Am I alone in being totally gobsmacked at the cheek of this ... person?!

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Hokay. Now, before I start this is NOT a rant full of racism, okay? The last time I almost fell for a gag like this, the job poster turned out to be one of my own countrymen, of Geordie extraction. He got quite vehement towards me when I told him why I was turning the job down - and informing the moderators of what he was up to. Reason being ... well, you'll see. I've learnt that a good job for freelancers with medical experience is to be a medical transcriptionist. (Google for it - I can't be bothered to explain here. But be assured, it is a job posted by medical professionals FTAO professionals with at least a modicum of medical knowledge. As a qualified and experienced research pharmacologist/fitness professional it's my WPM rather than lack of knowledge that stops me applying for most of these posts) Till I learn to touchtype effectively, I'm sticking to places like this and getafreelancer for work experience. So far, most GAF jobs that have been sent my way have been ptc-for-others or plagiarise-this-list-of-SEO-links type work, so I haven't bothered. Today, though, there was a request for 'medical transcriptionist.' As most doctors/scribists tend to liaise through their own professional sites, I wondered why anyone would be attracted to GAF. Well, for a start essential elements of the post were written in such godawful English they were impossible to decipher. ("Currently, I have difficult dictators to do only so do not expect easy work ... rate per line is 60 paise per line ..." Paise?!) Other parts, however, were in such near-perfect English it was obvious they had been c and peed from another site. The estimate of 10 mins of dictation per hour were easily attainable for me, certainly a lot less than is generally expected; the poster explained this was because the English dictation would be very hard to understand. I was still confused. Normally, an MT request details the type of clinical knowledge required, as it's vital the technical terms are transcribed accurately. Hence, you expect to see "knowledge of cardiology/obstetrics/renal pathological dissections/whatever a must." Also, clinicians working in English-speaking countries, who do not have English as their first language, are still expected to be understandable in dictation! (I've done work for my GP, who is a Bangladeshi and a sweetheart. I was his "shoulder to cry on" when he was blown out by his PA over his standard of English. Believe me, it was miles better than this clown) Here, though, there was no mention of what clinical skills were needed. The job poster was much more concerned with what electronic data transfer technology the copywriter had. They did ask for details of fields I'd worked in, though, so I decided this job had been posted by the PA of a large clinic or private hospital. I decided to click the poster's link, to see where this "clinic" was sited. Here is what I found. Username: a shortened version of "Medical Transcriptionist scriber" Company: blank Country: Somewhere-in-Asia Areas of expertise: Data entry/translation Skills: medical transcription/data miner. Below, further details revealed this person had no won projects, but several lost projects. These were: * Post whois contact information from 2000 websites ... * Simple data entry copy and paste project ... * List of clinic names * List of US clinicians, to include their full name, address, contact number and email This last one made me go: "!" Followed by "!?!" So - The poster is, in fact a GAf provider themselves. An extremely unsuccessful GAF provider who is not against taking on totally unethical and, in fact, illegal practice. He found out, as I did, that medical transcription sites offer extremely lucrative work for people who can a) type up complicated aural medical notes and are b) suitably qualified in the field. Evidently, he quickly found out there is a particular need for medical scribes who can accurately transcribe from their mother tongue into English and, no doubt, this was where he hit gold-dust. You don't have to be Sherlock Holmes to realise that this person, who has absolutely NO clinical expertise whatsoever and, indeed, seems to be a bit of a dipstick in general has infiltrated a site that demands one of the highest levels of integrity on the internet. He has wormed his way into the pockets of professional clinicians with promises of his ability to translate complicated medical notes into English ... and then realised he'd come unstuck the moment he tried to pronounce "colorectorial." Full kudos for the stab at clinical translation, but surely this person would be far better off being honest, and accepting work from fully qualified transcribers who have English as their first and only language? Of course not, because the work he's got so far pays a damn sight better than Getafreelancer ever will. Fees of $150 an hour aren't uncommon for fully qualified, accurate transcriptionists, especially if they translate as well. These days, all clinicians dictate into a machine. Then, it's straight on to the next case. These are highly sensitive, personal notes with a high degree of security attached. They rely on persons with similar professional ethics to translate and transcribe for them. Not Mr "failed-my-first-copy and paste-job" from Soundslikeshangrilah, India. Look at that last job he failed to get. It doesn't matter what country you hail from - how would YOU feel, knowing someone has gotten hold of all your GP's personal details (and, by default, probably all your medical notes as well?) How would you feel, knowing your most sensitive and secret medical details had been translated by someone whose last attempt at a job involved failing to locate the addresses of clinical podiatrists so they could be scammed in their mail boxes? And how would you feel, hearing that someone had died or been left permanently maimed, their GP struck off the register for life, because a greedy uneducated clown had scammed their way into his professional files? How would you feel, knowing that sensitive medical notes cottoned on to the fact there are sites out there, employing professionals