The language services industry is a sector that is vulnerable to attacks by ill-natured people who directly or indirectly aim at businesses, primarily to obtain economic benefits. Fraud is now a common occurrence in our society and we are all vulnerable to different types of attacks: telephone calls in which callers claim to represent a company and demand a payment under false pretexts, text messages that tempt us to click on a link which in reality hides a virus, or message exchanges with clear threats of extortion, are just some of the threats we face on a daily basis, all of which could have dire consequences. And this reality has an even greater impact on companies, since access to confidential information or bank accounts with large amounts of money is much more attractive for those who commit these types of crimes. Thus, it is highly important for companies to know the risks they face, how to identify possible threats and, of course, how to defend themselves.
As previously mentioned, the translation industry is no exception. Day after day professionals in this industry must deal with all types of fraudulent activity aimed at breaking down the walls of integrity in this sector and directly affecting those who work in it. Among the most common threats are those related to identity theft and to the fraudulent contracting of services. With regard to identity theft, it is becoming more and more common for people to steal curriculums of professional translators and use them to get hired at translation agencies, which end up paying them at their rates for jobs which, in many cases, are never completed. On the other hand, many companies “try out” translation agencies that are seeking to form part of their localisation teams and, in the process, these agencies agree to do sample work which, on occasions, actually consists of parts of a real job a company wants to carry out, without paying for the language services. All of these actions are detrimental to the language services industry, and therefore it is necessary for agencies and professionals to develop the ability recognise actions that are typical of scammers, with the aim of learning how to detect fraudulent activity and tackle the problem before it gets worse. So, what exactly are these keys?
The first key is fairly basic; we must beware of emails that are sent to a large number of recipients. Usually, if a translation company or professional translator wants to offer their services, they do so in a personalised way after studying their target client or agency, since if they don’t, they will appear to be simply casting a net into an ocean with the hope of catching something. In this sector, personalised correspondence is of great value, while bulk mail comes across as lazy and, in the worst of cases, an indicator of fraudulent activity.
We now turn our attention to several aspects that can be seen in curriculums or descriptions on professional profiles. Although these aspects might not always indicate fraudulent activity, they should raise some red flags and inspire us to take a closer look. Specifically, we’re referring to translation in a bilingual context and, on the other hand, translation of several different language combinations. In the real market, it is common to find professionals who translate from one foreign language into their native language, and fewer who translate from their native language into a foreign language, given that, in the case of the latter, they are less capable than native speakers of capturing the nuances and subtleties of the second language. If the latter is the case, the best idea is to further investigate the profile of the professional in question and consider doing an interview with them. Another quality that is quite rare is the ability to translate from many source languages. Although this ability is more common in people who have lived in multilingual contexts, especially if the languages are similar, we should be wary when receiving curriculums from professionals who claim to translate more than five source languages, or when they mention highly uncommon linguistic combinations, even though there are some highly talented people who do actually dominate these language combinations.
Another import factor to take into consideration is how messages are written. When the name of the sender is unconventional, the message begins with a strange greeting (such as a very general or unspecific greeting), it has many spelling mistakes or an unorganised format, these are all signs of possible fraudulent activity, since a person or agency that is offering or hiring professional services in the language sector will take great care in how they introduce themselves to their target recipients.
Lastly, we must mention the case in which extremely low rates are offered in comparison with standard rates in the sector, without any apparent reason. This could simply be a lure to catch agencies who aim to lower their expenses, and in the end, these agencies will be charged a small and inoffensive amount for services that will never actually be done.
There’s no doubt that working in a globalised world has its risks. Therefore, we must be aware of the existing threats so that we are better able to fight against fraud and avoid unexpected setbacks.
Image reference: https://thecrimereport.org/2021/05/04/truth-lies-and-police-lineups/
