Agency recalculating payment after the project was delivered
Ledja Derveni United Kingdom Local time: 21:03 Member (2008) English to Albanian + ...
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No further development on the situation today
Jan 12
Bernhard Sulzer wrote:
I hope you'll never work for EUR 0.04 again. And ask for a PO (with all items completed such as word count and rate or, if that is difficult, quote an hourly rate but always quote a final price - you will have to figure it somehow, then there is no problem) or draw up a contract and have them countersign it.
I was actually perfectly happy with my quoted final price - it worked fine as a per hour rate, considering that I had spent just about 5 hours on the job - and even when calculated it afterwards in full rate for no matches and discounted rate for repetitions, it came to just under that exact price. The agency were probably looking to cut corners by not paying to have the files assessed and prepared for translation, and are now shocked that in whichever way they the job is calculated - be it hours, flat rate per total words, or differentiated rate per no matches and repetitions - it still comes up to the same price.
I am not sure if I should label this as a dishonest agency just yet. As I've said before, I have worked for them previously with no issues and their blueboard record, even though short, does not display problems of this or any other nature. However, I know from personal experience that they keep pressing for lower rates, something that I am not likely to give in to. They have mismanaged this one project and understimated the work involved in it, but I shouldn't have to undersell my efforts.
My concern at the beggining was whether it looked as if I was being unreasonable sticking to my price and the agency might see it as me milking them for a job that didn't seem to require much work.
jyuan_us wrote:
So, for the review of those 5 files, I got $15. (I spent 5 hours in reviewing and 2 hours in e-mail communication with them.)
In my case, the agency is proposing to pay around EUR 45 for a job exactly like yours, jyan_us. I am happy someone can confirm from own experience the amount of time it can take to go through files of that size. The project manager seems to think it should have been easy and quick to make all those changes, when she herself missed highlighting two important refererence numbers in the Word file she checked and sent me to indicate the amount of differing words. That was rich of her!
Peter Shortall wrote:
(1) Choose your words carefully whenever contacting them - the more concise and matter-of-fact you can be, the better - and make sure you avoid giving the impression of being wound up (easier said than done, I know!)
I don't see myself likely to ever do or say anything rash - I am very self-contained. The long email I wrote yesterday was so because I included several quotes from previous emails to address each unjust claim they were making on our agreements to date - on this and the previous project. After that very elaborate layout of facts, I've heard no peep from them. Not sure whether this is a good sign for this line of events: Invoice sent, they asked to reconsider, I stuck to my price, they went quiet...
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Ledja Derveni United Kingdom Local time: 21:03 Member (2008) English to Albanian + ...
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Jan 12
Sheila Wilson wrote:
Charge your full rate for everything, then apply any discount(s): that way, they can never say your "normal" rate is less then you need to earn a decent living.
That seems a clear-cut approach! Will definitely apply from now on.
Katalin Horvath McClure wrote:
Working with such documents only make sense on an hourly base.
I agree! And as I mentioned previously, my initial price quote seemed to work well if paid in hours. I proposed this too to the agency, but that didn't appeal to them.
[Edited at 2012-01-12 20:18 GMT]
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Katalin Horvath McClure United States Local time: 16:03 Member (2002) English to Hungarian + ...
Suspicious from the beginning
Jan 12
Ledja Derveni wrote:
Katalin Horvath McClure wrote:
Working with such documents only make sense on an hourly base.
I agree! And as I mentioned previously, my initial price quote seemed to work well if paid in hours. I proposed this too to the agency, but that didn't appeal to them.
Now, this would have made me suspicious right away.
Did not appeal to them?
Why?
That quote would have stated the total project price at the start, which is what the end client wants to know anyway, so it is actually a much better way than target based billing, when the client does not know in advance how much he/she would have to pay.
If they found the quoted total price too high for their budget, they should have stated that right away, instead of swindling you into some fuzzy terms with conditions that were unknown until you finished the job.
If it happened to me, I would have turned the project down right away.
Katalin
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Ledja Derveni United Kingdom Local time: 21:03 Member (2008) English to Albanian + ...
