| Pages in topic: < [1 2 3 4] > | Payment Dispute Thread poster: Alex Wang
|
|---|
Edward Potter 
Spain
Local time: 16:06
Member (2003)
Spanish to English
+ ...
| Only 12 out of 9000 words changed, 10 minutes worked | Oct 6, 2021 |
Alex Wang wrote:
Basically, he changed less than a dozen words out of 9,000 words generated by Google translation, and the file info of Microsoft Word (by the way, I still have his original delivery file) shows that he spent less than 10 minutes on the entire 9000-word document.
Given all this, would you still pay this translator if you were me?
According to what you tell us, the guy doesn't deserve to be paid.
However, you might consider paying a token payment in an attempt to make the guy go away.
| | | | Edward Potter
Spain
Local time: 16:06
Member (2003)
Spanish to English
+ ...
After looking at the Blue Board I think I've sussed out who the person in question is.
If it is that person, I can say I have outsourced to him twice with no problems. He has over 50 positive reviews. I too would rate him as a qualified professional, in the Spanish-to-English pair. However, the job was in the English-to-Spanish pair, so something is off.
| | | | Samuel Murray
Netherlands
Local time: 16:06
Member (2006)
English to Afrikaans
+ ...
| Dispute the BB entry | Oct 6, 2021 |
Alex, you should dispute the BB entry by alerting staff about it. A translator can only submit a BB entry if there were no quality complaints shortly after delivery. This translator should not have been allowed to submit that "1" rating.
In addition, his comment "After over two months sends me a short message 'I will not pay'." is untrue. He implies that there was no communication about quality after delivery, but there clearly was.
[Edited at 2021-10-06 08:11 GMT]
| | | | Edward Potter
Spain
Local time: 16:06
Member (2003)
Spanish to English
+ ...
| It would be good to hear the other side | Oct 7, 2021 |
Samuel Murray wrote:
Alex, you should dispute the BB entry by alerting staff about it. A translator can only submit a BB entry if there were no quality complaints shortly after delivery. This translator should not have been allowed to submit that "1" rating.
In addition, his comment "After over two months sends me a short message 'I will not pay'." is untrue. He implies that there was no communication about quality after delivery, but there clearly was.
[Edited at 2021-10-06 08:11 GMT]
All of the above is true. However, the Blue Board does not allow extended explanation. The outsourcer has made extended allegations here, giving his side of the story.
It would be nice to have the translator weigh in here.
| | |
|
|
|
| Just don't pay | Oct 7, 2021 |
No big issue. I outsourced once to that guy: standard legal translation, low rate. There were a few big mistakes (lack of understanding of the source text). My impression was that he hadn't done the job himself at all, just committed it to a non native speaker and then took a quick look at it.
| | | | Adieu
Ukrainian to English
+ ...
This is why you should strive to work for direct clients.
All this hot potato bs with 3+ middlemen leads to the usual slave rates, crap quality, disputes between the assorted skimmers, and a bad look for us all.
| | | | Jo Macdonald
Spain
Local time: 16:06
Italian to English
+ ...
| If that is the case | Oct 8, 2021 |
I agree, don't work with that person again.
I can't agree with not paying because if I choose someone to do a job for me, ask them to do it, and they do, I'm one of those old-fashioned people who pays them for it. If it's not what I want, I'll ask them if they can fix it and if they can't I pay and look for someone else next time.
Take responsibility for using Google Translate, low rates, setting the job up as cheap/light-MT, and choosing the wrong person for the job or... See more I agree, don't work with that person again.
I can't agree with not paying because if I choose someone to do a job for me, ask them to do it, and they do, I'm one of those old-fashioned people who pays them for it. If it's not what I want, I'll ask them if they can fix it and if they can't I pay and look for someone else next time.
Take responsibility for using Google Translate, low rates, setting the job up as cheap/light-MT, and choosing the wrong person for the job or become a non-payer, someone who sells lightly-edited Google Translated medical texts for rates 40% lower than other agencies, complains it's not good enough and doesn't pay two months later because, you're right, it's definitely not good enough.
From the web page "Lowest cost on the Internet, guaranteed to beat our competitors": Usually we can save you more than 40% over what other agencies can offer you. We'll beat any price of our competitors. http://www.alextranslations.com/rates.html
Álvaro Espantaleón Moreno wrote:
No big issue. I outsourced once to that guy: standard legal translation, low rate. There were a few big mistakes (lack of understanding of the source text). My impression was that he hadn't done the job himself at all, just committed it to a non native speaker and then took a quick look at it.
