Just yesterday I was catching up on a few other translation blogs out there, and read among others this post on Translation Times about scam emails to translators.
Then what do I find in my inbox this morning – and my personal inbox to boot, not my business one – but this email from ‘Sara’, with the subject line ‘Dear Translator/ Translation Agency’….
Dear Translator/ Translation agency
You can put your translation projects on our website for free and you will immediately get offers of the world’s best translators of all languages. Just click this link,
http://www.translatormarket.com/
Register for free and you will enjoy our website’s various advantages.
Dear Translator
You can register for free to receive many projects
Just click this link,
http://www.translatormarket.
com/ Register for free and you will enjoy our website’s various advantages.
This text is then repeated in French, and an Arabic script I can’t identify.
The website, whilst a bit clunky, looks reasonably bona fide – and therein lies the rub.
Having read so much about these scam emails, I am hesitant to join this site, thereby giving them a whole raft of information about me. But then the freelancer in me is screaming “take any opportunity to get your name out there!”.
I did do a quick google for this particular email + scam, and didn’t pull anything up. But then, if “Sara” had got my email off an “official” list where my business email might be listed, why has it gone to my personal email?
Oh yes, and that’s another thing about this email that points to something somewhat less than professional – I’m not the only person who’s been emailed…and it isn’t BCC’d. So I now have a list of about 30 emails I shouldn’t have seen.
What do you think? Should I go for it?