| Pages in topic: < [1 2 3] > | Gullible People: translators who fall victim to non-paying agencies Thread poster: Yasutomo Kanazawa
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| Also in my cases | Nov 12, 2010 |
philgoddard wrote:
I have a letter on my desk here from the administrators of a translation company that's gone bust. I'm kicking myself for not looking at BlueBoard before I took the job - their entry is terrible. Sometimes it's not gullibility, but just laziness.
Gullibility obstructs our business but laziness destroys our professional practices.
Soonthon Lupkitaro
| | | | Ocean520 
Taiwan
Local time: 01:07
English to Chinese
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| A Blue Board Record is not a guarantee for safety | Nov 12, 2010 |
Most of my clients always pay me on time. Sometimes if there was a late payment, as soon as I sent the company a reminder, they usually paid me immediately or within a couple of weeks.
It is useful to check the blue board before you accept a job from a new client. But sometimes, this doesn’t work.
I encountered a bad company this summer. It was a new client, I checked their blue board record, everything seemed OK. After I finished the job, I sent my invoice. The company co... See more Most of my clients always pay me on time. Sometimes if there was a late payment, as soon as I sent the company a reminder, they usually paid me immediately or within a couple of weeks.
It is useful to check the blue board before you accept a job from a new client. But sometimes, this doesn’t work.
I encountered a bad company this summer. It was a new client, I checked their blue board record, everything seemed OK. After I finished the job, I sent my invoice. The company contacted me to ask my bank account info, because their paypal account had an amount limitation. After the terms of the payment had been passed for a couple of weeks, I wrote a letter to ask the company why. Their account manager told me that she would check. The same correspondence went back and forth several times. I started to doubt and checked their blue board again. Bang! There was a new entry. A translator complained that they made lots of excuses for not paying.
I contacted that translator to ask more details for 2 reasons: 1. I wanted to make sure that company still hadn’t paid them. 2. if that translator still haven’t received their money, we might be able to work together to make the company pay.
Before I received a reply from that translator, I had already graded that company as 1. The chairman of the company contacted me immediately and promised me to pay me very soon, but they also asked me to change the rating on the blue board.
According to my experience, even if there is a blue board record, it doesn’t guarantee that you are safe. Sometime it is just like a landmine, you can’t tell whether it is dangerous or not. Because their record seems OK when you check it. After you finished some jobs, send your invoices and wait for a long time, you go back to check the record again, you find suddenly that there are some victims who complain about non-payment. Then you realize, you stepped on the landmine!
And the company also requests that the translator change their comments after they receive their money, because (they claim) all issues were due to “miscommunication.” Then the company can still survive. ▲ Collapse
| | | | | Did you update the Blue Board? | Nov 12, 2010 |
freelance522 wrote:
I encountered a bad company this summer. It was a new client, I checked their blue board record, everything seemed OK.
I hope you created a Blue Board record now about them?
| | | | Ocean520
Taiwan
Local time: 01:07
English to Chinese
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| To Tomás Cano Binder, CT | Nov 12, 2010 |
I entered a low rating (although not as low as 1 which I entered at the very beginning), also put a note to clarify that I changed my comment as per request.
The other translator later told me, that company paid her/him after
I rated them 1, but he/she didn't change the rating for the company.
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| The low rating stays even if they pay | Nov 12, 2010 |
freelance522 wrote:
I entered a low rating (although not as low as 1 which I entered at the very beginning), also put a note to clarify that I changed my comment as per request.
The other translator later told me, that company paid her/him after
I rated them 1, but he/she didn't change the rating for the company.
Yes, I think it is best to keep the rating. If the company did not stick to their promise, even if they finally paid after chasing them, the low rating should stay. (This is just my opinion; I cannot speak for Proz.com's recommendations).
If we edited the low rating, we would attract other translators to the same situation: assuming that the firm was OK, to find that they were not.
| | | | | Rating vs. non-payment report/comment | Nov 12, 2010 |
If there is non-payment involved with the LWA rating, and the issue is resolved, comments which indicate an open non-payment issue are removed (the entry-maker is usually asked to edit them to reflect the current situation). There is no obligation to change the number rating if one does not want to-- remember that this number rating reflects your likelihood of working again with that outsourcer, not a status of non-payment.
Best regards,
Jared
| | | | | Wiki article to detail approaches in using the Blue Board | Nov 12, 2010 |
Hi again,
I started a quick article which can be used to further detail some of the approaches used specifically in interpreting the information in the BB for risk management (I linked to this new article from the section of the risk management article Tomás cites). It seems that different translators have different ways of using the Blue Board, and maybe combining these approaches in one place will be helpful. Anyone who has found an approach that works well for them, or does n... See more Hi again,
I started a quick article which can be used to further detail some of the approaches used specifically in interpreting the information in the BB for risk management (I linked to this new article from the section of the risk management article Tomás cites). It seems that different translators have different ways of using the Blue Board, and maybe combining these approaches in one place will be helpful. Anyone who has found an approach that works well for them, or does not work, is more than welcome to add it there-- if you need help with the wiki format just let me know.
http://wiki.proz.com/wiki/index.php/Risk_management:_the_Blue_Board
Jared ▲ Collapse
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Jared wrote:
I started a quick article which can be used to further detail some of the approaches used specifically in interpreting the information in the BB for risk management (I linked to this new article from the section of the risk management article Tomás cites).
