Fraud actions of outsourcer
Thread poster: Xueyang Niu
Xueyang Niu
Xueyang Niu
United Kingdom
Local time: 12:31
English to Chinese
+ ...
Nov 26, 2019

Hi there,

I've experienced a fraud case with a translation agency, and already reported it on BB. Still I would like to tell the whole story here to warn other people from getting into their trap.

The BB rate for this agency is 4.4. When I was entering my review I see they are already banned for posting jobs on Proz. I was careless enough to take up their urgent job with obviously low rate.

In brief, they asked me to transcribe and translate a video of 86 m
... See more
Hi there,

I've experienced a fraud case with a translation agency, and already reported it on BB. Still I would like to tell the whole story here to warn other people from getting into their trap.

The BB rate for this agency is 4.4. When I was entering my review I see they are already banned for posting jobs on Proz. I was careless enough to take up their urgent job with obviously low rate.

In brief, they asked me to transcribe and translate a video of 86 mins for subtitling, the content of the video is the CEO of the world's largest berry dealer talking about the performances and forecasts up to the third quarter of 2019.

The agency gave a very urgent and unreasonable deadline, which they assigned the task on Wednesday night and want it done on Friday early morning (5am). So I argued the deadline is unreasonable and finally delivered on Sunday morning. In the meantime they keep sending threatening message like "the client is very angry about the delay and is going to reduce the payment."

After the first delivery, the agency say some sentences are too long to fit into the screen (they do have a word limit and non of the sentences exceeded than their limit, but I do understand some sentences can still be "too long"). So I went through my translation all over again, shortened the sentences and did a revision of my own work. In the end, I submitted 2 versions to them.

Real drama took place after the delivery of the work.

One week later they came back to me with the feedback below:
__________________________________________________________________________
The client has finished review on the delivered file, Attached his feedback:
———-
From QCer - ATA linguist and native Chinese SM:
* After reviewing the subtitles, the translation provided has MAJOR accuracy issues.
* The client could only give them 40/100 in terms of accuracy.
* A lot of segments are either not accurate or completely made up.

We understand translation of subtitle for speeches like this could only capture the gist and will always have to leave some sub points out but translators couldn't simply come up with their own speech.
———
The client is extremely concerned about the quality of this project, taking into account that we used in-house native speaking reviewers (apparently) and confirmed there would not be errors.

The client will apply deduction on this project based on the low quality and late delivery since he managed to redone it all with another native resource with extra cost.
_____________________________________________________________________________

The feedback sounds reasonable and it seems like my work has went through careful QA right?

But when I opened their "client feedback", I was really really shocked. Basically, they used the Word "compare differences" function to compare my 2 versions, marked the differences, and claim all of the differences are quality issues!

After a closer look at the revised contents, I find what they claim "my translation" is even not all mine, the later part come from an obviously bad quality thing that's not delivered by me.
However, all of the "reviews and comments" are verbatim my second version delivery.
So to sum it up, if there really were a QCer who reviewed the transcription and translation, then this QCer must be myself! Because all of the corrections are exactly my 2nd version delivery, not even changing one word! Don't they want to prove my quality is too bad?

They owe me 350 USD, not little but not too much either. What's the point of taking all the effort to make up a fake review to claim quality issue for reduction in payment?

A much more severe issue could be exposed by this case, which is intellectual property leakage of the "real client." The copyright owner of the source content (which I call the real end client) is a very well reputed industry lead, and the video concerns confidential and crucial information for this company. I just wonder, if this agency is truly working for this end client, does this end client know how the agency fraud the linguist? If the end client doesn't know an agency has taken their confidential content to the market, then there is serious copyright leakage issue.

After warning the agency of their fraud action, they firstly promised not to reduce the payment.

Then about a month later they came back with a proper proofreading of my work, without explaining what happened to the first. After I cleaned the review, they say
_________________________________________________________
Actually, we didn’t ask for a clean file, we asked to validate the client
changes and to leave comments on each single change on the word file either
Accept/ Reject and Why.

Unfortunately, it is too late The client applied deduction based on a 3rd
reviewer confirmation on the edits applied.

