I am attempting to do some freelance work on a site called oDesk. A little less than two weeks ago, I was contacted by someone named Anton Peter or Peter Anton, I believe they had two profiles (which I found out later). They asked me to do a comic translation from English to Japanese. At first it didn’t seem too odd, but as things went on talked to someone named Yoon Jae-Jeong(supposedly the assistant) on Skype and was eventually given the job. They needed the translation the next day before midnight, which I agreed to do. I ended up finishing the translation on time, and sent it in. A few days went by, and there was no payment nor message. So I confronted them for scam/fraud which was denied. Yoon Jae-Jeong sent me a message that was seemingly directed at a the other translators as well. He said a family member was in the hospital, and things were running behind due to that. I was told the finance manager would pay soon, but I received an e-mail from Ariful Islam(ai503437@gmail.com) who originally mailed me informing me that payment would be the means of transaction. However… Now I am being told that the finance member’s mother had died, whom was also his mother due to marriage or something. I don’t know, it got ridiculous. I was also told he doesn’t have a paypal account so I should make a skrill account, and he would pay me himself… In twelve hours. I was never paid. And a simple transaction doesn’t take that long. He was also accusing me of being inhumane due to me assuming they would lie about a family member dying. Work is work, I understand taking time off.. But it’s been almost two weeks.
Anyways, I did search an IP that I got ahold of and there were different areas, but Nigeria and Bangladesh came up. Also if you search ai503437 on google, many freelance websites come up… As well as one saying something about being charged for fraud. Search the e-mail on facebook and this profile comes up;
Caron Diuk;
https://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=100004671737281
The two friends added here are from India and Bangladesh.
Its become pretty obvious this was a scam. I thought that was the end of it, but once again someone named Anton Peter contacted me. This was the new job post:
Hi,
We want to published a book with 40 countries 40 different culture wedding photos.
It’s so easy task. But you can earn. We find 40 countries 40 different culture real wedding photos. We can’t use google photos, because people are know about Google photo tracks.
We only need 40 countries 40 different culture real wedding photos.
Payment 5$/per photo.
We ready to hire many country people of that task because we know one person don’t have all culture wedding pictures.
Every culture wedding we need 5-10 photos.
We will create a great wedding books published in US market.
Who people ready to help us in that project so please contact us as soon as possible with sample.
The English tons worse than the first time. The comic’s English was horrible too. I researched the original Turkish comic. Its very obscure, but do some searching and you’ll come across several volumes. I wonder if they are doing stolen work…. The volume I had to translate parts of was called Kinali Ali. Anyone interested can look it up.
Everyone stay safe! I hope this comes of help to someone who may have fallen victim to these people.
Translation Scams 