[Edited at 2021-10-08 07:08 GMT] ▲ Collapse
| | | | jyuan_us
United States
Local time: 10:06
Member (2005)
English to Chinese
+ ...
Álvaro Espantaleón Moreno wrote:
No big issue. I outsourced once to that guy: standard legal translation, low rate. There were a few big mistakes (lack of understanding of the source text). My impression was that he hadn't done the job himself at all, just committed it to a non native speaker and then took a quick look at it.
Did you mean he offered you "low rate" for your standard legal translation?
[Edited at 2021-10-08 10:27 GMT]
| | |
|
|
|
jyuan_us wrote: Álvaro Espantaleón Moreno wrote:
No big issue. I outsourced once to that guy: standard legal translation, low rate. There were a few big mistakes (lack of understanding of the source text). My impression was that he hadn't done the job himself at all, just committed it to a non native speaker and then took a quick look at it. Did you mean he offered you "low rate" for your standard legal translation? [Edited at 2021-10-08 10:27 GMT]
or maybe 0.05, can't remember.
| | | | Edward Potter
Spain
Local time: 16:06
Member (2003)
Spanish to English
+ ...
Jo Macdonald wrote:
I agree, don't work with that person again.
I can't agree with not paying...
Correct. In 20 years of outsourcing I have no enemies against me for non-payment. On occasion a translator does a bad job, and they still get paid. Once in a long while I will feel it necessary to negotiate a discount, but not often. It is full payment for the translator (except when a negotiated settlement occurs).
The quickest way to get rid of a bad translator and never hear from him again is to pay him. We are in business. Pay up and move on.
[Edited at 2021-10-08 21:12 GMT]
[Edited at 2021-10-08 21:13 GMT]
| | | | | Great lesson from one of my favorite movies | Oct 9, 2021 |
Edward Potter wrote:
The quickest way to get rid of a bad translator and never hear from him again is to pay him. We are in business. Pay up and move on.
I learned this lesson from A Bronx Tale (1993).
Off-topic: The part about "availability" was another lesson.
| | | | IrinaN
United States
Local time: 09:06
English to Russian
+ ...
| Now I'd say "you must pay" | Oct 9, 2021 |
There is no such thing as a good quality legal translation within 0.04 - 0.05 pay range. Just like there are no good lawyers for $12/hour. You have definitely gotten something that was to be expected.
| | |
|
|
|
Abba Storgen (X)
United States
Local time: 09:06
Greek to English
+ ...
| The truth about "Light PE" and "Full PE" | Oct 14, 2021 |
It's an invention of certain agencies. Didn't exist before, in this world. The trick is that if you check the requirements of "Light PE" they are pretty much the same as "Full PE".
Light PE, they say, has to be clearly understandable, no grammar/spelling errors, no term inconsistency.
According to this definition, one would expect "Full PE" to be something like "Ernest Hemingway wrote your clinical trial". Because "clearly understandable, no grammar/spelling errors, no term... See more It's an invention of certain agencies. Didn't exist before, in this world. The trick is that if you check the requirements of "Light PE" they are pretty much the same as "Full PE".
Light PE, they say, has to be clearly understandable, no grammar/spelling errors, no term inconsistency.
According to this definition, one would expect "Full PE" to be something like "Ernest Hemingway wrote your clinical trial". Because "clearly understandable, no grammar/spelling errors, no term inconsistency", well, there's nothing left to make a difference from Full PE.
The truth is that agencies expect to gradually transfer all projects to a pricing schedule of Light PE, thus paying translators about 1.5-2 cents per word, while the requirements are practically the same as Full PE.
Cheap tricks.
To answer to the original posting, you should expect a good text when you're asking MTPE. The translator has no excuse delivering a text with many errors, when even "Light PE" requirements do not allow errors.
[Edited at 2021-10-14 19:58 GMT] ▲ Collapse
| | | | Alex Wang
Local time: 09:06
English to Chinese
+ ...
TOPIC STARTER | Clarification | Oct 14, 2021 |
I want to thank everyone again for your interest in and response to my original question.
Even though I understand that many of you are probably using your responses to this question to express your frustration at the cutthroat rates offered by some agencies by using machine translation editing as a means, I want to clarify why I refuse to pay him. Please don’t get me wrong: I have even paid some other translators who made some very bad mistakes when those mistakes are honest ones... See more I want to thank everyone again for your interest in and response to my original question.
Even though I understand that many of you are probably using your responses to this question to express your frustration at the cutthroat rates offered by some agencies by using machine translation editing as a means, I want to clarify why I refuse to pay him. Please don’t get me wrong: I have even paid some other translators who made some very bad mistakes when those mistakes are honest ones, especially when it is the incompetence of the translators involved, perhaps as a response to those of you who advocate paying him to forget about him, but this translator is really a scammer, for me at least.
