{"id":9842,"date":"2016-04-21T15:32:00","date_gmt":"2016-04-21T15:32:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/musik.a-z-translation.com\/latest-sca\/"},"modified":"2020-01-03T11:36:38","modified_gmt":"2020-01-03T11:36:38","slug":"latest-sca","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.a-z-translations.com\/es\/latest-sca\/","title":{"rendered":"Latest scam"},"content":{"rendered":"

An uproar went through the translating community last week, through all forums and mailing lists: if you haven’t heard, then either count yourself lucky, because you’re not affected, or get scrambling to see if perhaps maybe you are, after all. I got lucky, but I know of several colleagues here in Germany who weren’t!
\nWhat’s the story? Slator<\/a>, a new translation industry newspaper, has it covered:<\/p>\n

\n

\nScam and Talk About It: Contest Alerts Translators to Stolen Profiles<\/h1>\n
\n
\n by Marion Marking<\/a><\/span> on April 18, 2016 <\/div>\n
\n <\/a><\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n
\n\"Scam<\/div>\n

Scams are all too common in the translation industry. So common, that a website<\/a> tracking it claims it has exposed<\/a> some 4,000 scammers and over 10,000 e-mail addresses they use in 2015 alone.<\/p>\n

Typically, translation scams revolve around modifying the CV of a
\nreal, experienced translator and sending the fake to an agency in the
\nhope of getting work. Once work is assigned by the agency,  it is then
\npassed onto another rock-bottom-priced translator and, eventually, the
\nscammer gets paid by the agency.<\/p>\n

Lured by the supposed ease of platform economics, however, an even
\nmore brazen (yet poorly executed) attempt at identity theft unravelled
\nafter job matching platform AATII.com listed in its database the names
\nand purported rates of thousands of translators without their consent or
\n knowledge.<\/p>\n

No one would have been the wiser for a while, but AATII sent an
\ne-mail to their (presumably illegally obtained) database of translators
\nalerting them about a contest<\/a>
\n that offered \u201ca prize of USD 1,000.\u201d In cash? It is hard to tell from
\nthe way the mechanics are worded. Also, on April 5, 2016, AATII sent out
\n a tweet<\/a> for the same contest called \u201c#IAmATranslator, Therefore I Am!\u201d<\/p>\n

As a result of their attention being called to AATII.com, a number of
\n translators discovered their names and details on the AATII database
\ndespite never having signed up to it. What\u2019s more, AATII quoted a
\nper-word rate these translators never agreed to according to their
\nunderstandably irate postings in fora<\/a>.<\/p>\n

\nMaking a splash<\/h3>\n

Unlike scams that take refuge in relative anonymity, AATII is right
\nout there promoting itself on social media (@AATIICOM) and even naming
\nits founder, a real person (Clint Cheng), who has replied in fora where
\nposters have complained. Which makes one wonder, was this a vile attempt
\n at fraud or just an inept attempt by someone at making money off a huge
\n database of translators they somehow got their hands on?<\/p>\n

So what is AATII? AATII.com is the Alliance of Applied Translators
\nand Interpreters International; but it also stands for the Association
\nof Applied Translators and Interpreters International, online at
\nAATII.org.<\/p>\n

While AATII.com is \u201ca Canadian company\u201d that matches translators and
\ninterpreters with clients, AATII.org is a \u201cnot-for-profit association\u201d
\nin Canada. The person behind both is Clint Cheng.<\/p>\n

An unsigned \u201cclarification\u201d appeared on the forum of ProZ.com, an established job matching platform recently covered<\/a> by Slator, stating that AATII is \u201ca young company\u201d and the contest was meant to \u201cannounce our presence with a splash.\u201d<\/p>\n

But the complaints continued, especially since the clarification
\nnever really addressed the issue of why AATII offered the services of
\ntranslators without their consent. The complaints ranged from \u201cI never
\ngave you permission to use my name\u201d to \u201cMy details are incorrect,
\nincluding my so-called rates,\u201d but most urged AATII to remove their
\nnames from its database.<\/p>\n

\nBack-pedalling<\/h3>\n

Finally signing his post, \u201cClintCheng\u201d from Canada replied: \u201cThe
\ndatabase is cleared and under review. We have heard a lot of concern
\nabout how your names are listed on our website. I understand why some of
\n you are upset, so I have instructed our IT department to remove all the
\n accounts from the website except for those users who signed up for
\nthemselves.\u201d<\/p>\n

Attempting to explain how the services of translators who had never
\nheard of AATII had come to be offered on their website, Cheng wrote, \u201cWe
\n supposed to send invitation (sic) to everybody first, but a mistake was
\n made so some of you received the message about the translation contest
\ninstead.\u201d<\/p>\n

According to several forum posters, the translator listings for
\ncertain language pairs had been drastically reduced. One comment said a
\nsearch for translations services on AATII for the English-Italian pair
\nonce yielded 1,876 matches. Slator checked and we found only one listing
\n as of press time.<\/p>\n

When we signed up as a client for translation from English to
\nChinese, our search still yielded a substantial number, 1,965 matches;
\nbut according to one forum<\/a>,
\n it was 3,671 on April 15, 2016. Foremost of the lot was \u201cGeorge M
\nCheng\u201d who had an \u201cAATII Professional Rating\u201d of AA\u2015a rating given out
\nby another Clint Cheng company<\/a>, Princemountain Transnational Services.<\/p>\n

We could not find anyone else with such a rating, apart from Clint
\nCheng (not surprisingly, the highest rating, AAA), who turned up as the
\nfirst of four entries when we searched for an English to Chinese
\ninterpreter.<\/p>\n

Slator reached out to Clint Cheng for comment, but has received no response as of press time.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

An uproar went through the translating community last week, through all forums and mailing lists: if you haven’t heard, then either count yourself lucky, because you’re not affected, or get scrambling to see if perhaps maybe you are, after all. I got lucky, but I know of several colleagues here in Germany who weren’t! What’s […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[1],"tags":[551,90,323,552,324,166],"class_list":["post-9842","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-unkategorisiert","tag-canadian-company","tag-english","tag-identity-theft","tag-online-database","tag-scam","tag-translation","entry"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"aioseo_notices":[],"aioseo_head":"\n\t\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t