| Pages in topic: [1 2 3] > | Another very bad work offer received today, from an agency based in the UK Thread poster: Tom in London
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Tom in London
United Kingdom
Local time: 00:12
Member (2008)
Italian to English
They wrote:
"Dear Tom
Your CV seems suitable. Your pricing is a little higher than what we get charged by similar translators which is around £65-70/1000 words. Would you possibly consider £70/1000 as we factor in cost of a separate reviser for quality control (our standard company procedure) [no question mark].
Than [sic] you
Best regards,
XXXXX"
_________________________________________________________________________... See more They wrote:
"Dear Tom
Your CV seems suitable. Your pricing is a little higher than what we get charged by similar translators which is around £65-70/1000 words. Would you possibly consider £70/1000 as we factor in cost of a separate reviser for quality control (our standard company procedure) [no question mark].
Than [sic] you
Best regards,
XXXXX"
_________________________________________________________________________
I replied:
"Dear XXXXX,
The rate I quoted is what I charge to the various Italian agencies with whom I work on a regular basis. No doubt these agencies then charge up to twice that rate to their end users..
Although my rate is carefully pitched to be the same as the average rate across the EU in all language pairs, I know that in the Italian/English language pair there is a “race to the bottom” and that it is very easy to find Italian to English translators willing to work for the pricing you suggest.
However in my case, quality and professionalism are paramount; for the amount you suggest it would not be possible for me to prioritise my work for yourselves over the work I do for others, which would always take precedence, nor could I devote the necessary care to it.
I therefore wish you well with one of the many cheap translators who are easily obtainable.
Regards
Tom"
____________________________________________________________________________
Any comments? It really p****s me off when people contact me personally and waste my time like this. Plus there's the additional threat of the "separate reviser for quality control" (I think we all know what that means!)
[Edited at 2014-12-18 15:58 GMT] ▲ Collapse
| | | | Paulinho Fonseca 
Brazil
Local time: 20:12
Member (2011)
English to Portuguese
+ ...
You did the right thing and as this is a growing trend, we can not allow these people set our rates based on cheap and reckless professionals.
| | | | Hepburn
France
Local time: 01:12
English to French
+ ...
Well done, Tom!
Quite right too.
Claudette Hepburn
| | | | | Glad I did not respond then | Dec 18, 2014 |
Dear Tom, thanks for posting, as I had received the same offer to submit rate/CV(I hate submitting CVs as I do not know where all these finish up). The email was exactly along the same lines you received and after looking up the agency, I decided to mistrust that per 1000 words and just deleted the email. I am glad I did so but I am glad you sent them that answer too. The email and their answer then speak volumes, don't they? They will find someone, even someone with experience as I know people ... See more Dear Tom, thanks for posting, as I had received the same offer to submit rate/CV(I hate submitting CVs as I do not know where all these finish up). The email was exactly along the same lines you received and after looking up the agency, I decided to mistrust that per 1000 words and just deleted the email. I am glad I did so but I am glad you sent them that answer too. The email and their answer then speak volumes, don't they? They will find someone, even someone with experience as I know people with far more experience than I have, who will accept any job offer, but it is not worth the trouble or the responsibility. I wonder at them.
[Edited at 2014-12-18 19:54 GMT] ▲ Collapse
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Tom in London
United Kingdom
Local time: 00:12
Member (2008)
Italian to English
TOPIC STARTER
Josephine Cassar wrote:
Dear Tom, thanks for posting, as I had received the same offer
Ah- interesting - thanks.
| | | | ATIL KAYHAN
Türkiye
Local time: 02:12
Member (2007)
Turkish to English
+ ...
| Fight against low translation rates => Never give up on your rates | Dec 18, 2014 |
I think you definitely did the right thing, too. Unfortunately, cheap labor is all around each and every one of us. Therefore, we should fight against it the best we can. The only way that I know to fight is not to lower our rates. If they want to, they can check the community rates at ProZ.
ProZ > Tools > Community rates
| | | | finnword1
United States
Local time: 19:12
English to Finnish
+ ...
| fixed rates regardless of source material? | Dec 18, 2014 |
Isn't that being a bit inflexible? It seems that with the right tools, a good translator should be able to make decent money at 70 GBP per 1000 words. It so happens that I just completed 11000 words at exactly the rate you mentioned. It was quite repetitious and much came from my TM. I was happy as a lark, and would take another job like that any time.
| | | | DS Trans
United States
Local time: 19:12
French to English
+ ...
| $0.11 per word | Dec 18, 2014 |
Does this come out to approximately $.011/word, or am I making a mistake calculating?
Really this is your really bad offer for Italian/English?
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| The problem is in the "similar" | Dec 18, 2014 |
Tom in London wrote:
Your CV seems suitable. Your pricing is a little higher than what we get charged by similar translators which is around £65-70/1000 words. Would you possibly consider £70/1000 as we factor in cost of a separate reviser for quality control (our standard company procedure) [no question mark].