Hence 70 % deduction will be applied on your PO due to late reply,
communication issue and quality issue.
____________________________________________________________________________

So this is the story so far. Anyone can advise me how to take the next actions?
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jyuan_us
jyuan_us  Identity Verified
United States
Local time: 08:31
Member (2005)
Chinese to English
They pay way too low, and we should avoid this kind of middlemen Nov 27, 2019

Xueyang Niu wrote:
They owe me 350 USD, not little but not too much either. What's the point of taking all the effort to make up a fake review to claim quality issue for reduction in payment?

The end client would usually have to pay 3 times this amount for this volume to be transcribed and translated.

The agency may have kept $700 of the "budget".

[Edited at 2019-11-27 03:26 GMT]


Xueyang Niu
 
jyuan_us
jyuan_us  Identity Verified
United States
Local time: 08:31
Member (2005)
Chinese to English
They did offer a similar job to me months ago Nov 27, 2019

at half of the rate they offered you, and I didn't bother to reply.

[Edited at 2019-11-27 22:21 GMT]


 
San Sinuon
San Sinuon  Identity Verified
Cambodia
Local time: 19:31
Member (2012)
English to Khmer (Central)
+ ...
It's a trick by fraud agency Nov 27, 2019

Hi,

It's a bit sad to learn from your experience. This similar case also happened to me with an agency.
I think it's worth to share this experience. After they received my translation, they picked up one or two sentences from the whole job of 4214 words and claimed the whole translation was google translate. They said their client was not happy with it and that the client would not pay for the work. After I checked their feedback (in an email texts, not a file with track chang
... See more
Hi,

It's a bit sad to learn from your experience. This similar case also happened to me with an agency.
I think it's worth to share this experience. After they received my translation, they picked up one or two sentences from the whole job of 4214 words and claimed the whole translation was google translate. They said their client was not happy with it and that the client would not pay for the work. After I checked their feedback (in an email texts, not a file with track changes), I saw that it was totally preferential. I asked them to pay in full, or otherwise they must hire an independent proofreader to proofread my translation and if it was google translate like what they said, I would not charge a cent for the job. I asked them to provide me a human proofread file with track changes, but they said they did not have budget to have it proofread. Weeks later, they came back to me and said they would be willing to pay 50% of the total due, I still claimed to get paid in full. After that, they'd like to pay me 60% and said that was the best they could pay, I still claimed to get paid in full. Now they stop replying to emails. It was my first job with them and it turned out so bad.



[Edited at 2019-11-30 04:13 GMT]
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Kuochoe Nikoi-Kotei
Xueyang Niu
 
Thayenga
Thayenga  Identity Verified
Germany
Local time: 13:31
Member (2009)
English to German
+ ...
Very "professional" Nov 27, 2019

Xueyang Niu wrote:
In the meantime they keep sending threatening message like "the client is very angry about the delay and is going to reduce the payment."



This represents an extremely unprofessional conduct. An unrealistic delivery date, having accepted your proposed deadline and then threaten you halfway through the job - or sooner - to accomplish what? Distract you from your work? Ensure that you might be bound, under these circumstances, to not deliver a flawless translation?

The second threatening message would have sufficed to stop the work and let the your client find someone who can do it faster, though not necessarily better. This might not be up to professional standards, either, but it's still better than delivering 2 version (200%) only to receive 50% of your pay.


Zibow Retailleau
Xueyang Niu
 
Xueyang Niu
Xueyang Niu
United Kingdom
Local time: 12:31
English to Chinese
+ ...
TOPIC STARTER
Absolutely true Nov 27, 2019

jyuan_us wrote:

Xueyang Niu wrote:
They owe me 350 USD, not little but not too much either. What's the point of taking all the effort to make up a fake review to claim quality issue for reduction in payment?

The end client would usually have to pay 3 times this amount for this volume to be transcribed and translated.

The agency may have kept $700 of the "budget".

[Edited at 2019-11-27 03:26 GMT]


True, normally such work would be at least three times the payment.

Actually the outsourcer initiated 250USD when they approached me per email. Obviously they found my contact via Proz but because they are banned to post jobs on Proz, they send requests directly to individual linguists.

