Dangerously embarrassing liaisons

Despite all the negative publicity, some of the worst companies featured on my Blacklist are still going. Why oh why??  
Because there are always big translation companies looking for subcontracting. When they are overwhelmed by projects, who are they gonna call? No not you, freelancer. Let me give you a few hints:

It's a moldovan company, which has inspired a few of my posts.
It is known for being an unprofessional and unscrupulous agency pretending to have offices all over the world.
It pays 2 cents a word, provides low quality translations and paying peanuts (more details in my previous article). 
Its managers and staff barely express themselves in the tongue of Shakespeare which makes it hard to believe they call themselves languages professionals.
To remedy to the negative buzz it brought upon itself, this agency choses the cheapest option: threatening translators and bloggers who talk about their dodgy ways (but for some reason, these threats are not exactly taken seriously)...
They don't have the excuse to be located in Chindia but would rather die than admit they are based in Moldova either.

In short, they could well be the worst translation agency ever. 
Haven't guessed yet? Ok I'll tell you then. It's Travod.


Travod has some friends in the business, whom they can lean on : 
These friends are the same bunch of TRANSLATION SWEATSHOPS everyone is complaining about that is:

The Big Word, Transperfect, Translate Plus
Along with some agencies I've never heard about (maybe you have?): RWS, MCIS, Fox Service Czech,  Bio Doc, Alpha Translations, CCJK, PTSGI...

So if you are a translation buyer paying let's say 15 cents to transperfect for what you expect to be a 'perfect' translation (15 cents a word is not enough for a 'perfect' translation, it's not bad but not great either). Well there is a pretty good chance the 'translator' they hire is in fact someone paid 2 cents a word, 4 to 10 times less than a pro. God knows who does the job, but expect it to be worst than what google translate gives you.

Here is how Travod approaches its clients, promising no more than bottom feeder quality and prices, and 40 percent discount for big projects. I let you do the maths.

---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: Rita Gould <rita.g@travod.com>
Date: 16 July 2014 22:49
Subject: Translation rates and discounts - TRAVOD Int. UK

Dear Sir/Madame,

I am sending you an email with the details of our company to see if there is any way we can become a strategic partner in translations. 

We specialize in language translations for agencies, with experts for all the industries and languages on the market. With 3 offices opened in the US, Hong Kong and the UK we work for more than 400 agencies all over the world - translating in all languages mostly. So, whenever you get big and urgent projects hard to complete or you don't have a specialist to translate for a specific industry or language, you could assign the whole translation project to us (translation+editing+proofreading + DTP if needed). 

I can send you few names of some of our biggest customers that outsource with us - The Big Word, Transperfect, Translate Plus, RWS, MCIS, Fox Service Czech,  Bio Doc, Alpha Translations, CCJK, PTSGI etc etc

Attached you can see our regular rates, for your consideration, but of course I am opened to give you discounts up to 40% for larger projects and long-term partnerships that definitely should make you happy working with us :)

Looking forward to hearing back from you!

Rita Gould | Sales Manager T: +13473541821 E: rita.g@travod.com W: www.travod.com

Note: Certificates and reference letters proving the experience available upon request. Translators ready to start immediately if necessary, TRADOS or other related software available.

And talking about maths if you wonder how much they charge to their client, here it is (way too low and that's suppose to feed everyone):

Top pay: French, Icelandic, Swedish, Irish, English, Japanese, Dutch, German: 0.10 USD (basic) 0.11 (medium), 0.12 (Hard). 
The proofreading is extra : 0.05, 0.055, 0.06
Small tasks : 7 USD (0-50 words), 14 USD (50 to 100 words)

All other languages: take off one cent

Basically, when they pay you 0.02 USD, they keep 0,08 for themselves. Nice margin for doing nothing isn't it? Then Transperfect resells your translation and makes another 0.05 or more. That's quite probably what happens.

To view the price list contact Translation Ethics at translationethics@gmail.com