isogulaleb wrote:
Is there anybody here who was contacted by an Indian company for a job?
I think you’d be hard-pressed to find someone in here who has not. Anyway…
(proz.com asked not to mention names but I feel a little confused as in this forum there are lots of posts with actual names... should I mention it then?).
N-No, don’t do that. We still don’t know if this is an actual scam or not.
They wanted me to do a time syncing of a video subtitle but it was strange for various reasons - they sent me the part of a subtitle of a 2005 movie called Land of the Dead
It’s not all that strange. VOD services do recycle old contents. And they might only send you the problematic part where the subtitles were out of sync. Again, nothing wrong with that. However...
and video link was referring to a file which could have been downloaded from a oversized file sending service in India (sendgb.com). When I asked for the clarification, today I received the full Hungarian language .SRT file of the same movie (looked like a subtitle from a torrent video) and some hazy instructions how to sync subtitles. I again asked for more clarification which they quickly declined and 'cancelled assignment'.
This may not necessarily be a scam. But if an agency let you have the audiovisual assets without first signing an NDA that is explicitly detailing the due care you need to take in handling them, they surely aren’t professional. Nonchalant sharing of intellectual properties is indeed risky, as they can get sued for copyright infringement by the power of the almighty DMCA. And now I'm confused. They gave you the full subtitles in the end for... what reason, exactly? Was it only partial desynchronization or the entire subtitles went out of sync? Were they even sure about what they wanted you to do? The hazy instruction is another dead giveaway that foretells their sense of professionalism.
By the way, I’d like to use this opportunity to explain that torrenting does NOT equal to piracy. It’s true that torrenting is the most popular way to illegally distribute copyrighted material. But technically speaking, it’s just another data transfer protocol. Aside from direct downloads, Linux ISOs are also officially distributed through torrent channels. Saying torrent is illegal is like saying the entire Middle East is a warzone. Any sensible person would know this is not true at all.
they declined to clarify from where they got my contacts but this is the only translation service community I am member of...
🎊 Trivia with Uncle Satan 🎊
Did you know that by default, anyone can contact you through your ProZ profile? Yes, even lurkers! One needs not to log in or have an account to send you emails. You can change this in your profile mail settings.
They seem legit by their website
In this day and age, you can get a professional-looking website with only a few bucks. I’m just sayin’.
It seems like a well-built scam but maybe I am wrong and turned down a good business opportunity?
Indian agencies have managed to build quite a reputation for themselves among freelance translators. While I don’t deny there might be some that pay well, I have yet to encounter one. Perhaps I’m not good enough for them to start contacting me. Perhaps I was just being unlucky. Who knows? But to quench your curiosity, the answer is most likely no. It's going to be a boring job anyway. In fact, they didn't even need to hire anyone just for this.
[Edited at 2022-10-16 09:24 GMT]
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