Translation - art & business » Marketing for language professionals »
Email or Skype spam - a very bad idea, especially...
Thread poster: Ronja Addams-Moring
Ronja Addams-Moring
Ronja Addams-Moring  Identity Verified
Finland
Local time: 21:19
Finnish to Swedish
+ ...
Jul 6, 2013

...if you approach a freelancer by using their own email address or Skype account directly, and offer translation services in a language that this freelancer does not work in.

Why is this a really bad idea (besides being quite rude, as it wastes the freelancer's time)? Because the recipient may not just delete your message but also mark your message as spam. "So what?" you may ask. The problem for you is that it is not necessarily just one person who hides your message from their... See more
...if you approach a freelancer by using their own email address or Skype account directly, and offer translation services in a language that this freelancer does not work in.

Why is this a really bad idea (besides being quite rude, as it wastes the freelancer's time)? Because the recipient may not just delete your message but also mark your message as spam. "So what?" you may ask. The problem for you is that it is not necessarily just one person who hides your message from their own view by marking it as spam - they may also hinder your message from reaching other recipients.

For email: if the freelancer uses Gmail as their inbox (like me) that spam tag is not purely personal: it becomes a small piece of recommendation for what the Gmail system should do with your email to any of the other circa 500 million Gmail users. Which means that if many enough Gmail-using recipients mark email from your address as spam, other people and agencies who use Gmail and whom you may wish to approach may never see your messages, as those messages may end up auto-marked as spam. Also, if you use Gmail, your account may get closed.

The same goes for Skype: if many enough of your contact requests prompt people to mark them as spam, as far as I know, your Skype account may get closed.


Main moral of the story: if a freelancer does not list a language pair at all, do not approach them about that language pair. You can only waste their time and yours and give a very bad impression, which they may share in manners that you have no control over and to pretty much anyone. That is not the effect you want a marketing message to have. ▲ Collapse
 
Kaisa Azriouli
Kaisa Azriouli
Finland
Local time: 21:19
Finnish to English
+ ...
internet reputation Jul 6, 2013

Thank you for the information about Skype and gmail practices about spam-marking. It doesn't serve the good of anyone to be active in posting fraudulent messages at the risk of ignoring the verifiable facts.
 
Theo Bernards (X)
Theo Bernards (X)  Identity Verified
France
Local time: 20:19
English to Dutch
+ ...
Although you probably posted this with the very best intention... Jul 7, 2013

... it didn't strike me as untowardly clever to educate would-be spammers and scammers about the negative side effects of their future actions .
 


To report site rules violations or get help, contact a site moderator:

Moderator(s) of this forum
Kristina Radziulyte[Call to this topic]
Jorge Rodrigues[Call to this topic]
Mahmoud Akbari[Call to this topic]

You can also contact site staff by submitting a support request »

Email or Skype spam - a very bad idea, especially...







CafeTran Espresso
You've never met a CAT tool this clever!

Translate faster & easier, using a sophisticated CAT tool built by a translator / developer. Accept jobs from clients who use Trados, MemoQ, Wordfast & major CAT tools. Download and start using CafeTran Espresso -- for free

Buy now! »
Protemos translation business management system
Create your account in minutes, and start working! 3-month trial for agencies, and free for freelancers!

The system lets you keep client/vendor database, with contacts and rates, manage projects and assign jobs to vendors, issue invoices, track payments, store and manage project files, generate business reports on turnover profit per client/manager etc.

More info »