Kirill Frolov wrote:
I have recently received two orders from two different people. Both texts were worth about $500, so I asked for the advance payment of $250. Instead, both of them independently mailed me checks worth $2,500 (although their explanations were different) and insisted on immediately depositing them.
When I refused to do that, both went furious.
I don't understand what it is all about, but this mistake looks suspicious, and so does the coincidence.
All they sent to you is not money but only a "promise to pay" (that's what a cheque is in essence) - nothing wrong with that in itself - except that these cheques will be either fake or drawn on a real but empty account. Your bank will credit your account, these people will insist that you send them back immediately the difference in real money. After several weeks it will turn out that the cheques can not be collected (either fake or no money in the account), and you will have to give your bank the whole $5,000 out of your own pocket.
Very old scam - giving you a worthless cheque and pressurising you to "send back the difference" in real money before you discover that the cheque is worthless.
Scamsters are not the only ones to blame: banks are facilitating the scam by crediting the value of the cheque BEFORE being sure that the money is collected / the cheque is cashed. Not all banks do that - The UK bank I was using would credit my account only after the cheque is cashed.
Ignore totally these "clients/scamsters", don't cash these cheques, keep them as proofs of attempted scam and report them. You will probably discover that the texts they sent you to translate have been lifted from some random website (IOW they couldn't care less about getting any translation - they don't need any)
BTW if this "error" was a genuine mistake, all they would have to do is to cancel the $2,500 cheques and send you another cheque for the correct amount. Insisting that you have to put it in your bank account is 101% sure sign it's a scam.
[Edited at 2022-07-13 21:02 GMT]