"Overcoming Church" Translation Project and Other Christian-Themed Scams

[PerpetualChange]

Since I have my Chinese language abilities on my LinkedIn profile, I've routinely gotten targeted for translation work for this organization. Several people reached out to me and they all kind of have that scammer profile pic if people know what I mean, like the headshot that looks like it was pulled from a TV show rather than a real person. 

 

I was curious if anybody has any experience with this organization.  I would not mind being able to put some light translation work on my resume but the lack of detail makes me think it's probably some kind of front for some other activity. The website is bizarre to say the least and the address routes to a laundromat.

[Demonic_Duck]

Sounds super sketchy from your description... I'd ask for payment upfront.

[Lu]

I suspect this might be Eastern Lightning, but you may have to dig pretty deep to find out if they are. If it is them, it's not something you necessarily want to put on your resume. Payment upfront is a good financial precaution when dealing with a new, unknown and possibly sketchy client, but you might want to check if the values and background of this group are not too much against your own. You certainly don't have to love and endorse everything you translate, but it helps if the text doesn't offend you.

 

Either way I'm always instantly suspicious of any larger organisation that needs to actively headhunt for translators in the more obvious language combinations. There is usually a reason they don't already have a good stable of, say, English to Dutch or Chinese to English translators. The reason is usually that the payment is subpar, but there can be other reasons too.

 

And I might be wrong about all of this, they might be a completely unobjectionable client that pays well and quickly.

[Jellyfish]

I came here to say exactly what Lu said. Sounds like Eastern Lightning and while they might be a good client in terms of payment etc (they were one of the very few Chinese clients who approached me who didn't try to haggle about my price per word), do look into what it is they do and if you want to be associated with them. Once I found out who they were (very difficult, as Lu said - I only found out once I googled the trial text) I politely turned them down.

[PerpetualChange]

I wasn't seriously considering the project, but I've been solicited for it so many times that I thought I should reach out and see if anyone knew more about the organization because I was coming up blank. I'm actually not aware of Eastern Lightning but looking into it I don't think it's the same unless it's an elaborate front. This stuff on their website seems so innocuous, I wonder what the point of even having it is.

[Jim]

I believe it is a front for Eastern Lightning apparently, a translators' email list I'm on has had this same discussion and people there shared their experiences of working with them, seem to recall they would pay despite there also being stories of scamming "sample translations" but in any case they're not someone I'd want to be associated with.

This forum post mentions Overcoming Church as a pseudonym they've used and saw a story in Chinese about them using the same Chinese name 得胜教会 for a Korea-based  branch.

[Xiao Kui]

A former student of mine in SW China was recruited into Eastern lightning years ago. According to my other students she was "bullied" by one Eastern Lightning member, then comforted and married by another. There was a strong implication that the bullying was some kind of sexual humiliation, assault, or even rape. After becoming a member of the cult she stole $12,000 for them from her American boss.  Crazy stuff.

[roddy]

I did some work for them years back - can't remember exactly how they got in touch. I think they were the Holy City Church at that point, but in the course of researching the translations the links became clear and I dropped them as a client. They were absolutely fine to deal with, paid well and on time, and were more engaged in the translation process than many clients. But I didn't want to think about where the money was coming from. 

 

Well rated on, eg, Proz's Blue Board, for example. But as I say, not a source of money I'm comfortable with.

[PerpetualChange]

Wow. Thanks for all the info that people have shared. I will admit that at first I felt very curious just to pull the thread and see what kind of weird thing this was but if the truth is really that dark then I think I'd be foolish to even do that. If they really are that bad, I wonder how much of the congregation know it versus how much just think they are part of some normal non-denominational church. 

[Lu]

On 7/31/2021 at 5:48 PM, Xiao Kui said:

According to my other students she was "bullied" by one Eastern Lightning member, then comforted and married by another. There was a strong implication that the bullying was some kind of sexual humiliation, assault, or even rape.

We usually learn 欺负 as meaning 'to bully', but it is also absolutely a clear euphemism for rape.

[Demonic_Duck]

4 hours ago, Lu said:

We usually learn 欺负 as meaning 'to bully', but it is also absolutely a clear euphemism for rape.

 

I wouldn't assume 欺负 meant rape, but difficult to say without context. More commonly it'd mean something like sexual harassment.

 

That said, people associated with Eastern Lightning have been involved in some extremely shady shit, up to and including straight-up murder (though there's controversy about the affiliation there).

[PerpetualChange]

5 hours ago, Demonic_Duck said:

That said, people associated with Eastern Lightning have been involved in some extremely shady shit, up to and including straight-up murder (though there's controversy about the affiliation there).

The problem with these articles linked to by the Wikipedia page is that they're not well sourced. There's a lot of statements in the Vice article in particular that have no attribution. How do we know they've done these things? Is it because the media of the People's Republic of China say so? I just don't see the level of verification and third party validation that I would like. 

 

That said, there's enough alleged both in the press and hear from the personal anecdotes some people have shared that are enough for me to want to stay away. But I am also aware certain groups face very real persecution in some places of the world and I don't necessarily believe every thing that state outlets say about it all

[PerpetualChange]

I'm noticing more and more "church" related scams on hellotalk and tandem. Seems like that's the new thing - pretending to be a persecuted Christian in order to ensnare someone in a scam. Changing the thread title if people want to talk about more things they've noticed.