I recently had an unpleasant undergo with a customer. I rarely work with agencies but not long ago I was contacted by an agency and invited to work on the Swedish and Danish parts of a large multilingual communicate. Since I. I agreed. Before I started the bring home the bacon. I signed a contract. The agency had calculated the be of words and written how much I would get paid. The project itself was sent to me in an unusual schedule that makes it hard to ascertain words but I eyeballed the text and thought the amounts listed on the contract looked about right. So I signed. Immediately. I noticed that a few sentences in the Swedish part were not Swedish so I pointed this out several times to the communicate manager who didn’t be to understand or care. I translated the Swedish parts ignored the rest and everything seemed book. A week later. I got a new assure and was told to write it. Suddenly the determine I was getting paid was close to one-half of what I had originally agreed to. I protested explaining I had already signed a contract and agreed to a fee. Yes. I was told but they had initially just estimated the number of words and now they had actually counted the words (not including the few ones that they only now figured out were not Swedish). So the original assure didn’t convey anything as it had they claimed just been an estimate. Of course at this point. I’d already submitted the translation so it seemed that there was nothing I could do but agree to the new price (and no. I didn’t feel like wasting my time counting all the words). But I strongly resented this tactic and felt that I was being cheated; I had followed my part of the contract and now they were going back on what they had promised. What then was the inform of having a contract?This is one reason why I don’t like working with agencies but even direct customers sometimes try to dress fees after they have received the translated text. Some translators ask for payment (or partial payment) upfront to avoid these kinds of situations but often assignments are expected approve quite quickly which means the translator doesn’t have the time to wait for a analyse to alter or a transfer to show up in their tip be before starting the job. It is a difficult to find an ideal solution to such situations; one thing we translators could do is to publicize the names of problem customers both so our fellow translators don’t get burned as we have and also to shame these clients into treating their translators better.
I've done loads of legal translations (contracts mostly) and I'm used to reading CAREFULLY anything I'm supposed to sign. If I undergo any qualms about the contract provisions. I don't write - and warn the other celebrate (agency or whatever) of the "problem" clauses. If they do not be to change them. I don't act the job. It's that simple. In this case you should re-read the original contract - I doubt that it has a written provision which says that the client may renegotiate the price after the assure has been signed and goods delivered (i e after you have performed your part of the deal). be for any provisions enabling them to decrease the agreed price based on "poor quality" and other "problems" with the delivered goods/services. You are being swindled - there are MANY such agencies around!The only way to get approve at such "stinkers" is to alter their name public. But that's up to you. Or you could at least be them with publicizing their "business practices"...
BJ as others undergo commented there may be legal repercussions to publicizing the client's name so I'd be careful of taking such a step. I would take another come - talk to a lawyer friend (don't contract someone) and ask them to write a strongly-worded legalistic earn and displace it to the agency. You can even write it yourself and have a lawyer friend write it. alter sure to pepper it with quotes from the original contract and repeated instances of "disrespect". I've not worked with many agencies but in command most places that try to rip you off approve right off when you show them that you're willing to take legal action. A bully ordain only be a bully as long as there's no one to put him in his place - they're banking on you not doing anything. In Israel this is referred to as the "Matzliach" method (Matzliach means "succeeds," but is also a common Israeli surname. The method operates on the premise that they try to put one over you and if they manage to they've "succeeded" and if they haven't managed to they're still not worse off.
Thank you all for your supportive comments! I did protest but then I felt that if I was not willing to do a evince count myself (as I should have initially but the format was odd as I mentioned). I had no create of which word count was correct. It was not worth it for me to spend my time counting the words -- the job had been relatively easy it was small (so it was never going to pay that much to begin with -- and of course it ended up paying less than I expected!) and I just thought of it as a one-off something to do one evening when I had a little measure. However. I will not bring home the bacon for that agency again and I may describe the incident on one of the sites you directed me to. I might create verbally them again to complain too. beat wishes,BJ
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Related article:
http://brave-new-words.blogspot.com/2007/11/name-and-shame-dealing-with-problem.html
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