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What is the reason Indian companies and translation agencies are the worst potential payers?
Thread poster: Fredrik Pettersson
Fredrik Pettersson
Fredrik Pettersson  Identity Verified
Hong Kong
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English to Swedish
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Mar 30, 2020

It continues to happen time after time, and I've already had to spend money (20 percent of 3,000 USD) to collect on since long time overdue payment from an Indian translation agency. And now the same thing with another Indian translation agency that last time delayed payment with 8 months.

I've been to India many times also, and had a private matter with a hotel that gave empty promises for over a year to refund me around 1,500 USD. Only after I went straight to their throat and com
... See more
It continues to happen time after time, and I've already had to spend money (20 percent of 3,000 USD) to collect on since long time overdue payment from an Indian translation agency. And now the same thing with another Indian translation agency that last time delayed payment with 8 months.

I've been to India many times also, and had a private matter with a hotel that gave empty promises for over a year to refund me around 1,500 USD. Only after I went straight to their throat and composed a very intricate e-mail which I cc:ed to certain influential persons I finally received my refund, about 18 months after I should have received it.

I once visited an Indian embassy in a country to get help with a parcel that had been lost (probably stolen) in Delhi from me. The vice embassador told me: "India is a very bad country".

I will not take on any more jobs from Indian translation agencies or companies, it's simply not worth the more than probable nightmare one will get to finally get paid for ones work.

But what's the reason? Why are they so bad payers in India?
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Erika Ballardin
 
The Misha
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Russian to English
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Elementary, my dear Watson Mar 30, 2020

The reason is that you let them get away with it.

The best way to handle a risk, any risk, is to not get exposed to it. You dot the i's here.


Jorge Payan
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Tom in London
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Tom in London
Tom in London
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TO which Mar 30, 2020

Fredrik Pettersson wrote:

.......

But what's the reason? Why are they so bad payers in India?


To which I would add: why do job offers on Proz come from India more than from any other country and why do they keep coming?


Baran Keki
Maria Teresa Borges de Almeida
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Sheila Wilson
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Spain
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English
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How about performing risk management? Mar 30, 2020

Fredrik Pettersson wrote:
It continues to happen time after time

the same thing with another Indian translation agency that last time delayed payment with 8 months.

I don't know how many times you mean by "time after time" but accepting further work from an agency that once paid eight months late seems nonsensical and downright suicidal in business terms.

I don't like to use stereotypes. I'm sure there are many Indian businesses that pay on time every time. I have little experience with India, but many freelancers moan about Chinese rates, while I've found a few clients in China that pay my rates.

If you aren't at least 95% confident about a client -- wherever they are in the world -- alarm bells should ring and you should seek to limit your risk. I would advise you to ask for anything up to 100% in advance; only accept a small job and wait for payment to clear before accepting another; or simply refuse the job. And always, always have a credit limit for each client. Even the most well-run business can suddenly fold: they could be sued, they could be massively scammed, the business owner could go under the proverbial bus..., they could even be shut down overnight by their government -- is that something we expected a year or so ago ?


Tom in London
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Baran Keki
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English to Turkish
It beggars belief Mar 30, 2020

to see so many raving reviews on their BB records here by European translators (hailing from first world countries like Finland, Germany, Sweden etc.).

Tom in London
Dan Lucas
Philip Lees
 
Michael Newton
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United States
Local time: 08:22
Japanese to English
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Why are they such bad payers? Mar 31, 2020

The culture.

Avoid them like the plague.


Anna Gorska
IrinaN
 
Michael Newton
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United States
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Japanese to English
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So many job offers from India Mar 31, 2020

Tom in London wrote:

Fredrik Pettersson wrote:

.......

But what's the reason? Why are they so bad payers in India?


To which I would add: why do job offers on Proz come from India more than from any other country and why do they keep coming?


Indian agencies are avaricious in their gobbling up of certain sectors of the world translation market (pharmaceuticals/patents). They underbid western agencies scandalously and the end clients fall for it. The victims are the translators who agree to work for
USD 0.01/word and then hope and pray they get reimbursed at some point during their life. I can't account for the glowing reviews from first-world countries, they must be desperate or mentally disturbed.

The "offers" from Indian agencies border on the laughable.

"Established agency in New Delhi is seeking for translator of 20 words of Japanese into English. Please give us your best rate
considering regular work and long-term cooperation [and eternal life and a villa in the South of France as well, no doubt]. Send three references. A CAT tool is mandatory. Revert ASAP to "......".

This is not necessarily limited to India, one agency in China contacts me continuously for 10, 20, 30 words and recently an agency in San Francisco offered me a $7 job.


Finally, a translator's initial due diligence must be geographic.


Anna Gorska
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Vanda Nissen
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Australia
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Just avoid Mar 31, 2020

It's best to avoid translation agencies from certain countries - I simply ignore their requests and do not even bother to reply. Honestly, I do not understand why companies keep outsourcing translations to India. Do they really think that German, French, Swedish are among the languages spoken in India? If I can at least understand why they move call centres to India (although customers are certainly not happy about this move), I am really lost how CEOs of multinational companies can be so stupid... See more
It's best to avoid translation agencies from certain countries - I simply ignore their requests and do not even bother to reply. Honestly, I do not understand why companies keep outsourcing translations to India. Do they really think that German, French, Swedish are among the languages spoken in India? If I can at least understand why they move call centres to India (although customers are certainly not happy about this move), I am really lost how CEOs of multinational companies can be so stupid thinking that you can get perfect and cheap translations in India.Collapse


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Matthias Brombach
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How did you manage it? Mar 31, 2020

Fredrik Pettersson wrote:
to refund me around 1,500 USD. Only after I went straight to their throat and composed a very intricate e-mail which I cc:ed to certain influential persons I finally received my refund


I wonder how you managed it to receive any of your money at all. What "influential persons" did you contact?

