The ATA Chronicle - July/August 2018 - 15

fake contact information, a nonexistent
phone number, and an address that shows
cows on green pastures instead of the
expected office building when you enter
the address into a satellite map all point to
a fraudulent scheme.
How to Prevent It: Again, due diligence,
possibly combined with payment in
advance, as mentioned earlier in the section
on fake check scams, can go a long way.

CV THEFT AND IMPERSONATION
How It Works: This scam has become
increasingly prevalent in the past few
years. The scammers take the CVs of
reputable translators (or interpreters,
although this is rare), edit the contact
information to show their own, and send
the CVs off to unsuspecting agencies or
pose as translators on an online translation
portal. Unsuspecting clients hire the
alleged translators, who then pipe the text
through a machine translation engine, take
the payment, and disappear. When the
clients discover that the text delivered was
machine translated, they blame the real
translator whose CV, and thus reputation,
were stolen.
How to Spot It: In many instances, the
translator/interpreter is unaware that their
information has been stolen until after the
damage is done. This is why prevention is
key. The Translator Scammers Intelligence
Group maintains a list of fake names
along with the names of the victims whose
CVs were stolen. (See sidebar on page 14.)
The Latest Twist: Lately, a lot of
translation portals with large databases
of linguists, where end-clients can order
translations with only a few mouse
clicks, have cropped up on the web. The
portal providers take a small cut of the
percentage of the project price to keep the
portal running. This is not a fraudulent
business model in and of itself. However,
some portal providers scrape the contact
information of reputable translators from
public databases and add them to their
own databases without their knowledge
or consent while rerouting the
projects elsewhere.
How to Prevent It: First and foremost,
CVs, profiles, or résumés, and the like
should never be provided in Microsoft
www.atanet.org

Word or plain text format because
scammers can edit these formats too
easily. A password-protected PDF file,
possibly with a watermark, is best,
although passwords can be cracked. For
information on how to create a passwordprotected PDF with Adobe Acrobat or
Microsoft Word, please check out a blog
post I wrote on the subject.4
Also, never post details that are too
personal online or unnecessary to conduct
business, such as your date of birth or
social security number. Instead, use an
Employer Identification Number (EIN),
also known as a Federal Tax Identification
Number, which is used to identify a
business entity. You can apply for an EIN
online, even as a sole proprietor.5
Finally, to monitor your online reputation,
you can create a Google Alert for your
name or your business name. Google will
then notify you automatically whenever a
new entry is added to its database of search
results for the specified keyword.6

Since translation services and
even certain interpreting services
are mostly transacted entirely
online, the language sector
is particularly vulnerable to
fraudulent schemes.

"IF IT SOUNDS TOO GOOD TO BE
TRUE, IT PROBABLY IS."
This old adage holds especially true
in online commerce. Since translation
services and even certain interpreting
services are mostly transacted entirely
online, the language sector is particularly
vulnerable to fraudulent schemes. Yet
many of these scams can be thwarted
relatively easily by implementing the
measures outlined in this article:
■■

Verify the client's identity by checking
their contact information via phone
calls, satellite maps, email IP addresses,
etc. (See the sidebar on page 14.)

■■

Examine the client's payment practices.
(See the sidebar on page 14).

■■

Request payment in advance via
nonreversible methods.

■■

Never give out too much personal
information that is not needed to
conduct business, such as date of birth,
etc. Use an EIN instead of a social
security number.

■■

Password-protect your CV.

A LITTLE PREVENTION
Taking steps to safeguard your identity
and minimize the risk from scammers
is not as difficult as it sounds, but it
takes diligence. While no single tool or
technique can guarantee total immunity
from the constantly evolving methods
employed by scammers, the information
presented here should help you be more
aware of how these individuals work and
how they take advantage of the open
community we have created on the web.
NOTES
1
Merriam-Webster,
www.merriam-webster.com/thesaurus/scam.
2

Berger, Carola F. "Translation Scams: Tips
for Avoiding Them and Protecting Your
Identity," The ATA Chronicle (October
2014), 10, http://bit.ly/ATAChronicle-Berger.

3

Flynn, Peg, and Carola F. Berger.
"Cautionary Tales for Interpreters and
Translators: An Overview of Scams
Targeting the Language Industry,"
Translorial (Northern California
Translators Association, Spring 2017), 10,
http://bit.ly/Translorial-May2017.

4

Berger, Carola F. "Password Protection for Your
CV/résumé with Adobe Acrobat or Microsoft
Word," http://bit.ly/password-CV-résumé.

5

"Apply for an Employer Identification
Number (EIN) Online," (IRS),
http://bit.ly/IRS-application-EIN.

6

Berger, Carola F. "Google Alerts,"
http://bit.ly/Berger-Google-Alerts.

Carola F. Berger is an ATA-certified
English>German patent translator with a PhD
in physics and a master's degree in engineering
physics. After being defrauded by an impersonator at
the beginning of her career, she did some in-depth
research on online fraud, which led to a series of
blog posts and several articles in publications such
as The ATA Chronicle and Translorial, the journal
of the Northern California Translators Association.
Contact: cberger@cfbtranslations.com.
American Translators Association

15
http://www.merriam-webster.com/thesaurus/scam http://www.bit.ly/ATAChronicle-Berger http://www.bit.ly/Translorial-May2017 http://www.bit.ly/password-CV-rÈsum http://www.bit.ly/IRS-application-EIN http://www.bit.ly/Berger-Google-Alerts http://www.atanet.org
Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of The ATA Chronicle - July/August 2018
