Blacklist W

Webgrond Bv- Anne Dijkstra

Bad practises, pressure on lowering rates : 1 cent a word

Type of emails they send : 
"You can look at it this way, we can only pay you 3 cents a word, but each month our customers send us 1.500.000 words, so we can send you work multiple times a week" /"The text is very simple. We understand that there are a lot of highly qualified translators available at proz.com. We do not need those services here. This is a 1,000,000 word job and this has to be done on a certain low budget. We will have a lot more translation work from this particular customer in the near future so if done correctly we will give that to you as well.We pay within 7 days of finishing the job. $0.01 USD to $0.02 USD per word Further payment details: Cheap, but a lot of work. And its simple. "WEBGROND BV- ANNE DIJKSTRA- Netherlands: Translation of gaming website - 50,000 words - 18 languages for a whooping $0.01

Webflakes 

Shameful practices, expecting free work from non-pros

These people should be closed down, read this article, it's infuriating!

 

Web-translation.com 

Spam material, bottom feeder

Email 14/03/14, R.P:

Hello, I want to ask you to blacklist the following associated agencies: Livetranslation.com and web-translation.com

Full article can be found here: http://www.linkedin.com

Reasons for listing:

- a Translator fee of £0.03/$0.05/€0.035 per word exclusive of Value Added Tax (if applicable).

- imposing the requirement of an Insurance Policy, paid by the translator.

Thanks T.E., by R.P.

Weirdoz.de 

Ha. Apparently yes, they're for real

Weirdoz.de (avoid paying their translators)   

Wilson, Evan (Non-payer)

"I have worked for Evan Wilson:

http://www.proz.com/translator/616950 He is a translator who gave me a job 2 years back. He still hasn't paid. Recently I contacted him again and he asked me for one week's time, now 8 days later, he still hasn't bothered to pay. I wrote again, and he says he hasn't received funds from clients and he would pay as soon as he receives funds! His phone doesn't work either... I have now made Blue Board comment at ProZ.com." (LinkedIn thread)

Win All Translation & Language Solutions Co. Ltd. 

Ask for rush translations and don't pay

Website name / winalltranlation.com

Translator's report : They asked him for urgent translations of medical certificates and never paid, it's been two months : "Ils m'ont demandé une traduction urgent de trois certificats médicaux et passés deux mois ils ne m'ont pas payé.

Salutations amicales, P. R"

Win and Winnow (late and low pay)

Email 09/02/2015 :

My name is Romina and I am writing to you in order to tell you my experience with the translation agency Win and Winnow (Argentina).  (http://www.winandwinnow.com/index.php?lang=es)

I worked for that agency for a few months, and I was paid 0,13 cents of Argentinian pesos per new word. As if that were not enough, you get paid in three months because you can send the bill one month after the translation was delivered. And two months after that date, you get paid. 

I would like this to be known, as it is quite a large agency. They have a lot of work and many translators working in such conditions.

Thank you very much.

Best regards

Romina Herrlein

Wiz Corporation 

Fishy, fake information, strange/low offers+non payers: accused of fraud

"When I searched the IP address I discovered it's from Romania. It was sent from email address 'planning@wizcorporation.eu'. Here's the email:"

"Dear X, I am Alain Dubois, project manager of WizCorporation, a translation agency specialised on technical field, but we translate as well other types of files (marketing, legal, medical etc.) As we continue to expand our business we search for new translators that would like to collaborate with us on long term.We pay 8 Euros per folder (1500 characters) and can ensure payments on time, 30 days via Paypal. Please let me know if you are interested in our proposal and available for a collaboration.

I look forward to your feedback.

Are you available for a translation job today?

---

Best regards,

Alain Dubois"

LinkedIn discussion

Report: "This agency still owes me 200 euros for the translation I did for them in July and now they ignore all my emails. Beware!"

