Introduction - I am naming some names in this piece. If the parties concerned do not like the publicity or the comments, then there is a simple answer - pay me IMMEDIATELY the money that you owe me for the work that I have legitimately undertaken and produced and delivered by the date agreed, and I will amend this article accordingly. No apology will be forthcoming from me for publishing the article in the first place. And I will settle for nothing less than complete payment - though the comments below do make certain allowances which should be taken into account.
Definition - someone who works full time (= employment, even on a freelance basis) and does not get paid anything for the job that he/she undertakes is a SLAVE! Someone who gets someone to undertake work for nothing (even with the promise of financial reward for the work) is not merely a scammer, but is ENCOURAGING AND SUPPORTING SLAVERY! Think about that for five minutes!
Status - I dislike (intensely) being self-employed. I also did not want to find myself forced to live on government handouts. I want(ed) a full time salaried job in IT. After my heart attack in 2008 I found that the number of people prepared to even consider offering me opportunities in that area was very low. It could be down to age, health considerations (I am fully recovered incidentally) or the international economic crisis (I saw summat on CNNI on Spain's unemployed this week - gruesome and unacceptable - time for action, not for a permanent shrug of the shoulders from the inept politicians and the gamblers on the world's stock exchanges!).
Anyway in 2011 I decided to start working as a translator (something I had done before on an occasional basis). With my background as a modern languages graduate and a former secondary school languages teacher in England, there should have been been possibilities.
I checked out my competence at the Frankfurt branch of the leading language service provider Kern AG (they were suitably impressed) and filled out the form with which they provided me. I have picked up a good amount of work from them - in fact they are my best customer. I have also scouted the Internet for opportunities. I have picked up contacts in Spain, France, Hungary, Lithuania, Cyprus, Belgium, the UK, the USA and Austria among others. By the end of October there were no complaints about the volume of work. In fact there was in September and October probably far too much.
On reaching October 30th, I had worked 87 out of the previous 91 days (that includes weekends), and a lot of the days were 12-13 hours long. No matter how talented you are the demands on your concentration are intense, and sometimes you are prone to error due to tiredness rather than incompetence. But legitimate companies should have ways to deal with errors in the work that they receive (see later - this point is crucial).
Methodology - to produce the work I follow a 6-stage structured process. This never changes.
1. Read the piece to be translated.
2. Prepare a first draft.
3. Working from the original and the first draft, produce the body of the translation.
4. Check the work against the original, correct grammar and spelling, and enhance the phraseology and choice of vocabulary.
5. Recheck for grammatical errors and incorrect phraseology. Look for further enhancements.
6. Read the near final translation strictly as a piece of English, ignoring the original. Where it sounds artificial, not fluent, or like a too strict translation (i.e. it sounds for instance like German or French or Dutch English rather than UK English) change it referring to the original where necessary.
I no longer use computer program generated translators like Trados. My copy of Trados (which needs updating to the latest version - I do not have the money to buy it) is on my old PC which broke down at the start of 2012 (and I do not have the money available to repair it). Trying to load it on the laptop has proved impossible due to permissions required on the laptop not being accessible. And anyway I was not that good at using Trados, and the IT specialist that I was for over 20 years was not overly impressed with the software!
The translation is sent after the 6 stage process described above almost invariably on the date agreed with the client. If I am going to be late, even by a couple of hours, they are informed accordingly. There is usually (but not always) a contract involved which gives the date and time for receipt and, significantly (see later) the date for payment for the work to be issued.
Despite my experience as a linguist, despite the rigid procedure adopted as above, I cannot expect perfection 100% of the time. I have also expectations from the client side, at least when I am dealing with an agency. Along these lines:
1. Quality control. Upon receipt of the work, it is proofread.
2. If there are obvious errors it is returned to me for correction.
3. Where I accept the errors (that means the recommended changes are in fact errors and not simply alternatives which the proofreader prefers for personal reasons), the translation is corrected.
4. The "final" copy is returned to the client who then sends it to the customer.
I have no concern about having a proofreader correcting my work. This ensures that the final piece will be of the quality that is expected by the client. There is no pride involved here. We are not infallible. Sometimes in the words of the David Powter song "You've had a bad day" - sometimes no matter how hard you work, how structured your methodology is and how much you try to concentrate, you miss things. When under stress, working hours that are far too long, and not taking some breaks as you should, the quality is occasionally substandard - and considerably below your own expectations.
My view is that these should be picked up in stage 1 in the client expectations (quality control). Normally they are.
