Blacklist I



iFree, Russia

Trouble: rude+late payer 7 months

Email 06/10/14:
"Be aware of doing business with iFree (St. Petersburg, Russia)
I offered translation services to this company only a few times.  No problems at all the first couple of times, but some months ago the situation changed and became very unpleasant. Now the last invoice I sent them (USD 595.08) remains unpaid since last July.
The person who hired my services for this company back then was Dmitri Novikov (http://www.proz.com/translator/120349).  At some point he informed that the invoice was going to be paid in July. It was not. Then Mr. Novikov stopped replying to my emails. He only resumed communication after I threatened to report the whole situation at Proz. He claimed then that he hadn’t replied earlier because he’d been sick. As to my payment, Mr. Novikov told me he couldn’t even “name an exact date” (his words on Skype). At first I was willing to simply sit back and wait (this is the first time I have such problems with a client), but then it dawned on me that it made no sense that I should pay for the company`s mistake. I ended up making a Blue Board entry about the company at Proz (http://www.proz.com/blueboard/42836), but the company didn’t seem to care about this either.

The latest development happened when Mr. Novikov suddenly got in touch with me and informed that a certain Olga Butyagina would be in charge of invoice and cooperation issues. I then sent Ms. Butyagina an email. She quickly informed me that my invoice would be paid at the end of the following week. Again it was not. This time I found it of extremely bad taste to give me hope that I’d be paid for my work and then not paying me once more. After that I sent a few emails to Ms. Butyagina that she didn’t reply to. Then I sent another email informing her that I would try to report the situation on this forum in case my invoice was not paid in 24 hours. She replied 32 minutes later claiming she had been sick in the meantime and had just seen my emails. As you read above, Mr. Novikov had also fallen sick when a similar situation arose, which must be one of those strange coincidences. I replied saying I was glad she had recovered, but I saw no reason not to post this here since the invoice remained unpaid and she’d given me no acceptable alternative.

So I would warn every professional who reads this post to beware of making business with the company and the people involved."

18/02/15: "Hello! Much to my surprise this client paid his debt all of a sudden. Would you please inform about this on the blog?
Thank you very much."
Best,
Edimilson



Inaword, USA 

Stella Hayes Fridman,"retired" non-payer!

"Hello! It's great to have this list. Thanks!
I have a new one to add: Inaword (California). Although this translation company is no longer in operation, I'd love to know if anyone else is owed money by the owner, Stella Hayes Fridman, who refuses to answer emails. She owes me about $2,000 from 2012. Could you please post this? Thanks!
Best,
Beth Markowitz
ATA-Certified Translator (Spanish < > English)"


Instant Translations 

Low rates, suspicious practices

Read a report:  http://www.instanttranslation "I inform you that I've answered to a job post on TranslatorsCafe.com, and when I received the response from the agency, in which they include a link to sign up, once you register you have to activate the account, and you will finally be asked to "verify" your Paypal account by paying USD 1.- to be able to get some work from them.
"Be careful, as this is not the first agency which does the same...
  

Integrated Language Solutions, India

Non payer: Rohini Arora

See report on LinkedIn.
Mail 02/03/14
I was recommended to take a look at your site. What do you need to add a company to your list? I am in the middle of a fight to get paid by: Integrated Language Solutions.
As you can see there are several other translators that have been scammed by Rohini Arora, whom I believe is the only person with this company. I haven't put an entry on the blue board yet, because she can comment and the comments are lies. I have been in touch with a few of the other who have given her bad reviews and they have still not been paid. I also have a support ticket open there to try to get help with pushing her to pay.
I was a fool to get lured in by her, but she paid my first invoice and I thought it would be ok. This seems to be her m.o. Anyways, I want to get the warning out there where ever I can, so no one else gets ripped off by this 'person'.
 


Interconnect Sprachen, Leipzig, Germany 

Low rates, indifferent to good business practices ie unmanageable deadlines, late pay...