Report: "Dear All I have some information about wizcorporation.eu, syncrotranslation.de, wikitrado.net, team-translation.it, transitus-goup.com ..... I'll explain to you who is under they translation agency syncrotranslation.de. This domain is registered under the name of Mihaela Visan who is the girlfriend of Mr Marian Vlad. He is a very ambiguous man who has many translation agencies around the world. one of them is Wikitrado in Cyprus, another is Team Translation, another is Transitus Group in Italy... another is Eurotranslation in Seychelles... Vlas'd father has anothet agency calles Ideal Data Studio in Romania.... the other people involved are Emanuele Anzuini and Cristina di Somma (Vlad's Shareholders in Tranistus group).
Vlad, Di Somma and Anzuini have been calles by the Fiscal Autorities "Guardia di Finanza in Perugia" because they did not pay taxes, tax fraud, false invoices etc.etc... for at least 1.7 million of euros. if you look for Marian Vlad you will find the history of what he did.... interesting look at translator cafe too!!!!
Now it seems that there could be another Traslation agency ( very strange...) wizcorporation.eu, in Romania (IP 86.105.228.1 located close to Rupea in Romania) .......check also the blog "segno di caino.blogspot.com" and search for Marian Vlad!"

Wolfestone translation UK 

Machine translation and insulting rates

Email 10/12/14 

"Good evening,

Below is an "opportunity" I received a couple of months ago from Wolfestone Translation (UK), which is encouraging translators to "post-edit" machine translations for GBP 0.015 per word.

This agency previously told me its standard rate for French-English translations is £40 per 1,000 source words. At that point I asked it to remove my contact details from its database, but apparently it has not done so, so I will share the "opportunity" with readers of your board.

 Date: Friday, 3 October, 2014, 14:42

 "Hi all,

 First of all,

 apologies for the bulk e-mail, but we wanted to offer the

 opportunity to as many of you as possible.

 We’ve recently received several requests to offer post-edited machine

 translation, and were wondering if you were familiar with it or interested in offering it as a service. As a guide for rates, we’re looking at 0.015p/word as a basic rate, depending on the type of

 document, TAT, etc.

   

 We are looking for light editing only, if you’re not sure what to do,

 this article offers some great insight:

 http://translationjournal.net/journal/42mt.htm

 Please let me know whether or not you’re interested and I’ll send you more details.

Word Converters - Hazel Underwood, UK

Proz mentorship: exploitative student crowdsourcing

Email 27/07/14:

"Hazel Underwood (aka Word Converters): advertises own rates on ProZ as 0.10 eur/word, however her main activity is being one of said forum's more prolific mentors to novice translators.

New translators are provided with work and - most importantly for them - feedback and advice. In return, they are expected to work for a rate of just £0.03/word (sometimes even weighted)...

I have heard from a couple of people who have confirmed that no feedback whatsoever is forthcoming, and instead turnaround times are generally extremely short/hours unsociable/no extra payment for intricate formatting/etc. The fact that there would appear to be almost 60 people on their books could explain the lack of feedback - sub(sub)contracting takes time..!

Agencies are perfectly entitled to offer ridiculously low rates, just as translators are free to decide what they accept. What is disturbing/unfair in this case is that it targets novice translators, and the rate is justified by the 'support' angle, which is untrue. ProZ don't seem to care very much about the quality of their programme, which on paper is a great idea, either."

Further details (no official website but company info): https://www.companiesintheuk.co.uk/ltd/word-converters

   

Wordans, Montreal 

Unprofessional, disrespectful

Excerpt from Ripoff report:

Report from a translator : "I asked him if he needed me to finish them at all, as I was uncertain of if he still wanted the translation, to which he finally admitted that no, he did not. Throughout all of this I was a student at school, and I wasted a number of possible studying hours completing this translation. I have recieved no financial compensation, and at the very least I would have hoped that the CEO of the company could have gotten himself together and notified me that he did not want the job completed I am highly unimpressed, and I feel cheated. " wordans.ca, 5605 avenue de Gaspé, Suite 604 Montreal, Quebec Canada

Words Voice 

Bottom feeders with no clue

"Hey there, 

I wanted to let you know about a situation with an agency. 

