| Pages in topic: < [1 2] | Ingenious ways of getting paid Thread poster: Ramunas Kontrimas
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Tom in London
United Kingdom
Local time: 17:22
Member (2008)
Italian to English
Obviously, before the translator takes action to obtain payment, there must be no question that the agency has approved and accepted the translation.
| | | | Kay Denney 
France
Local time: 18:22
French to English
| naming and shaming | Feb 25, 2019 |
Ramunas Kontrimas wrote: Kay Denney wrote:
My point is that very often the client is not in a position to properly assess your work. In the event of a dispute, people are more likely to believe their friend than a mere business acquaintance. Any potential or actual client seeing that you're prepared to name and shame on social medial will decide to look elsewhere. You could tell your client that you wouldn't do it to them since they always pay promptly, but the client heard from their friend that he didn't like the quality of your work. They start thinking maybe they should have looked more carefully at the quality themselves. They think that if ever they do dispute the quality and refuse to pay until you have ironed out whatever issues they found, they'll be named and shamed on social media. Translators being two a penny, they'll easily find someone else.
1 very often the client is not in a position to properly assess your work. -- that's their problem, they should find a way 2 people are more likely to believe their friend than a mere business acquaintance -- unprofessional, but human, I agree 3 They start thinking maybe they should have looked more carefully at the quality themselves -- they should've done that in the first place 4 They think that if ever they do dispute the quality and refuse to pay until you have ironed out whatever issues they found -- a professional translator will always do that but you MUST BE qualified to dispute it 5 they'll be named and shamed on social media -- only after the translator runs out of other means 6 Translators being two a penny, they'll easily find someone else. -- and so will the translator as he won't want such a client around [Edited at 2019-02-22 10:13 GMT]
1) I don't think you can just dismiss that as "their problem". If it weren't a problem for them, they wouldn't be calling on a translator, they could do it themselves. And their way may simply be to ask someone they trust, whether or not that trust is deserved. I'm often confronted with clients telling me that their assistant's brother worked in a London pub for six months and never heard any native speakers using that highly technical term used to describe weaving techniques from the 18th century so it must be wrong. I respond with patient explanations and mostly the client comes to realise that I know my stuff and they can trust me. My best working relationships have been forged this way.
3) Of course. But if they didn't, and now they see an instance of you hanging their friend out to dry on social media, they're not likely to be favourably inclined towards you.
4) We've just established that many clients are not qualified to dispute quality. I always ask for a precise list of grievances and if I don't get one, that means the criticism was not well-founded. Vague remarks like "the style wasn't what we wanted" or "it didn't sound natural" won't wash. Once I have a list of grievances I'll look into each and every one carefully. It may turn out that the previous translator always used a specific term but nobody bothered to tell me. Often I manage to convince the client that whoever assessed my translation did not have as good a command of English as mine.
The fact remains that often, quality is subjective. Especially in marketing which I work a lot in. Sometimes you just have to accept that you can't please everyone. If you hang a client out to dry for non-payment you run the risk of having the client then bring out accusations of providing poor quality. As you conceded above, it's only human to prefer to believe your friend than a random person, so you're running quite a risk there.
5) People scrolling through their newsfeed are not interested in all the details of how you tried to get paid.
6) Sure, you don't want to keep working with a client who doesn't pay. But you could lose other clients and potential clients who would have paid handsomely.
| | | | Kay Denney
France
Local time: 18:22
French to English
Tom in London wrote:
Obviously, before the translator takes action to obtain payment, there must be no question that the agency has approved and accepted the translation.
Obviously. however, on FB people don't necessarily take the time to find out whether the agency did that or whether the translator has sent out polite reminders for the bill or what. They read a post on where their friend is named and shamed by a translator for non-payment, they hear from the friend that the translator didn't do a very good job, they just make a mental note not to use that translator.
| | | | Tom in London
United Kingdom
Local time: 17:22
Member (2008)
Italian to English
Kay Denney wrote:
Obviously. however, on FB people don't necessarily take the time to find out whether the agency did that or whether the translator has sent out polite reminders for the bill or what. They read a post on where their friend is named and shamed by a translator for non-payment, they hear from the friend that the translator didn't do a very good job, they just make a mental note not to use that translator.
I think that if (say) one month has passed since the translation was submitted, or after any queries have been resolved and there have been no further queries about it, it would be reasonable to assume that there are no outstanding quality issues and - therefore - there is no justification for witholding payment in full.