(snip)
Any comments?
Apparently their judgment on "similar" is based on your CV alone, pretty shaky evidence. I could write on my CV that I invented the microcomputer, but later I found out that someone else had already patented it, so I gave it up.
As I wrote someone who took a similar stance:
I only know what I deliver for X/word; you only know what you get for Y/word; neither of us has both to compare. If you are happy with what you get for Y/word, why should you bother to hire me, as I work for X/word?
End of story is that they hired me for X/word.
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This has happened to me so many times in the last year or so that I wonder whether rates are falling in the UK.
One agency I've worked with for at least fifteen years recently told me that I was too expensive, and said they had plenty of translators charging an average of around £65. I have to take that at face value, because we have a good relationship and I trust them.
Another UK agency said a few days ago that their translators have an average minimum charge of £25... See more This has happened to me so many times in the last year or so that I wonder whether rates are falling in the UK.
One agency I've worked with for at least fifteen years recently told me that I was too expensive, and said they had plenty of translators charging an average of around £65. I have to take that at face value, because we have a good relationship and I trust them.
Another UK agency said a few days ago that their translators have an average minimum charge of £25, which is substantially less than mine. And another proudly told me that they had no minimum charge. I asked if that meant that if the translation consisted of two words, they would charge for two words, and they said "Yes, it's our USP."
I don't experience the same downward pressure from customers elsewhere in the EU, or in the US. It makes me think that the UK market is not very healthy - and yet in theory we're operating in a global market, so the state of the UK economy shouldn't matter very much. ▲ Collapse
| | | | Ines Burrell
United Kingdom
Local time: 00:12
Member (2004)
English to Latvian
+ ...
| Not the market | Dec 19, 2014 |
philgoddard wrote:
It makes me think that the UK market is not very healthy - and yet in theory we're operating in a global market, so the state of the UK economy shouldn't matter very much.
There is a very strong trend to increase the shareholders' profit at any cost. This is affecting not only the translation business but all other businesses, as far as I can tell. Enormous sums are changing hands but only the top few percent are benefiting from it and their pure and unadulterated greed is what drives the rates, wages etc. down and their profits up.
Ines
| | | | Tom in London
United Kingdom
Local time: 00:12
Member (2008)
Italian to English
TOPIC STARTER | That's the plan | Dec 19, 2014 |
Burrell wrote: philgoddard wrote:
It makes me think that the UK market is not very healthy - and yet in theory we're operating in a global market, so the state of the UK economy shouldn't matter very much. There is a very strong trend to increase the shareholders' profit at any cost. This is affecting not only the translation business but all other businesses, as far as I can tell. Enormous sums are changing hands but only the top few percent are benefiting from it and their pure and unadulterated greed is what drives the rates, wages etc. down and their profits up. Ines
That's the plan. A small rich elite, and a large poor workforce.
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Andrea Muller (X)
United Kingdom
Local time: 00:12
English to German
+ ...
| Agree with the 2 previous posts | Dec 19, 2014 |
I get exactly the same impression as expressed by Ines and Tom in their posts. All the larger UK translation agencies I know keep pushing for lower rates, so I have more or less given up on them and am trying to get more work from smaller agencies and direct clients.
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Andrea Muller wrote:
I get exactly the same impression as expressed by Ines and Tom in their posts. All the larger UK translation agencies I know keep pushing for lower rates, so I have more or less given up on them and am trying to get more work from smaller agencies and direct clients.
I thought the major reasons why I seldom - if at all - work for translation agencies in the UK were mostly geographic:
a) time zones - they are 3 (now 2, as we are on DST) hours ahead of me, so chances are they'll find someone farther East first; and
b) US English - my Californian English, not only across the Atlantic, but the entire continent as well.
Looking back over the past few years, the only translation agencies in the UK I worked for are owned and run by Brazilians living there.
The conclusion is that most agencies in the UK can't and won't accept my terms, conditions, and rates, which - thank goodness - have been receiving a warm welcome from their American competitors.
| | | | Robert Forstag
United States
Local time: 19:12
Spanish to English
+ ...
| Is the rate offered all that bad? | Dec 20, 2014 |
DS Trans wrote:
Does this come out to approximately $.011/word, or am I making a mistake calculating?
Really this is your really bad offer for Italian/English?
***
Like DS Trans and finnword, I also find myself wondering what is particularly offensive about this offer. Typical Spanish-to-English rates hover in this same range and, given the right combination of deadline/degree of difficulty/absence of pesky formatting issues, I have often happily accepted such rates, which in my case typically convert into $70-$90/hour.
I have to say that the opportunity to make $500-$700/day for 8 hours of work does not leave me seething with indignation.
As finnword suggests, if you accept such a rate as a base (i.e., assuming reasonable deadlines, no rush work, texts that don't require time-consuming re-creation of tables, no deciphering of bad handwriting) it would seem that you could negotiate higher fees for jobs that deviate from those parameters.
So I too am puzzled here....
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