A person named Fatma Merwan contacted me directly via email asking me for my updated CV and "best rates" (this is where things began to get suspicious). I replied, not with my CV but with my rates, and they replied the following: 

"Dear Virginia,

Thanks a lot for your email, hope everything is okay.

About the rate our company provide 0.02 _ 0.03 USD per word for Spanish

into English and vice versa  translation.

If this is okay with you please inform me.

Regards,

Fatma"

​The email came from 

<fatma@wordsvoice.com>

Their website seems to be www.wordsvoice.com, and they are based in Italy (or so they say. I doubt they have the nerve of offering 2 cents to anyone, much less if they are based in Europe). "

Workplace translation, Leeds, UK. 

Low rates and slow payer

Email 29/06/2014

"Never paid on time, always needed a reminder, until they had "cash flow problems" and paid half on my invoice a month late and the second half another month later. Wanted me to do more work for them, but when I refused to take any more work until my invoice was paid in full, they said, and I quote, "Your late invoice is now back to the bottom of the list". Two of my colleagues had the same problems with them."

Worldbank LLC India 

Dodgy, low rates, NDA

WorldOne, Puebla

"Caution may be advised. According to Payment Practices, there were recent reports of late and non-payment on unidentified WorldOne office (17 offices world-wide) posted to WPPF and Trad Online.  On the other hand, direct responses from 2004-2006 were mostly positive." 
Details available at http://www.paymentpractices.net/Subscribers/Agency.aspx?id=1662 

  

Wolfestone / Eco Trans (Low rates)  

LinkedIn discussion on Wolfestone Translations / Eco Trans: "A couple of weeks ago I got in touch with Eco Trans, a company based in Wales, as I am particularly interested in environmental issues as a specialist area (as well as legal and financial). The people at Eco Trans told me they were owned by Wolfestone Translations, a much bigger outfit. I applied to them, and they sent me an email with a test translation attached. They said however that they saw that my rates were "quite high" and that they normally offered bet. 0,045 GBP and 0,05 GPB p/w. for my combination (GER > ENG). In other words, £45 - 50 per thousand words. I wrote back and said "thanks but no thanks!"

WordDoc (USA) (Non-payers)

WordDoc (US company)" These people don't pay their bills, even after 10 reminders. I've been trying to get payment from them for 5 months now and my e-mails are just ignored. If they do send a reply,..."

WordEdge, India (bottom feeders)

"Look at this stuff from Word Edge: My answer was: please expect to receive millions of greetings from me. For free!

We are discussing a very potential project for translation from

English to Italian. Our Client is a leading enterprise in the automotive industry. We are expecting to receive millions of automotive diagnostic products and software related documents for
translation in to Italian. Based on the volume our current rate for translation is $0.03/word."

LinkedIn discussion

Wordminds 

Decreasing/insulting rates: 0.02 E p w!!

"Hi there!
There is a new job we would like to propose to you:
Required service: Translation
Source-target language: German - French
Field: General
Words: 7676
Rate per word:0.040 EUR
Total amount: 307.040 EUR
Deadline: 11-05-2014 08:00:00 (Central European Time)
Let us know if you are interested to work on it.
Thank you!
PS: You should never start the translation without our final confirmation.
If you don’t want to receive such emails, please let us know
Here is my answer:
Hi there too!
I can do the job!
Would you agree to lower the rate? I can do it for 0.030 EUR...
-----
Kind regards,
And guess what: I had no reply from them yet ;)"

Rest of thread on LinkedIn

June 2014 : down to 2 cents

See this thread

World Services Dublin (bottom feeder)

Email 03/01/15:

"I would like to submit the following name for the list:

World Services Dublin

Their representative, Mr. Walid Tefal, was asking me to translate 3 documents for them from Romanian language into English language for 0.02 USD. I replied immediately and told him the lowest rate I can offer is 0.06 USD and he replied quickly saying he already confirmed with another translator for 0.02 USD. 

I asked them to delete my name from their database but he is still sending me an email from time to time."