[Edited at 2019-02-25 09:51 GMT]
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Ramunas Kontrimas
Lithuania
Local time: 19:22
English to Lithuanian
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TOPIC STARTER
Kay Denney wrote:
My point is that very often the client is not in a position to properly assess your work. In the event of a dispute, people are more likely to believe their friend than a mere business acquaintance. Any potential or actual client seeing that you're prepared to name and shame on social medial will decide to look elsewhere. You could tell your client that you wouldn't do it to them since they always pay promptly, but the client heard from their friend that he didn't like the quality of your work. They start thinking maybe they should have looked more carefully at the quality themselves. They think that if ever they do dispute the quality and refuse to pay until you have ironed out whatever issues they found, they'll be named and shamed on social media. Translators being two a penny, they'll easily find someone else.
Yes, I agree to many of your points. The discussion is, however, about a situation where the translator did what was expected and the client didn't. Now the client holds both the money and your work, and sits 2000 km away from you. You try this and that and then just walk away for fear of losing some of his friends as would-be clients? As soon as such a client appears on my doorstep (and I know that he's a friend of the first one), I'll ask for 100% upfront payment. Social media in this case is about transparency as much as about payback.
[Edited at 2019-02-25 09:57 GMT]
| | | | Tom in London
United Kingdom
Local time: 17:22
Member (2008)
Italian to English
| Social media | Feb 25, 2019 |
Ramunas Kontrimas wrote:
------ Social media in this case is about transparency as much as about payback.
Badmouthing people on social media is not the way to get paid. There are better ways (as I outlined in a previous post).
[Edited at 2019-02-25 10:27 GMT]
| | | | Ramunas Kontrimas
Lithuania
Local time: 19:22
English to Lithuanian
+ ...
TOPIC STARTER | Not badmouthing - just telling your story to other translators | Feb 25, 2019 |
Tom in London wrote: Ramunas Kontrimas wrote:
------ Social media in this case is about transparency as much as about payback. Badmouthing people on social media is not the way to get paid. There are better ways (as I outlined in a previous post). [Edited at 2019-02-25 10:03 GMT]
| | | | Kay Denney
France
Local time: 18:22
French to English
Tom in London wrote: Kay Denney wrote:
Obviously. however, on FB people don't necessarily take the time to find out whether the agency did that or whether the translator has sent out polite reminders for the bill or what. They read a post on where their friend is named and shamed by a translator for non-payment, they hear from the friend that the translator didn't do a very good job, they just make a mental note not to use that translator. I think that if (say) one month has passed since the translation was submitted, or after any queries have been resolved and there have been no further queries about it, it would be reasonable to assume that there are no outstanding quality issues and - therefore - there is no justification for witholding payment in full. [Edited at 2019-02-25 09:51 GMT]
Sure, but the people witnessing the naming and shaming are not necessarily interested in the details, and they will be the friends of the non-payer.
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Tom in London
United Kingdom
Local time: 17:22
Member (2008)
Italian to English
| Social media | Feb 25, 2019 |
Kay Denney wrote:
Sure, but the people witnessing the naming and shaming are not necessarily interested in the details, and they will be the friends of the non-payer.
- which is why people should stay away from social media. Social media may be a great place for letting off steam and exchanging gossip but it is NOT a way to get paid.
[Edited at 2019-02-25 13:43 GMT]
| | | | Kay Denney
France
Local time: 18:22
French to English
Ramunas Kontrimas wrote:
Yes, I agree to many of your points. The discussion is, however, about a situation where the translator did what was expected and the client didn't. Now the client holds both the money and your work, and sits 2000 km away from you. You try this and that and then just walk away for fear of losing some of his friends as would-be clients? As soon as such a client appears on my doorstep (and I know that he's a friend of the first one), I'll ask for 100% upfront payment. Social media in this case is about transparency as much as about payback.
[Edited at 2019-02-25 09:57 GMT]
I fully understand the situation. OK, the only people who will see the naming and shaming will be the non-payer's friends. You may not be interested in having them as clients, but the fact that they are his friends means precisely that they are more likely to side with him than with you, so I really don't know that it's an effective tactic in the first place.
I wouldn't be that worried about loss of reputation among the friends of a non-payer. However, Internet is a pretty unforgiving place, and your post could easily be copied and circulated well beyond that non-payer's circle of friends. It takes very little for things to go viral, and there are many victims who could spell that out to you better than me.
| | | | | Name and shame | Mar 4, 2019 |
Ramunas Kontrimas wrote:
I'm thinking of forcing a late-payer to pay (naturally, friendly and other reminders haven't worked).
So I though maybe some of you have tried (hopefully, successfully) some non-standard or even outlandish ways of getting paid, like shaming the client on his spouse's FB or similar...
Any thoughts?
It's true what they said, your reputation counts a lot when you are a translator. I actually know a website where you can report the guy and it's anonymous, go to addpaid.com, one friend told me about it and it worked for him. I hope for you as well.
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