative. I received several emails of that sort. But I never fell for those.
1 person likes this
@dgobucks226 (34356)
4 Oct 17
@frankie2013 Yes, I've seen those too.
1 person likes this
@BelleStarr (61047)
• United States
25 Jan 18
You are wise to not get sucked into this scam, I always get paid from clients through paypal!!
1 person likes this
@paigea (35680)
• Canada
17 Jun 18
That is great to read of someone who did NOT fall for a scam. A few around here have fallen for the CRA scam even though there is a warning nearly every week in our paper.
1 person likes this
• Canada
17 Jun 18
Good morning Paigea. Hope you are doing well and that the weather is good in neck of the woods. Here as usual it is starting to get hot and muggy. But to answer your comment, yes I am glad I did not fall prey to this scam although I almost did about 10 years ago but even then I waited to see of the check was good which of course it was not. So I did not incur any loss. But I have never been called or received any email from the CRA thank GOD. Well have a good day. I have to get back to translating my second book. Thank you for your comment on my little post.
1 person likes this