Smashing. Very good idea!
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Yasutomo Kanazawa
Japan
Local time: 02:07
Member (2005)
English to Japanese
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TOPIC STARTER
Soonthon LUPKITARO(Ph.D.) wrote: Gullibility obstructs our business but laziness destroys our professional practices. Soonthon Lupkitaro
I couldn't agree more, Soonthon, to what you wrote.
| | | | Robert Forstag
United States
Local time: 13:07
Spanish to English
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| Agree with Tomás that low rating should not be deleted after unacceptably late payment | Nov 12, 2010 |
I would agree with Tomás that, if an agency pays only after a negative Blue Board entry has been made, the entry should not be deleted. Instead, the entry could simply be modified to indicate that payment was received late, and the rating could be perhaps increased from "1" to "2".
I admit that I once deleted such an entry after receiving payment. This really is not a good idea, and for the reasons Tomás mentions. My motivation in doing so was to "create good will" and thus to be ... See more I would agree with Tomás that, if an agency pays only after a negative Blue Board entry has been made, the entry should not be deleted. Instead, the entry could simply be modified to indicate that payment was received late, and the rating could be perhaps increased from "1" to "2".
I admit that I once deleted such an entry after receiving payment. This really is not a good idea, and for the reasons Tomás mentions. My motivation in doing so was to "create good will" and thus to be able to continue to work with the agency in question (a position that I am sure is shared by many others).
What I found was that in the subsequent (and final) collaboration with that agency, there were more of the same problems, and I ended up posting another negative Blue Board entry (that will not be deleted!).
My impression is that agencies that have poor payment practices are:
1. Chronic offenders
2. Indifferent to freelancers' concerns
3. See the complaints about their misbehavior, rather than their misbehavior itself, as the problem. ▲ Collapse
| | | | | Professionalism.... | Nov 16, 2010 |
As a number of contributors have pointed out, the BB is a good source of information about payment risks, but it is not infallible. However, it is free to members.
There are other solutions: but they cost money, and one of those is credit insurance. I am always amazed that translators never consider this option when taking on new business, particularly those who are trading across borders (how do you expect to recover cash from a defaulting company 5000 miles away, for example?).... See more As a number of contributors have pointed out, the BB is a good source of information about payment risks, but it is not infallible. However, it is free to members.
There are other solutions: but they cost money, and one of those is credit insurance. I am always amazed that translators never consider this option when taking on new business, particularly those who are trading across borders (how do you expect to recover cash from a defaulting company 5000 miles away, for example?).
ANY business - and translators often forget that they are running a business - is about risk-taking, and one of the biggest risks is non-payment of its invoices.
You can insure against such risks - you can insure against anything, if it comes to that - but there is a price to pay, and the cost of insurance needs to be set against the likely risk of loss of income from non-paying customers. It's as simple as that - if the insurance premium exceeds what you estimate to be your probable risk of non-payment (eg 5% of your turnover), then risk insurance is of no interest, but if it is less than your estimated bad debts, credit insurance is a paying proposition. If you have an overdue or a non-payment, and the defaulting company is insured, you will receive a percentage (usually 75%) of the unpaid invoices from your insurer.
There are other advantages - if you have a policy with a credit insurance company, it will tell you the credit rating of any company you are interested in working with, or currently working with, and that in itself can avoid some nasty surprises later. The down side is that if you deal with a company that your insurance provider refuses to insure, and you are stuck with an overdue or a non-payment, you have to bear the loss.
The knowledge of its customers' credit-worthiness is vital to any business. It determines whether, and under what terms, a company will trade with another. Why don't translators recognise this? ▲ Collapse
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Claudio Porcellana (X)
Italy
| Claudio Porcellana (X)
Italy
| | Credit insurance and credit worthiness | Nov 19, 2010 |
Thank you Jared,
My comment was intended to be brief (colleagues tell me I can be very long-winded in forums..), and perhaps I should expand on one or two points:
1. Credit insurance is available for any company, big or small, but to find the right solution for his/her personal situation, a translator needs to shop around. An insurance broker will do that, but (as I think I suggested in my previous posting), the first question is whether the cost of insurance is justified in terms of the possible risk of lost income.
I'm not here to promote any specific insurance company, but this link may be useful:
http://www.gccrisk.com/
and specifically:
http://www.gccrisk.com/facts.htm
2. Whether or not a credit insurance policy is justified, any translator owes it to himself (and his bank manager...) to verify the credit worthiness of his current customers, and even more so, any new customers. This information is available (at a price) from various sources on the Internet, even if the enquirer does not have credit insurance.
3. Other considerations aside, risk increases with geographical distance: if a translator accepts a $5000 job from a new customer 5000 miles away without first undertaking credit checks or obtaining some form of guarantees, he/she is asking for trouble. It is perfectly good business practice to ask for cash with order (or at least a down payment) from a new customer (I once worked for an international group whose credit controller insisted on cash with order from IBM, not having dealt with that company before).
We translators need to remember that we are not our customers' servants: we are their suppliers, and a confirmed order is a contract, with obligations and duties on both sides. The customer's chief obligation is to pay the agreed price on time, and if we have any doubts about his ability or commitment to that, we are entitled to insist on guarantees or advance payment, or walk away from the business, however hard that may be in terms of lost potential income.
Michael G
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