"I’d like you to add a pretty shameless agency from Leipzig, Germany.  I’ve worked several times for them and they would only pay on second or third notice. Still, always months after the projects were finished.
I’m also based in Leipzig, Germany. Their rate 70 cents per standard line. The catch is, that this includes VAT, which is not common practice.
Taking VAT into account, the actual rate is €0.567 per standard line. So roughly €0.05 per source word.
At the beginning they promised more and better paid word, yet they never changed their policies. Work I did for them included express work as well as working over weekends and bank holidays. All for roughly €0,05.
I again received an email from them today asking me to translate 17 pages until Friday. (This mail was written on a Wednesday). This Friday is a bank holiday in Germany.
The rate, again €0,567 per standard line.
To sum it up:
They pay very late and have to be reminded several times.  They are apologetic, but that’s their number.  I caught them lying about money orders.
They pay terrible rates and don’t accept surcharges for weekend, bank holiday, or express work.
They don’t seem to be willing to change their policy.
I can prove every single bit of my experience with them. I understand you need some proof, in order to put someone on the list.
Just let me know what you need. I’m happy to provide it.
 Kind regards"

Please find the details about the agency below:Knut Janetschke
INTER.CONNECT SPRACHEN
Übersetzen und Dolmetschen für alle Sprachen



Intersol Inc. (Susanna Turbitt) California (non-payer!!)


"I wasn't paid by Intersol Inc. based in CA: http://intersolinc.com/ Over 3k, invoices due more than one year. This company is owned by one woman Susan Turbitt, but they have PMs, too. She stopped to pay after several years of collaboration - with delayed payments, but with interesting projects. I informed the ProZ community about this. I still didn't get my money from this lady. And she still exists, with many profiles on ProZ (one was blocked by the stuff, after another collegue and later me wrote on the BB about nonpayment)  "
I want to inform you about a really bold non-payer. I mean the lady named Susana Turbitt - a President/CEO of InterSol. Inc. Here is her profile: https://www.linkedin.com/pub/susana-turbitt/4/54b/b74
I started to collaborate with InterSol 5-6 years ago - I was recruited by a PM. They accepted my rate, had interesting jobs and friendly PMs - an exemplary partner. Payments were timely, even if I had some times to remember the person dealing with payment about the deadline. This helped always and was within the pale. This person was the meanwhile departed husband of Mrs Turbitt. Somehow I've got information from my PM she's leaving InterSol, then I didn't hear from them about a year. Later I was contacted by Mrs Turbitt with a translation offer and a new PM was introduced. I noted this gmail address, but it was the 1st or 2nd of January and I supposed he makes a 'working holiday', as myself :) Again, I knew the firm and this was a sufficient warranty for me. I did some bigger translations and corrected a lot of 'works of art' made by somebody else in the period I didn't worked for them (By the way, at the very beginning of our collaboration I was chosen as a leading translator by an affiliate of the end client in Lithuania). The first invoice was paid after many appeals; only promises from accountants followed later about other invoices. I referred to Mrs "CEO and President" Turbitt and got an answer with a request to consider the difficult situation after the death of her husband with the blames on her employees who destroyed the firm that she tries to rescue. And with the information, everybody has to continue working for her without payment (and many do this), because this is the only way to be paid. She owed about 4,000 USD then. I refused to take more jobs and informed peers on ProZ - the stuff has banned her for posting jobs http://www.proz.com/blueboard/1750, but InterSol has many identities with the names of PMs.  (READ REST OF STORY)


InText (insulting rates)

"Proposed translation at $10 a page and editing at $5 a page." 



ISO translations see Universal Translation Services,  

Las Palmas, Gran Canaria :) You bet! (possible SCAM network) Brutal drop of rates in 2013

Email 12/02/14: "I wanted to thank you for your whole blog and your handy black list. I came across it not long ago, while looking for some info in ISO translation on the web I think. Anyway, I've just remembered that some more info were needed about ISO translation, so here  (below) is the email I received after applying (I saw on Linkedin that they were looking for some new translators), maybe it helps.
I replied asking if those rates were negociable, but I did not receive any answer, and this was about one month ago so I guess that it means that they find enough translators working at those rates (!!). Keep your blog, it is great! Best, J."
"Thank you for your email. We are using special software, which is a communication program between the project management and our translators. Without this software, you will not be able to work for us. Please note that you need to have a fast internet connection in order to use the program.