In my experience there is a 97-98% level of efficiency in providing the work that meets the client customer's requirements. There have, however, been 6 substandard pieces (2 of them in the same week in October, obviously the product of overwork and stress) issued to the customers out of over 200 produced in the 20 months that I have been undertaking this work full time. My normal policy, if this occurs, is to either accept a reduced payment or to withdraw any claim for payment entirely. I value my professional reputation. I am also an honourable person, I only wish that I could say the same for some of the people with whom I am dealing!
Payment and invoicing - invoices are usually issued on the day after delivery of the translation, although with regular customers I occasionally leave them and send later an invoice covering a number of pieces of work. The invoice states (in line with what I was informed when I started out) that payment is expected "within 14 days". This needs amending to "by xx/xx/xxxx" where "xx/xx/xxxx" is the due date stated in the contract.
Most clients are reliable when it comes to making payment, in fact one of the three who are currently negligent used to be very reliable in the past (see later). One client who notably does not issue contracts has proved the post reliable payer of the lot - so the lack of a contract is not in fact necessarily a "bad thing".
Payment dates vary. Often the standard is on the final day of the following month - although my customers in France and Belgium (see also later) insist upon the final day of the month after 2 clear months. As long as you know where you stand, this should not be a problem.
Grounds for non-payment - if the work is substandard, then there should be dispute procedures established where payment can be challenged. I have no problem with this. As stated above I will accept reduced payment, or even complete denial of payment where necessary.
There are points that need establishing here though.
1. Challenging payment of the invoice should occur before the due date has been met. It is ridiculous to leave a piece of work unchallenged for something like 2-3 months before raising issues and claiming inadequacies in the work. Frankly it looks like a way of copping out on due payment. "Honourable", business-like it is not!
2. The translation deemed "substandard" and the invoice attached to it should stand as independent entities from any other translations and invoices associated with them. That means that there should be no delay in meeting payment on the the due date of work that is not under dispute. To do otherwise is a clear violation of accepted business practices.
On the boxes of tomatoes principle. If a supplier sends boxes of tomatoes to a distributor with separate invoices on a weekly basis, and all those boxes contain satisfactory items for 5 weeks, any box sent in the 6th week with rotting produce must be judged on its own merits, and any dispute regarding payment should apply purely to that delivery.
Where this is a significant issue (the receiving of rotten fruit), then the distributor can look also at ending the trade relationship with the supplier. But refusing to pay for goods that were delivered in good order before the problem arose is unacceptable, as these met the contract requirements originally agreed.
That is my understanding of the situation following (unofficial) discussions with an acquaintance who understands legal business practices within Germany.
The current problem - As of now I am owed a sum of approximately 3,275 Euro on invoices that have been properly issued for work legitimately undertaken and completed (without notification of any challenge, see above), and which should have been paid by December 1st. In fact the due date in most of these cases is considerably before December 1st (see below).
This is not money which is surplus amounts for fun outings or buying beer - it is serious money that is needed to cover basic living costs, costs incurred by the work that I undertake (repairing the PC finally, getting up-to-date Microsoft Word software usw) and important little matters like meeting my obligations to the German tax authorities and paying health insurance! And paying off the one debt that I have taken out (interest free from a close friend).
If you are Mitt Romney, Richard Branson, Carlos Slim usw, that money is chicken-feed. To me it is my livelihood that is involved.
As of this morning I have €518 in my bank account. I have a payment of €205 due from a reliable supplier (Kern AG), which will probably arrive next week. This means that I will be able to pay the rent (late!), but insufficient funds will be available to pay my health insurance costs which are due in the middle of the month, and sufficient funds need to be in the account by January 11th. Go without medical insurance? After all it was only a heart attack that I had in 2008, so should I worry too much about the medication that I am taking?
Ask my wife for money? She has nothing spare - there are other obligations in the house that she has to meet (utility and telephone bills, food usw).
Take out a loan? On what basis - I have no guarantee that the money that I am due will be paid, and why should I incur interest charges because other people aren't paying me? If they are prepared to pay the interest charges I might consider it. But this taking out loans without due consideration of non-payment in the future is one of the major reasons why the world landed in an economic crisis in 2008.
Because other people want to snort economic heroin regardless of the consequences does not mean that I have to follow suit. I am not that daft!
So where do I go with this?
I have no satisfactory answer. I SHOULD NOT EVEN BE IN THE SITUATION WHERE I HAVE TO WORRY ABOUT THIS! The money is due, it should be paid immediately, there are no acceptable grounds for non-payment, and that is the only satisfactory resolution to the problem. If I were dealing with honourable people, the problem would also not exist!
Did I mention lawyers maybe? I have already sought legal advice unofficially. The view that I heard expressed was that where 2,700 Euros worth was retrievable, but as there would be potentially substantial legal costs to find .... It remains an option though not one that I would choose to follow.
