Interpretation Scam

Watch Out for the Latest Interpretation Scam – UAE

Watch Out for the Latest Interpretation Scam – UAE

With Covid-19 panic shutting down economies in countries worldwide and millions of workers in lockdown or quarantine conditions, scammers are stepping up their attempts to fleece professionals, taking every opportunity to shake their victims down.

This time they’re getting hungrier – and bolder.

The latest attempted scam involves impersonating ADNOC (Abu Dhabi National Oil Drilling Company) and requesting quotations for interpretation and translation services. ADNOC logos and letterheads are being brazenly used along with official looking RFP documents.

Official looking document with ADNOC logo

Of course, when someone at our online office saw an RFP email from “ADNOC”, it seemed like a wonderful opportunity for members of the Red Sea team or our partners. It looked too good to be true – and experience has taught us that if something looks “too good to be true”, it probably is!

So we took basic precautionary steps:

STEP 1: Who was the email actually from?

In this case, it was a dead giveaway, the email came via zohomail, using an address from a .com site, not an authentic ADNOC website.

STEP 2: What website was the email coming from?

The responses were to be sent to the same email at the site impersonating ADNOC using the same cheap .com site:

bids@adnoc-bidding.com

Checking for ADNOC’s website, we verified the correct website: http://adnoc.ae/

Of course, the fake site, http://adnoc-bidding.com was set up to redirect directly to the legitimate ADNOC site – but that is a simple, easy trick any website administrator can do.

Moral of the story? We have to keep our wits about us and check and double-check any attractive offers. Failing to do so means, at worst getting scammed – and at best, wasting valuable time.