1. If you have applied as a translator, please download the software and register. You will get the possibility to download a test translation. Please upload this test translation again into Tranwise so we can analyse it. ( For example, if you want to register as a French to English translator, look for the French text in the document, translate it into English and upload both source and target language as it's important for our linguists when analyse it.) As soon as your test translation has been approved, you can log into Tranwise with the username and password you have registered and receive all the job announcements in your language combination. You are free to accept the offered translations but also to decline them. In Tranwise you will also see your payment sheet of all the jobs you have translated or proofread for us. In the first week of every month, we transfer the money.
Please note that we offer a fixed rate for translations which is 0.03Euro per word and for proofreading 0.005 Euro per word"
 
Mail (14/03/14) "Hi, I see that you already have an entry on ISO translations. I would like to add the following info.
I got the exact same message, including the all-time kicker:

Please note that we offer a fixed rate for translations which is 0.03Euro per word and for proofreading 0.005 Euro per word.

However, I'd like to point out that I first got a private message (request for Swedish - Dutch translators) via TranslatorsCafé from Universal Translation Services (www.universal-translation-services(dot)com). Apparently ISO translations is a subdivision of Universal Translation Services, based in Las Palmas, sunny Gran Canaria.

I asked if their proposition was meant to be a joke and that I was willing to consider a reasonable offer, but got no reply.
Kind regards, and keep up the good work"



ITRANS 

Bad rates, com, payment practices, up to 7 months late


Email 09/09/14: "I would add IITT to your list.Not only are their rates very low (0.055 USD per source word) but their communication and payment practices are totally unacceptable.
They would send out translations without even asking about your availability. They provide extra short deadlines. But when it comes to payment... they do take their time! It took me 7 months, God knows how many e-mails and involving a translation portal I met them through to finally get paid - in two installments...!
See comments on ProZ: http://www.proz.com/blueboard/1078 (including mine).
They have been banned out from posting jobs on ProZ back in 2009."

2 comments:

Unknown said...

Dear colleagues,
I'd like to add another non-payer to this list: Italia nel Mondo in Poland. Hands off, never ever work for this company, you won't be paid. I did a "very urgent" job for them in April. Now we're in September and I haven't been paid yet. They didn't answer my e-mails after the job was done. Only once did they write me (after my 25th mail), they need a "certificate of residence" from the German tax office, and then I'll get paid. I knew this was a lie, because never any client had asked me for this certificate. But even so, I sent them one. Of course I've never heard from them again since then, and again they don't answer my e-mails. I left a commentary on their facebook page, saying that they don't pay their translators. Then a Russian person (who didn't even introduce himself) wrote me in a horrible, almost unintelligible English, I should "watch my tone" and stop this "slandering" or something like that. I created a record (complaint) in TranslatorsCafe, so at least they are not able to post job offers anymore. As I'm not a paying ProZ member I don't know how to warn colleagues off. I'm thinking about hiring a lawyer in Poland. The problem is, I don't speak Polish. Does anyone know what to do in this case? I guess this will be a never ending story ... Just want to share my horrible experience with those scammers and warn all my translator colleagues not to do any business with them. Kind regards, Julia

Unknown said...

ITALIA NELL MONDO, Bielsko-Biala, Poland
Dear colleagues,
I'd like to add another non-payer to this list: Italia nel Mondo in Poland. Hands off, never ever work for this company, you won't be paid. I did a "very urgent" job for them in April. Now we're in September and I haven't been paid yet. They didn't answer my e-mails after the job was done. Only once did they write me (after my 25th mail), they need a "certificate of residence" from the German tax office, and then I'll get paid. I knew this was a lie, because never any client had asked me for this certificate. But even so, I sent them one. Of course I've never heard from them again since then, and again they don't answer my e-mails. I left a commentary on their facebook page, saying that they don't pay their translators. Then a Russian person (who didn't even introduce himself) wrote me in a horrible, almost unintelligible English, I should "watch my tone" and stop this "slandering" or something like that. I created a record (complaint) in TranslatorsCafe, so at least they are not able to post job offers anymore. As I'm not a paying ProZ member I don't know how to warn colleagues off. I'm thinking about hiring a lawyer in Poland. The problem is, I don't speak Polish. Does anyone know what to do in this case? I guess this will be a never ending story ... Just want to share my horrible experience with those scammers and warn all my translator colleagues not to do any business with them.
Kind regards, Julia