But what's the reason? Why are they so bad payers in India?


India is a great country with great people, no doubt about it. To be right and to be proven to be right are sometimes or often two different things in some countries of the world. Stable relations to "influential persons" seem to be of more importance there.


 
Matthias Brombach
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Germany
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Tier 3 or 4 outsourcing Mar 31, 2020

Vanda Nissen wrote: I am really lost how CEOs of multinational companies can be so stupid thinking that you can get perfect and cheap translations in India.


I believe they don´t think so, they just don´t know that it happens. I assume that certain agencies outsource their jobs to other LSPs, who outsource them again and again, until the profit is high enough. Perhaps even the first agency doesn´t know from where the job actually will be outsourced from to the translator. Fancy that an agencies´employee knows a cousin in his/her country of origin (or the country of origin of his family, i.e. India), who seems to be very smart in placing the jobs the cheapest possible way, for instance via proz.com.

[Bearbeitet am 2020-03-31 12:15 GMT]


Sheila Wilson
 
Korana Lasić
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My experiences of India and Indian people are deeply personal and amazing. Mar 31, 2020

I haven't worked with outsourcers from India yet, presumably because they do not appreciate my rates.

You should accept personal responsibility for working twice with an agency that paid late the first time, whether they are an Indian agency or not.

1.3 billion people live in India, chances are some of them are decent, hard-working people, whilst some are deviant crooks.

If I may put to everyone that perhaps this isn't an Indian issue, these shady practice
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I haven't worked with outsourcers from India yet, presumably because they do not appreciate my rates.

You should accept personal responsibility for working twice with an agency that paid late the first time, whether they are an Indian agency or not.

1.3 billion people live in India, chances are some of them are decent, hard-working people, whilst some are deviant crooks.

If I may put to everyone that perhaps this isn't an Indian issue, these shady practices some agencies engage in, it's a translation agencies/freelancing system issue. There are, of course, some very well run translation agencies, but there are also agencies who engage in shocking practices and I am talking about first-world companies. Perhaps many of you, having established long term relationships with reputable outsourcers, have simply forgotten about it.

India isn't as well regulated as the first world and there's a lot of corruption. That makes a huge difference. This is probably what the Indian consul had in mind when he said that "India is a very bad country".

My brother lives in Northern California. He is utterly miserable there, with the high taxes, the overpriced housing market, the homelessness problem. He pays quite a lot for shockingly bad (by first-world standards) health services...There's an exodus of Californians to Texas. Where, just by moving there, their standard of living improves by 50%. He has recently sent some parcels to Chicago using FedEx, and they arrived torn up and damaged.

There are all sorts of workers and companies in any country, please do not tar 1.3 billion people with the same brush, based on two unethical translation agencies you've worked with and one poorly run hotel.

Regarding the BB ratings, is the implications that these are rigged? Why should so many translators give good ratings to agencies with questionable practices? I'm not implying anything myself. I am simply inquiring.


[Edited at 2020-03-31 19:02 GMT]
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Fatine Echenique
Sheila Wilson
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IrinaN
IrinaN
United States
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Greed but not just of one culture Mar 31, 2020

[quote]Michael Newton wrote:

[quote]Tom in London wrote:

Fredrik Pettersson wrote:

.......

They underbid western agencies scandalously and the end clients fall for it.

Finally, a translator's initial due diligence must be geographic.


+1 for the second statement. However, those end clients are not Indians.

A fan (yeah, the one with the blades that makes you cool and comfy) in the reference technical drawing that crossed my path was translated into Russian using the term for "fan" as in "fan of J Lo". The drawing was part of the project for a huge US corporation. Jobs make full circle from sophisticated first-world westerners to the third-world "MT specialists" and back. Guess who is laughing all the way to the bank.

I love Indian food and the charming and intelligent Indian owners of my favorite local restaurant. The place is squeaky clean. But should I see an Indian owner/manager at the front desk of an average hotel or even worse, motel, I'd rather sleep in my car or keep going another 100 miles. A couple of nightmarish experiences many, many years ago, when I couldn't afford a better hotel, was enough.

Recently there was a job offer from China offering 1,000,000 words into several languages to be done in a week or so. In five day the same client was looking for qualified! proofreaders of 600,000 words to be done in 5 days. Since it was not into Chinese, I suspect that some westerners needed it.


 
Michael Newton
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United States
Local time: 08:22
Japanese to English
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Indian agencies Mar 31, 2020

Fewer and fewer Americans consider California to be part of the United States. It should be hived off into a separate country. Calizuela perhaps.

Korana Lasić
 
Michael Newton
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United States
Local time: 08:22
Japanese to English
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Mar 31, 2020



[Edited at 2020-03-31 15:28 GMT]


Wilsonn Perez Reyes
 
Korana Lasić
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Yup Mar 31, 2020

Michael Newton wrote:


Fewer and fewer Americans consider California to be part of the United States. It should be hived off into a separate country. Calizuela perhaps.
Calizuela indeed.


 
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What is the reason Indian companies and translation agencies are the worst potential payers?







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