I asked for the rate to be increased to 350USD. They agreed with my rate and issued and PO as confirmation. But halfway through my working process they threaten client is angry about the progress and is going to deduct payment.

See their email about "3 days for a 1.30h transcribing and subtitling task is too long and client is going to deduct the PO" below. This email is sent to me on Sunday, 13th Oct 12pm:
____________________________________________________________________
Hello,

Any update?

3 days in 1.30 hours task is too long!!

Multiple emails sent with same answer from you.

I still have QA phase and my delivery with client it today at 4:00

My client stated that he will deduct the PO if we didn't deliver on time

Kindly share the accurate final delivery shortly

Regards

XXXX PM Team

____________________________________________

And see their assignment email, which is also their initial approach to me below, sent on Wednesday 9th Oct 17.02 (London time):

Hi Xueyang,

Hope this email finds you well.

This is XX a project manager at XX.

Kindly note that we need your support for our new task, and below is the details:

- Language pair: English to Chinese simplified
- Service: Subtitling with time coding (timecoding for the Chinese translation)
- Rate: 3 USD/ minute
- Minutes: 01:26:00
- Delivery Date: 11 of October 2019, at 05:00 am EET
- Attached: SRT Template, please use it for the translation and timecoding


 
Xueyang Niu
Xueyang Niu
United Kingdom
Local time: 12:31
English to Chinese
+ ...
TOPIC STARTER
YES they firstly trick the linguist to work for them and then fraud for severe deduction in payment Nov 27, 2019

San Sinuon wrote:

Hi,

It's a bit sad to learn from your experience. This similar case also happened to me with an agency called XXXXXXX. I already reported on their BB. They owe me $387 for the translation I did for them in May this year. They offered me $0.09 per word.

I believe our cases are very similar. After they received my translation, they picked up one or two sentences from the whole job of 4214 words and claimed the whole translation was google translate. They said their client was not happy with it and that the client would not pay for the work.
After I checked their feedback (in an email texts, not a file with track changes), I saw that it was totally preferential. I asked them to pay in full, or otherwise they must hire an independent proofreader to proofread my translation and if it was google translate like what they said, I would not charge a cent for the job. I asked them to provide me a human proofread file with track changes, but they said they did not have budget to have it proofread. Weeks later, they came back to me and said they would be willing to pay 50% of the total due, I still claimed to get paid in full. After that, they'd like to pay me 60% and said that was the best they could pay, I still claimed to get paid in full. Now they stop replying to emails. It was my first job with them and it turned out so bad.

XXXXXXX is a fraud agency.


These agencies are practiced at tricking the linguists to do free work for them. They donot have qualified reviewer/proofreader to judge quality. The so-called client feedback is fake. In my case it's absurd that they use my own work as the "reviewed" piece to prove my quality is bad.

I do strongly sympathy with you. These agencies should not escape punishment so easily, at least their ill repute should be exposed at the forum and on BB.


 
Xueyang Niu
Xueyang Niu
United Kingdom
Local time: 12:31
English to Chinese
+ ...
TOPIC STARTER
You're right Nov 27, 2019

Thayenga wrote:

Xueyang Niu wrote:
In the meantime they keep sending threatening message like "the client is very angry about the delay and is going to reduce the payment."



This represents an extremely unprofessional conduct. An unrealistic delivery date, having accepted your proposed deadline and then threaten you halfway through the job - or sooner - to accomplish what? Distract you from your work? Ensure that you might be bound, under these circumstances, to not deliver a flawless translation?

The second threatening message would have sufficed to stop the work and let the your client find someone who can do it faster, though not necessarily better. This might not be up to professional standards, either, but it's still better than delivering 2 version (200%) only to receive 50% of your pay.


You're right. They are practiced and systematic at fraud. At least 3 of their staff were in contact with me and they do consistent trick from the very beginning until the end they show their real face of deducting the payment by 70%.

I carefully looked through their "Service Agreement", and find at the moment I signed their agreement, it's already in the trap. They trick the linguist from the following aspects:
Delivery deadline - they give unreasonable deadline and threaten delay half way through the working process
Quality and warranty of work - by providing fake client feedback
Their administration charge - because of communication issues, delay in response to client etc.

Quotes from the "Service Agreement" are attached.


 


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