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Mega Translation Agency owner buys 11.5 million dollar mansion
Thread poster: Jeff Whittaker
Georgie Scott
Georgie Scott  Identity Verified
France
Local time: 15:24
French to English
+ ...
0.04 May 25, 2016

LegalTransform wrote:

Now I genuinely wonder how that rumor got started. Perhaps it is your unique language pair that gives you a higher rate?

Samuel Murray wrote:

This agency has never, ever paid me 0.05 per [weighted] word. Usually more than twice that.


As far as I recall, they have asked me to work for them for 0.04 on three occasions. That, coupled with their atrocious Blue Board rating, has meant that I've never had the "pleasure" of doing business with them.


 
Tom in London
Tom in London
United Kingdom
Local time: 14:24
Member (2008)
Italian to English
BlueBoard May 25, 2016

The interesting thing is that this month alone they have had 2 bad ratings and 3 good ones.

Is there any logic to that? How can people have such widely differing experiences with the same outsourcer, in the same month? Can all those BB ratings be believed?

[Edited at 2016-05-25 15:57 GMT]


 
philgoddard
philgoddard
United States
German to English
+ ...
. May 25, 2016

I was approached this week, for the first time, by one of their subsidiaries that I'd never heard of. I said that both of my previous experiences with their parent company had been so bad (one involving persistent attempts to avoid payment over a long period) that I'd rather not work with them. They didn't sound at all surprised.

 
Jeff Whittaker
Jeff Whittaker  Identity Verified
United States
Local time: 10:24
Member (2002)
Spanish to English
+ ...
TOPIC STARTER
New article May 25, 2016

Inside The Nasty Corporate Divorce Between Ex-Lovers Who Built A Company Worth Nearly $1 Billion http://www.forbes.com/sites/katiasavchuk/2016/05/25/liz-elting-transperfect-engaged-cofounders-phil-shawe-corporate-divorce/#5d4c1afb2c2e

 
Samuel Murray
Samuel Murray  Identity Verified
Netherlands
Local time: 15:24
Member (2006)
English to Afrikaans
+ ...
The problem with the Blue Board (for large agencies) May 26, 2016

Tom in London wrote:
Is there any logic to that? How can people have such widely differing experiences with the same outsourcer, in the same month?


The problem lies with the fact that the Blue Board does not have separate entries for the separate branches, or even for the separate project teams.

The Blue Board assumes that if one PM or one PM team at the agency is bad, then they're all bad (and vice versa). The Blue Board assumes that every agency has a certain culture of business throughout its business that is reflected by each and every one of its PMs and project teams.

Some multi-country agencies have a single, worldwide payment system, so comments about late payment would be largely uniform, but POs are issued by the PMs themselves, so comments about the speed at which POs are issued would be more divergent.


 
Mirko Mainardi
Mirko Mainardi  Identity Verified
Italy
Local time: 15:24
Member
English to Italian
Actually May 26, 2016

Samuel Murray wrote:

Tom in London wrote:
Is there any logic to that? How can people have such widely differing experiences with the same outsourcer, in the same month?


The problem lies with the fact that the Blue Board does not have separate entries for the separate branches, or even for the separate project teams.


As far as I can see, there are 8 different BB records for the various subsidiaries/branches of this specific agency, and all of them mention similar issues...

As for why opinions vary from 1 to 5 (even in the same periods), I guess this might also depend on what a translator finds "acceptable" and how much they value their continuing collaboration with that outsourcer, despite possible issues...


 
Lingua 5B
Lingua 5B  Identity Verified
Bosnia and Herzegovina
Local time: 15:24
Member (2009)
English to Croatian
+ ...
Possible but also... May 26, 2016

Mirko Mainardi wrote:

Samuel Murray wrote:

Tom in London wrote:
Is there any logic to that? How can people have such widely differing experiences with the same outsourcer, in the same month?


The problem lies with the fact that the Blue Board does not have separate entries for the separate branches, or even for the separate project teams.


As far as I can see, there are 8 different BB records for the various subsidiaries/branches of this specific agency, and all of them mention similar issues...

As for why opinions vary from 1 to 5 (even in the same periods), I guess this might also depend on what a translator finds "acceptable" and how much they value their continuing collaboration with that outsourcer, despite possible issues...


That's one possibility. However, I also had different experiences with one same company in the course of several years ranging from 5 to 2. Their behavior simply changed. Sometimes, or often times, it can be related to their project flow, ie. their staff is smaller than their work flow, and then everything is late, payment, follow ups, QA checks, etc. You can simply tell there is one or two managers juggling dozens or hundreds of projects = chaos.


 
Karine Derancy (X)
Karine Derancy (X)  Identity Verified
France
Local time: 15:24
English to French
They also have unusual methods of payment or is it me ? May 26, 2016

Apparently their default method of payment is check (which means fees from my bank in addition to extended delays to cash the check in my country). Their alternative is a money wire but they would charge me $20 for this, or payment via Paypal, in which case they would "only" charge me $10 ... They also offer the possibility to only proceed to payment once I would have earned a certain amount (like $500 or more)...
I find this unacceptable but I am a newbie so maybe that's current practice
... See more
Apparently their default method of payment is check (which means fees from my bank in addition to extended delays to cash the check in my country). Their alternative is a money wire but they would charge me $20 for this, or payment via Paypal, in which case they would "only" charge me $10 ... They also offer the possibility to only proceed to payment once I would have earned a certain amount (like $500 or more)...
I find this unacceptable but I am a newbie so maybe that's current practice ?
(Although, the few agencies I work with do not proceed that way - they have their bank fees, I pay mine by my bank and all is well).
Collapse


 
S_G_C
S_G_C
Romania
Local time: 16:24
English to Romanian
Yes and no May 29, 2016

Karine Derancy wrote:

Apparently their default method of payment is check (which means fees from my bank in addition to extended delays to cash the check in my country). Their alternative is a money wire but they would charge me $20 for this, or payment via Paypal, in which case they would "only" charge me $10 ... They also offer the possibility to only proceed to payment once I would have earned a certain amount (like $500 or more)...
I find this unacceptable but I am a newbie so maybe that's current practice ?
(Although, the few agencies I work with do not proceed that way - they have their bank fees, I pay mine by my bank and all is well).


I confirm the cheque preference, but not the amount. In my case, they processed my invoices regardless of the amount (and they were well under 500 USD).


 
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Mega Translation Agency owner buys 11.5 million dollar mansion







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