Blacklist R



RC Group (Cyprus) and other names 
Bad practices
 
"Please be aware of the RC Group (Cyprus) and their contacts Victoria Danielyan and Souren Arakelyan. The company also uses the name "Russian Client" and/or "Cyprus Translations".
They do not abide by their own contract regarding the payment terms and agreed rates. They insist on your services 24/7 and when you, for some reason, are not available, they blame you for their failure with their customer, threaten you and in the end do not pay."


Rectangle translations, India 
Ridiculous deadlines and rates

Found on the 05/03/14 on Translator's Café (who are supposed to filter out this kind of rubbish offers under 5 cents):
" Dear All, We are looking for translators who can translate 11k words in 3 days. Domain is technical. Mode of payment - Paypal. Rate 0.03 USD/Word. If interested pls apply for the same."


RED BEE MEDIA 
Subtitles, extremely low rates

"Rates offered : 5 Euros (about 20 cents a subtitle!!) per minute, whatever the text is (in my case it was an eighteen century drama from my native language to my source language, extremely long and "talkative" dialogs."
The normal rate should be (in France) According to the SNAC (french union for subtitlers) 3,9 Euros per subtitle !
Article in French : "Pour le cinéma, le tarif syndical est de 3,90 euros le sous-titre. ... Côté télé, le tarif syndical est de 2,80 euros le sous-titre, mais dans la pratique, les prix varient énormément et peuvent chuter jusqu’à 0,20 euro. Le problème réside dans le fait que notre travail est de plus en plus intégré dans un forfait global facturé sur la durée (à la minute, à l’épisode ou au long-métrage) et négocié entre le producteur ou la chaîne et le postproducteur. » Pour l’Ataa, le mode de rémunération forfaitaire n’est pas satisfaisant car il ne correspond pas au travail réel fourni : en effet, le nombre de sous-titres ou de lignes de doublage d’un documentaire ou d’un long-métrage peut varier du simple au double."



REV. COM 
Subtitles, low rates
 
When I check how my website is doing by googling "German interpreter Orlando", this company comes up very high. So I took a look and was stunned ... You should see this, they list their rates. It's unbelievable: $1/min of audio for transcription (offering 50 cents, it says on the recruiting page. $.12 for translation. Without seeing the text first or even knowing the language??? Yet the website appears so legit with a cool staff photo and all and all these promised regarding quality. "Technology" is supposed to make it all possible. What am I missing that is happening in our industry that makes this viable?"



Rheinschrift 
Constantly late payments, 3+ months

Excerpts from a discussion on LinkedIn:
"I have been working with this agency for some months. I do not want to start a discussion about their rates but rather I would like to point out the constantly late payments. There are not so many entries on the Blueboard of Proz.com but the recent ones speak a clear language. Of all the four invoices I sent them till now, none have been paid on time. I have heard of one colleague who has had the same experience, pointing out that freelancers were told they couldn't pay them because their end clients had not paid yet. Another factor is that you can only create an invoice in the online file management system after a job that you have delivered is approved, which itself can take anywhere from one day (experienced recently) to two weeks or longer... prolonging the period from invoice creation to payment to up to 100 days in some cases (delivery of the translation -> around 2 weeks till job is approved ->creation of invoice -> 60 days till payment (according to contract) -> delay of payment of maybe 2-3 weeks)"
"On another note, I checked this agency's profile on ProZ and they say they belong to German BDÜ (< http://www.proz.com/profile/796007?sp_mode=corp_profile >)? Does this make any sense at all, people? That caught my eye."

"No, that doesn't make sense. However, it always makes sense to check the "Impressum" on a German website. The "Impressum" page on the Rheinschrift website indicates that "Rheinschrift" is rather a brandname of Ursula Steigerwald, a freelance translator and a member of BDÜ, it is not a registered company like GmbH or AG."

Email 10/09/14: 
"Thank you ever so much for compiling this helpful list! I just wanted to add a few comments about Cologne-based company Rheinschrift:
I did a number of jobs for them when I started out as a freelancer in 2012, and right from the beginning, they never paid on time. In the beginning, at least they made an effort to apologise and told me that they were currently in dire straits because of some of their clients not paying, but this was just a temporary problem (haha!), and they really valued their freelancers‘ work etc. When I realized after five or six projects that they were probably never going to pay on time, I stopped accepting their job offers. A few months later, a Vendor Relationship Manager (!) contacted me to enquire why I no longer work for them. I told her that their rates are pretty low anyways and that all of my invoices were paid at least 2 weeks late, usually without any explanation. She was very understanding (probably they hear it five times a week), but more or less ignored my comments about their late paying. Nonetheless, I accepted a very small job for them in spring 2014. Again, payment was delayed. When I investigated, the account told me more or less openly, that the invoiced amount is to small to prompt any immediate action on her side and that I’ll probably just have to wait for another week or so till her colleague is back in the office. This really made me furious. I asked them to transfer the money immediately and to delete me from their records permantly. Luckily, they did both. I strongly discourage everyone from working with this company, unless you are prepared to wait for your money for up to 90 days."



RixTrans - Insulting rates
RixTrans Ltd. - rates of € 0.06 or lower  



Romo Translations 
Bottom feeder offering c. 3 eurocent per word 
Email 07/08/14:
"Here is another agency that pays very low rates. It claims to be based in the UK, but quotes rates in USD:
"Kindly be informed that we pay $50 per 1,000 words. If you are happy with the price, please let us know and we will send you the document so you can have a look.
Kind Regards,

Ana Galvez
Senior Language Project Manager
Romo Translations
Winchester House|3rd Floor
259-269 Old Marylebone Road
London NW1 5RA"

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