Scam Rebelwamp Japanese- Korean- Chinese-Russian Translation Service
What happened: Rebelwamp was hired to provide top notch quality Japanese & Chinese translations (total price of $1230) for a company website that a personal friend of mine owns. He was paid the money in BTC after completion of the translations. He claims to be Turkish living in Japan and providing translation services together with other translators.
Side note: The translation (approx. 7k words) was completed within less than one day. He was "harassing" payment even though he was told in advance that we are talking about a real company and that it would take a few days for them to process payment. He got paid just fine of course.
A few days ago after having uploaded the Japanese version, we were notified about the translations being "bad" and anything but native/mother tongue level. I then asked a few of my contacts, who referred me to a professional Japanese translator who also confirmed the translations are definitely not on native speaker level and any Japanese visiting the website would realize that right away.
I contacted Rebelwamp about it and he acted as if he was surprised, blaming his translators & reviewers, they messed up, bla bla- strange, all the time I didnt hear a word about other translators/reviewers doing the Japanese translation. That was five days ago. One day later, he told me (all communication via Telegram) that he fired his Japanese reviewers and Translators, he asked them to refund him some money - $50 from the reviewer and $250 from the translator - and that we would get a refund, which is ~$625. He asked me to be patient and in case they wouldnt refund him, he would pay out of his pocket. In the meantime, he claimed to have about 0.05 BTC available and that is why he would wait for the refunds from his previous "employees"... Another two days later, he told me received $50 from his reviewer but he was still waiting to hear back from his translator.
I explained that this whole mess needs to be cleaned up because my friend is more than pissed, obviously and rightfully so. He asked me once more to be patient and assured me he would pay out of his pocket if it was necessary... Yesterday I told him that I need something concrete now, my friend is waiting for an update and we need to do something. I kindly asked him for the 10th time to be honest with me and what the real problem was - why would he not send at least a part of the refund? Again he was waiting to hear back etc. etc. and promised to check all of his exchange accounts and send us what he has got. If his translator wouldnt pay him back, he would simply take funds off his bank account... Then he really sent a massive 435 XRP ($80 or so?!) and when I asked him several times about the rest and what happened to his 0.05 that he claimed to have - he also claimed to never have touched our payments by the way, the problem being the decrease of BTC price - he just ignored these questions. In the middle of the night he wrote that he is trying and that he is waiting for his translator.
Today I confronted him again, asking how we are going to proceed, why he has been lying the whole time and if he couldnt simply be honest with me. One more question was why he hasnt used his bank account if it was so easy. After having received nothing but lame excused and "tomorrow tomorrow for the Xth time", I told him I need a clear statement shortly or I would go public until this gets resolved.
Guess what happened? He is now ignoring TG messages and PMs here on bitcointalk, he has deleted several posts from his "service threads" and I am afraid he is about to run.
Long story short: We are owed ~$530. That's what I can tell for now, I dont know about the Chinese translation but I hope that one will be better...
Interesting side notes: Rebelwamp was recently hired by Bitkong to provide Japanese translations and got caught for providing bad auto translations. His excuses were exactly the same, his translators/reviewers bla bla bla. They left him a negative feedback. Hakka (Japanese bitcoin whitepaper translator) posted in one of Rebelwamp's threads about the bad quality of his JP translations. Rebelwamp told me he was doing Japanese translations for Stake.com - I will get in touch with Stake hoping to find out more.
So what do we have here: Low quality and partly even automated translations (more than enough justifying to warn anyone from using his services) as well as running with money paid. I am not sure what his plan now is - will he pay us back or is he gone for good? I dont know... Even if he pays (based on the fact he repaid at least a little amount), the user cant be trusted.
Scammers Profile Link: https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?action=profile;u=1686062Reference Link: https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=5158669.0 &
https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=5235114Amount Scammed: Rest of around $1200
Payment Method: Bitcoin
Proof of Payment:PM/Chat Logs: I exported TG conversation yesterday, he has now deleted our chat history and wouldnt reply. His telegram ID is @rebelwulf
Additional Notes: I advise anyone not to deal with this user until this is resolved and even then, I wouldnt trust to actually receive quality translations