I want to clarify this again: I posted a job here by mentioning the availability of a Google translation. I did not say anything about “light” or “full” MPTE editing, and I did not specify any rate. He offered to do the editing/translation at his own proposed rate. That is why I said that he should have told me from the beginning that he does not correct typos, grammatical errors, inconsistencies, and inaccuracies and does not even read the whole document from the very beginning at the proposed rate and that he would charge a higher rate if those errors need to be corrected if this is how he does his work because no one could have possibly guessed or expected that. Don’t you agree?
If you are wondering how much he wanted to charge me, $0.04 per word. Of course, whether that is high enough is entirely the decision of every translator.
If you were me receiving a translation from him on which he spent less than 10 minutes and wanted to charge you $350, are you really willing to pay him? I probably would not have posted this question and would have paid him and forget about him if it were $50 or less, treating it as a bad episode in my professional experience. I have serious doubts, though. If you’re wondering how I know that he spent less than 10 minutes. The time from the first change to the last one that he made is less than 10 minutes as shown in the track changes in Microsoft Word, and I don’t think Microsoft Word could possibly be wrong in this regard.
His latest attempt to argue for his pay was that 99% of the document works, but my problem with him is that the only reason I hired him was to clean up the 1% of the document that does not work because the 99% of the document that does work is the result from the Google translation. Had he been willing to even spend two hours to just read through the entire translation without even comparing it to the source and clean up all those obvious and objective typos and grammatical errors, I would not have felt compelled not to pay him, and that would have taken him less than three hours of work and he could have made more than $120 per hour, a good attorney’s fee.
So, how is he different from a scammer? Not much from those Nigerian princes who have scammed the unsuspecting dumb Americans here, for me at least again. If you can justify his pay, I applaud your big heart, but not me, not in this case at least. Thank you very much for your understanding. Again, I appreciate your time. ▲ Collapse
| | | | Alex Wang
Local time: 09:06
English to Chinese
+ ...
TOPIC STARTER
I also want to point this out that some of you may not be thinking about. As I said, had he done his work properly to deserve his pay, I would have paid him without questioning.
The other important thing to keep in mind is this: what about the inconvenience and potential damage he caused to me? He is an attorney, and he should have known that. When he refused to do the work as he was supposed to, he not only broke the implicit agreement between us, him as the supplier and me as the ... See more I also want to point this out that some of you may not be thinking about. As I said, had he done his work properly to deserve his pay, I would have paid him without questioning.
The other important thing to keep in mind is this: what about the inconvenience and potential damage he caused to me? He is an attorney, and he should have known that. When he refused to do the work as he was supposed to, he not only broke the implicit agreement between us, him as the supplier and me as the customer, and caused a lot of extra time as well as extra money for me.
I translated a contract for an agency in Poland a few years back. The source was a not very legible PDF, and the project was quite a rush. The translation was overall excellent work according to the client, but I made a small mistake with an incorrect number in a year, which I don’t remember exactly, but it is something like 2014 in the source, while my translation said 2015.
The president of the agency in Poland called me and complained that single mistake could potentially cause his agency great financial damage, so he wanted me to give him a 50% discount, not just for that one project, but also including the other two projects that his agency had not paid me yet, for a total discount of about $1,500.
I did not object and gave him what he wanted, and I did not even complain. Even though I would say that it was a very unreasonable request for most people since no one can be perfect, but he has a point. There is no way that I can prove that the damage to his company would never amount to $1,500 because it could happen if his direct client uses that as something against his company and never use the services of his agency again.
I stopped working for that agency, but I learned a good lesson. Thank you again for your time and understanding. ▲ Collapse
| | | | | Pages in topic: < [1 2 3 4] > | To report site rules violations or get help, contact a site moderator: You can also contact site staff by submitting a support request » Payment Dispute | CafeTran Espresso | You've never met a CAT tool this clever!
Translate faster & easier, using a sophisticated CAT tool built by a translator / developer.
Accept jobs from clients who use Trados, MemoQ, Wordfast & major CAT tools.
Download and start using CafeTran Espresso -- for free
Buy now! » |
| | Anycount & Translation Office 3000 | Translation Office 3000
Translation Office 3000 is an advanced accounting tool for freelance translators and small agencies. TO3000 easily and seamlessly integrates with the business life of professional freelance translators.
More info » |
|
| | | | X Sign in to your ProZ.com account... | | | | | |
Login to reply/comment 
Translation news
