A new kind of scam Αποστολέας σε συζήτηση: davansetrad
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This week, I received an email from someone identifying themselves as a recruitment manager at Welo Calize, offering me a job of 8,400 words at $0.35 per word. I accepted the job, and after delivering it and calculating the total, I realized the amount was significantly above the market rate and that they had likely made a mistake—the correct rate should have been $0.035. I delivered the work, and when it was time for payment, they said the correct rate was indeed $0.35 per word, which amounte... See more This week, I received an email from someone identifying themselves as a recruitment manager at Welo Calize, offering me a job of 8,400 words at $0.35 per word. I accepted the job, and after delivering it and calculating the total, I realized the amount was significantly above the market rate and that they had likely made a mistake—the correct rate should have been $0.035. I delivered the work, and when it was time for payment, they said the correct rate was indeed $0.35 per word, which amounted to $2,800 for 8,100 words. Fine, I didn’t complain.
Then, they told me I had to contact a third-party company called CashierPrime to receive the payment. This company instructed me to open an account with Broxel Bank and sent me the link. I clicked on the link, and everything seemed quite normal. I opened the account, provided my account details to CashierPrime, and they made the deposit. Once the amount was deposited, I needed to access Broxel Bank to transfer the funds to my account in Brazil.
When I attempted the transfer, I received the following message:
"The sender bank identifier code (BIC) is required to litigate and process this operation, kindly contact [email protected] or our online customer support chat for the generation of the BIC code to complete the transaction."
I contacted support, and they informed me that I needed to make a refundable PIX transfer of $250 and provided the details of a private individual. I questioned why I was being asked to transfer money to an individual if I was dealing with a bank. Their response was that these were administrative support personnel.
In the end, I didn’t make the transfer. From the start, I found the situation a bit suspicious, but everything seemed very professional, including their communication, the company pages—everything. It turns out they were a highly professional group of scammers.
So, stay alert—chances are I wasn’t the only one approached by these individuals.
[Edited at 2025-01-24 11:31 GMT]
[Edited at 2025-01-24 11:32 GMT] ▲ Collapse
| | | | expressisverbis
Πορτογαλία
Local time: 22:59
Μέλος από 2015
Αγγλικά σε Πορτογαλικά
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| Liviu-Lee Roth
Ηνωμένες Πολιτείες Αμερικής
Local time: 17:59
Ρουμανικά σε Αγγλικά
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You know what strikes me? On your profile you have the bare minimum information posted, I assume, in order to protect yourself, however you fell for the most common and simple scam. Weird.
Lee
| | | | Dan Lucas 
Ηνωμένο Βασίλειο
Local time: 22:59
Μέλος από 2014
Ιαπωνικά σε Αγγλικά
| This is far from being a new scam | Jan 25 |
davansetrad wrote:
This week, I received an email from someone identifying themselves as a recruitment manager at Welo Calize, offering me a job of 8,400 words at $0.35 per word.
It was foolish to imagine that a stranger on the internet would suddenly appear and offer you a $3,000 job without knowing anything about you or without asking you to perform a trial. And I bet if you look at the email addresses involved they do not originate from the company that this person claimed to be their employer. Was it a gmail address by any chance?
On the other hand, you came here to warn people about it, and hopefully other potential victims will Google before they take on such fantasy jobs and find posts like this on this and other sites. It all helps!
Regards,
Dan
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| Professional scammers | Jan 26 |
It's wise not to believe things that seem too good to be true!
I've thwarted dozens of well-crafted scams!
| | | | Jordan Smyth
Ηνωμένο Βασίλειο
Περσικά (Φαρσί) σε Αγγλικά
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| people are desperate and fall for scams | Jan 26 |
Dan Lucas wrote:
davansetrad wrote:
This week, I received an email from someone identifying themselves as a recruitment manager at Welo Calize, offering me a job of 8,400 words at $0.35 per word.
It was foolish to imagine that a stranger on the internet would suddenly appear and offer you a $3,000 job without knowing anything about you or without asking you to perform a trial. And I bet if you look at the email addresses involved they do not originate from the company that this person claimed to be their employer. Was it a gmail address by any chance?
On the other hand, you came here to warn people about it, and hopefully other potential victims will Google before they take on such fantasy jobs and find posts like this on this and other sites. It all helps!
Regards,
Dan
Dan you are absolutely right, but I have seen that lots of people, including established translators, are falling for these sorts of scams. That said, a huge target "market" for these scammers are the newbies who are trying to "get into" freelance translation as a side hustle because they have seen some videos or posts by influencers who claim that this is a route to financial success. These people are vulnerable because they believed this hype and also have zero idea of what rates are normally paid by agencies etc. So when the scammer offers them this sort of "work" they think the hype was true and here's their first well paying client.
It's good that this person highlighted the scammers here as you say...
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They tried to cheat me the same way but thank God, I was alert from starting of conversation. All translation buddy as requested, not to accept any project from any social media communication or unofficial mail ID. Scammers are highly active to cheat innocent peoples, especially new comers in this field.
[Subject edited by staff or moderator 2025-03-06 15:34 GMT]
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Everyone should be aware of such scams. I was recently contacted by one of them. Some red flags to watch out for:
If the email is from a non-professional domain, such as Gmail, Yahoo, etc.
They offer very high rates, much higher than the market rates.
They do not provide detailed information about the project. During the conversation, they disappear when you ask a tricky question.
Their website looks unprofessional. Simply compare the real company's website with th... See more Everyone should be aware of such scams. I was recently contacted by one of them. Some red flags to watch out for:
If the email is from a non-professional domain, such as Gmail, Yahoo, etc.
They offer very high rates, much higher than the market rates.
They do not provide detailed information about the project. During the conversation, they disappear when you ask a tricky question.
Their website looks unprofessional. Simply compare the real company's website with their phishing site. You will notice the difference with just one click because scammers don't invest much in website creation, content writing, or UI/UX design. They often rush or use minimal resources.
In my case, they offered me 0.5 USD per word. At first, I thought she meant 0.05 USD per word. Just to be sure, I asked her to provide the total budget in the message. She mentioned something around 6k. I immediately said that I work on a 50% advance payment policy. She even agreed to that. However, she kept insisting that I start working on the translation, but I pushed her to make the advance payment first.
After 2-3 days, she gave me the contact information for someone named Marianne Ranua and asked me to reach out to her for payment. I searched for her on LinkedIn, and trust me, her profile didn't appear fake to me. Then, she (Marianne Ranua) acted like she was too busy to reply, but eventually responded and asked me to register on https://broxlbnk.com/. I registered with dummy names and an email because I wanted to see how far these guys would go. I even contacted the real Broxel Bank via their chatbot, and they confirmed that the URL https://broxlbnk.com/ does NOT belong to them.
While I was searching for more information about this scam, I landed on this thread. So, always keep your banking information safe. Always use PayPal, Payoneer, or similar options. Whenever in doubt, ask for advance payments. Don't hesitate to ask many questions, and don’t think you're being rude by questioning their credibility. Don’t waste your time and effort on potential scams.
Remember, there ARE some clients in the market who will ACTUALLY pay you 0.35 or 0.5 USD per word, but they will be of an elite class like Forbes or Time magazine. At that level, per-word rates don’t matter as much. They pay you for your skills, not your time. BUT not every company is Forbes. So, stay positive, keep learning, and keep growing. Stay safe!
Nainam Kapil
Your next go-to linguist and AI Trainer
English (C2), Hindi (native), Punjabi (native), Mathematics, Mechanical Engineering, Physics ▲ Collapse
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