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Re: suspicious from the beginning
Jan 12
Yes, it was. I had an inkling from the moment they sent a PO with a blank payment information and, to my prompt for confirmation of price as agreed, replied something along the lines: Yeah, yeah, whatever it is you said. It just seemed fair to give the benefit of the doubt to the person I'd just been talking on the phone with to discuss the project details. Live and learn.
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Katalin Horvath McClure United States Local time: 16:03 Member (2002) English to Hungarian + ...
New PM, change in management?
Jan 12
Sometimes new PMs behave shockingly differently than the "old timers". I have had my share of surprises with new hires at agencies I worked with for a long time without a hitch, where the new person's style of communication, attention to detail and commitment to promises was very different from what I was used to. Sometimes I had to go over their head to get things clarified with higher management. Sometimes management straightens things out, but sometimes the very reason of the appearance of these new hires and new style is (a negative) change in management, either in management personnel, or in management style.
For example, there are agencies where the PMs are compensated based on how much difference they can squeeze out of rates they charge to their clients and rates they pay for the translators on each project. The higher "margin" they produce, the bigger is their bonus. Sometimes the performance measurement is not this clean-cut, and also some new hires may not understand the long-term consequences of such policies, so they try to cut corners wherever they think they can.
Also, keep in mind that some practices that are considered unethical in one country/culture, are totally commonplace in another. Even if the agency is located in a similar cultural environment as yours, there could be differences at the level of the individuals, the PMs, if they are from another country/culture and have not gotten used to the company's ways yet.
If the company is decent, unethically behaving personnel will soon be gone.
By the way, are you talking with just a single individual at that agency, or are you getting others (upper management) involved as well?
Katalin
[Edited at 2012-01-12 21:17 GMT]
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Ledja Derveni United Kingdom Local time: 21:03 Member (2008) English to Albanian + ...
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Not a matter of new personnel
Jan 12
The upper management is who I've been dealing with from the start. All emails they sent are also cc-ed to the rest of the staff (3, according to my email history).
All the discussions, agreements and confirmations happened between me and "the upper management". The go-ahead to get started on the project came from one of the other 3. This one also came up with the first "wait a minute" - I replied with a full explanation of the work process I had done. The upper management replied my email to say they can't charge the client with the full wordcount and they'd have the other person email me about the charge. The other person sent an email starting with: To follow and clear up the misunderstanding about the job you completed. The thing is, I have not misunderstood a thing here, nor given cause to misunderstand. And to cover their "misunderstandings", the plot thickens with untrue claims over the previous agreements.
Anyway, all quiet since yesterday's email from me. If no reply by tomorrow, time to hit the phone again.
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Samuel Murray wrote:
I have found that most agencies that ask me to translate diplomas etc are not satisfied with a "standard" legal translation in which formatting is described but not mimicked. The agencies I worked for all wanted some kind of formatting, even if it is only an approximation.
In fact, in the guidelines for sworn translation of one of my local translators' association, all of the example files have been formatted to match the source. Sure, if there is a stamp, you write "stamp" and if there is a signature you write "signature", but that is not formatting.
A comparison between sworn translations in Brazil and in the USA
Brazil has a federal decree on sworn translations dated 1943, when these were either handwritten or typed using a manual typwriter. As the same law still prevails, such translations are is still deemed to be plain text, though some fellow Brazilian sworn translators waste an enormous amount of time re-creating tables, scanning logos, etc. to gild the lily. My Brazilian sworn translations are in plain text, no fonts galore, ever! Of course, I apply some minor formatting, mostly in terms of alignment, to enhance readability. As the same law requires the original or a copy thereof to be attached, if anyone cares about the layout & formatting, they'll be able to see it there, not in my translation.
The USA doesn't have a law on sworn translations, so each agency/entity is free to set their own requirements. While some - I believe most - accept Brazilian sworn translations of Brazilian documents, there is a standard practice for US-made certified/sworn translations: these are very precise translated replicas of the original document, including all logos, illustrations, signatures, and fonts, preceded by a notarized affidavit on their accuracy, integrity, and full content.