The negligent payers
1. A name that makes me wince whenever I think about it - Ralph William. His name came off an advert on translationdirectory.com in July 2011. I produced 13 pieces of work of undisputed quality for him (one further I withdrew). An invoice was issued to him on 23/8/11 for US$ 657.98 (approximately €480 at the time).
Since that time I have heard twice from him saying that he would pay me as soon as possible, but the last of these was at the start of 2012. In the second he also indicated that he had had to have surgery, hence the delay.
This seems to me to be an unlikely story. I suspect that he has done some work as a translator himself and has been using other people to produce work for him, claim the work as his own and keep the money for himself. In other words an out and out scammer.
Where he is, address, telephone number usw I do not possess. Only an email address. I sent an email asking for more details, needless to say I got no reply. Obviously I should have been more careful, and not done the work for him in the first place. As no contract was issued either, he could deny any such arrangement, although in case of any legal investigation, I have kept every one of his emails!
If he does want to redeem his reputation, he can write to me, send his address and other details, and send the money by direct credit transfer (SWIFT - I am not prepared to wait any longer than necessary) to the bank account in Germany given on the invoice. And for the record the German tax authorities will be informed about the invoice.
If anyone knows anything further about this character, please let me know.
2. JTI Development (also known as Juristraduction) in Neuilly-sur-Seine, France. They used to be extremely reliable. Since May this year they have become a perennial disaster story. They owe me €917.29 for for invoices issued in May and due for payment at the end of July, €395.70 for an invoice issued in June and due for payment at the end of August, and €185.68 for an invoice issued in August and due for payment at the end of October. Add that lot together, it comes out at €1,498.67.
There has been plenty of communication between us on this, though this tends to be principally one-way. I was told that I might expect a payment at the end of October, that was not forthcoming. I have been pursuing this ardently since with little success. Currently I have four unanswered emails awaiting replies.
The argument for the late payment (in a mail that I received earlier this year) was summat on the lines of their not receiving payment from their clients, so they could not pay me.
Frankly the second part of this statement is a non-sequitur anyway. They have received the work on the date agreed, there have been no significant questions regarding quality, and their contract with me states that the payment date would be at the end of the month following 60 days grace. Any problems for dealing with their clients should be subject to their own procedures (and the legal procedures applying in France) - I do not see that I should be affected. My side of the contract has been met (and see above for the consequences of the non-payment).
3. 2B Translated in Belgium
They may have a case but not much of one IMHO. There was one piece of work that was returned as substandard (first of a series of three) just before I was due to leave for Thailand at the end of October. I made a number of changes as requested, and pointed out that I could not (due to lack of available materials - my wife decided that taking the laptop with us was out of the question) deal with anything further for three weeks. Given also the state of exhaustion in which I found myself at the time, taking the first break in nearly two years made sense.
I received confirmation from them when I returned that they would be in touch about this piece of work - I have heard nothing further since.
They had though decided not to proceed with payment of invoices for work PROPERLY AND DULY DELIVERED AND NOT SUBJECT TO QUALITY ISSUES before the "substandard" piece of work. The first of these invoices, for €132.15 should have been paid on October 1st - before I even set to work on the "substandard" piece of work! That they forgot to pay it is not untypical. They have a habit of being late, and if I do not send them reminders that payment of invoices is due, I am unlikely to receive any money from them.
Professional organisations should be aware of when their obligations to make payments that are due - they should not need reminders.
The remaining payments (€177,05 due at the end of October for work performed in August and €986.85 due at the end of November for work carried out in September) should have been paid according to the "boxes of tomatoes" principle explained above. A total of €1,296.05 is being held back with the consequences again as described above.
Following my unofficial discussion about the questionable legality of the reasons for non-payment, I wrote a very long letter to them explaining the situation, the problems that it was causing and offering to withdraw the invoice for the disputed "substandard" work (or accepting a partial payment only). There is a precedent for this where one such piece of work was sent to Kern AG in Germany. They paid all the invoices issued before the disputed piece, all the invoices after it, and offered a partial payment for the piece in question. Which is probably as well as I would now very likely be sleeping on the street if they had not!
This letter was sent in an email to 2BT on December 16th. I have, surprise, surprise, received no reply. No money? Of course not.
Final statement - I expect some reaction from these people. Where disputes exist on work issued and the due date on invoices has not yet been reached, then I am open to negotiation. I am, I repeat, an honourable person. Unfortunately in this world where cynicism, bloody-mindedness and throwing honest hardworking people to the dogs seem to be the modus operandi, getting any sort of satisfactory response seems increasingly unlikely. And then if none is forthcoming - given the critical situation explained above .....
Crazy messed up world :-(
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