I have done some US-style sworn translations. As I don't live in the USA, some agency there got them thoroughly reviewed by some other trusted translator in my pair, and made and signed the affidavit.
All this leads to the key issue here. I do the Brazilian (text only) sworn translations using PageMaker because of personal preference. However I charge the same statutory rates (per thousand chars) as any other sworn translator in Brazil using a ballpoint pen, a typewriter, or MS Word. Meanwhile when I do US-style sworn translations, also using the same PageMaker, we agree on a per-word rate for translation plus an additional fee for DTP, depending on the graphic complexity of the document.
Many translators are reluctant to assert that DTP implies additional work, and that accurate formatting (especially using MS Word, which is NOT a DTP app) may be not as simple as it seems from the final output. All right, of course we all do or preserve the original formatting for free when the computer does it with a few keystrokes or mouse clicks at most. However accurate and/or complex DTP/formatting is extra work, and therefore should be charged extra.
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Ledja Derveni United Kingdom Local time: 21:03 Member (2008) English to Albanian + ...
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An update on the situation
Jan 19
But first:
José Henrique Lamensdorf wrote:
I have done some US-style sworn translations. As I don't live in the USA, some agency there got them thoroughly reviewed by some other trusted translator in my pair, and made and signed the affidavit.
One of my earliest and largest projects involving scanned documentation (including handwritten) was indeed for an American agency. I can't say that I am any the wiser nowadays about standard practices, but back then I hardly knew what I was letting myself in for. I can't fault the PM - he was very instructive and thorough, and inspected my translations (into English) very closely indeed, as he came back with questions every now and then. What truly made my day in the end is that he asked the accounting department to add a bonus on top of my agreed fee which made a quarter of the whole total!
Back to the topic, after a few unanswered emails, I did honour my word and made a long distance call, to which the PM answered rather hastily saying they would write to me the next day. An email came which was a copy and paste of their last one. I wrote shortly stating that they had obviously either not read or disregarded my emails and resent my invoice with the same total, placing some clear calculations under the project details. I also added a short sentence about being "in position to pursue payment and take action in all available ways once the due date has passed and no payment has been received".
They replied promptly to confirm they had (finally?) read my emails, and on the next day they confirmed receipt of invoice and acceptance of fee. Success at last!
As this situation was a first ever for me, I wasn't particular happy or confident about pursuing the matter legally, so thanks everyone for the advice and encouragement.
Best to all of you,
Ledja
[Edited at 2012-01-19 23:48 GMT]
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Katalin Horvath McClure United States Local time: 16:03 Member (2002) English to Hungarian + ...
Wait for the actual payment
Jan 20
It is nice that they seem to have changed their mind, but I would not jump for joy until the money is in the bank.
Until then, the accounting department, the boss or whoever could have a wait a minute... moment...
Katalin
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Peter Shortall United Kingdom Local time: 21:03 Member French to English + ...
Standing up for yourself
Jan 21
Although it's not over till the money's in your account, this admission is a big step in the right direction. The promise to send an email the next day, followed by a repeat of the previous emails, is exactly what I would have expected from them - yet another attempt to fob you off, and I'm sure some people would have given in at that point, but good for you for standing firm. They don't have a leg to stand on, and it looks like they know it. Only the threat of legal action would have worked in this situation, I think - whether or not you intended to follow through on it! I wouldn't work for the agency again, though, especially because of the false claims and (I assume) failure to apologize for them. Even good agencies can "turn" - though so can bad ones, of course.
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Ledja Derveni United Kingdom Local time: 21:03 Member (2008) English to Albanian + ...
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Jan 22
You're right in your assumption, Peter - no apology in sight.
Katain, I guess I'll cross that bridge when I come to it. At least now I've done some research on where to go from here.
[Edited at 2012-01-22 12:31 GMT]
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. The long email I wrote yesterday was so because I included several quotes from previous emails to address each unjust claim they were making on our agreements to date - on this and the previous project. After that very elaborate layout of facts, I've heard no peep from them. Not sure whether this is a good sign for this line of events: Invoice sent, they asked to reconsider, I stuck to my price, they went quiet...
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