| Pages in topic: [1 2] > | How to deal with ''5 star agencies'' Thread poster: Iuliana Bozkurt
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Iuliana Bozkurt 
Romania
Local time: 19:36
Member (2008)
English to Romanian
+ ...
Hello everybody,
I would like to share with you a situation which sort of left me puzzled.
In June I had the (mis)fortune to work for 2 translation agencies who had a BB rating of 5/5. I was glad I had acquired 2 trustworthy new clients, much praised by fellow colleagues.
The bad part started 2 months later, when I still had not received my payment from these new clients. One of the agencies kept telling me ''tomorrow, tomorrow'' (reminds me of a Latin prov... See more Hello everybody,
I would like to share with you a situation which sort of left me puzzled.
In June I had the (mis)fortune to work for 2 translation agencies who had a BB rating of 5/5. I was glad I had acquired 2 trustworthy new clients, much praised by fellow colleagues.
The bad part started 2 months later, when I still had not received my payment from these new clients. One of the agencies kept telling me ''tomorrow, tomorrow'' (reminds me of a Latin proverb: cras do, non hodie, sic nego cotidie). While the other one did not even bother to reply to my e-mails.
Of course, to ''shake'' them up'' a bit, I posted 2 1-star ratings on their BB pages. Miraculously, they reacted instantaneously. Within 30 minutes I had received my money in full. And they even dared to be pissed off at me, telling me I had no ethics and that I am mean! Poor them, they never received my e-mails and, also, my invoices got lost! They sounded both like an old broken record.
Now the true issue arises: I was sort of blackmailed. We will pay you, but you MUST remove the BB entry, so that everybody should see that we have an impeccable business conduct. I must admit that, after receiving the money, I did delete the entries. Now I am thinking: should I still put a not-quite-positive remark on their BB page? Should I really be the first to spoil perfect reputations? Maybe my case was isolated (taking into account that 1 agency had 70 5-star ratings) and I would not want to stain someone's image. Especially since online image is so very important for all of us...
Would you easily assign a ''never ever again'' rating to an agency who, apparently, is an excellent outsourcer? Wouldn't you think twice? I am glad that I solved MY issue, but I feel like these agencies somehow... got away unpunished...
Thank you for your insights!
Iuliana ▲ Collapse
| | | | Diana Coada (X)
United Kingdom
Local time: 17:36
Portuguese to English
+ ...
| Write your comments again! | Sep 11, 2012 |
There should be no forgiveness for ''apparently'' excellent outsourcers. If other translators had a good experience with them, fine, but you did not. Also, report their blackmailing emails to ProZ staff.
| | | | Suzanne Smart (X)
United Kingdom
Local time: 17:36
Italian to English
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| Don't let other translators go through the same thing | Sep 11, 2012 |
I agree with Diana. You should reflect your experience accurately on the Blue Board. Otherwise other translators will keep on falling into the same trap that you did. I bet you're not the first person to have had this experience with these agencies.
| | | | | Posting a factual LWA is important | Sep 11, 2012 |
Hi Iuliana,
First of all, it is great that you got paid in the end! That's truly important. However, I think it is equally important to let your colleagues know about these particular outsources' deficiencies and practices. If they lose emails and invoices occasionally, why not make it a public knowledge - it could be a hint that one needs to be more persistent with them when it comes to payment? They still have a chance to redeem themselves by posting a polite and professionally wo... See more Hi Iuliana,
First of all, it is great that you got paid in the end! That's truly important. However, I think it is equally important to let your colleagues know about these particular outsources' deficiencies and practices. If they lose emails and invoices occasionally, why not make it a public knowledge - it could be a hint that one needs to be more persistent with them when it comes to payment? They still have a chance to redeem themselves by posting a polite and professionally worded response to your LWA comment where they could acknowledge the problem and the steps taken to fix it. If I came across such an exchange when checking through an outsourcer's record, I wouldn't really hold it against them.
P.S. I am about to post my first ever negative LWA in the next few days (I decided on a specific date to do it, if not paid by then) for an outsourcer whose record is so far flawless. One thing I am sure about though, is that once posted, my negative entry would remain there for good. It is because I exhausted all other means of communication with them and am long past any negotiations )) ▲ Collapse
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Tom in London
United Kingdom
Local time: 17:36
Member (2008)
Italian to English
How to deal with ''5 star agencies'' in the Blue Board?
I'd say with a large pinch of salt. Some of them are just too good to be true and yes, Iuliana, I have had the same experience as you have and I've seen other reports of the same thing, although I don't know if this practice is widespread or not.
In my case I decided to tell the agency that I would change my entry when I got paid.
I then changed my entry but made it worse, not better, and I carefully ... See more How to deal with ''5 star agencies'' in the Blue Board?
I'd say with a large pinch of salt. Some of them are just too good to be true and yes, Iuliana, I have had the same experience as you have and I've seen other reports of the same thing, although I don't know if this practice is widespread or not.
In my case I decided to tell the agency that I would change my entry when I got paid.
I then changed my entry but made it worse, not better, and I carefully reworded my comments to accurately reflect how the agency had behaved.
In my opinion their unethical attempt to abuse the BB deserved that type of response. I think it's up to us translators to keep the Blue Board credible by cleaning out the charlatans who try to blackmail us into cheating it.
This is because on so many occasions I have found the Blue Board incredibly useful - one of the best features of Proz.com - but not if unscrupulous agencies try to manipulate it for their own advantage.
So now, any time I see that an agency has got an endless string of 5s and glowing comments, I'm always suspicious.
Hopefully the good people at Proz may be able to work out some way of making it impossible to post anything on the BlueBoard until payment has actually been received. I wonder if that's possible?
[Edited at 2012-09-11 13:50 GMT] ▲ Collapse
| | | | Samuel Murray
Netherlands
Local time: 18:36
Member (2006)
English to Afrikaans
+ ...
| Give them a 3, if they deserve a 3 | Sep 11, 2012 |
Iuliana Isac wrote:
Now the true issue arises: I was sort of blackmailed. We will pay you, but you MUST remove the BB entry, so that everybody should see that we have an impeccable business conduct. I must admit that, after receiving the money, I did delete the entries.
Now I am thinking: should I still put a not-quite-positive remark on their BB page?
1. If I understand correctly, you would not be able to. You can only comment on a Blue Board record once per year (though you can edit your entries in limited cases for some time). And you can only add another entry for those agencies 1 year from now if you had done any paid work for them between now and 1 year from now. This is how I understand it.
2. The number that you give to a client on the Blue Board is defined by ProZ.com as follows:
What is an LWA?
In a blue board record, LWA is short for a service provider's self-expressed "likelihood of working again" with a given outsourcer. It is a number from 1 (very unlikely to work again) to 5 (very likely to work again).
So, do you plan to work for these clients again (if they were to offer you any jobs)? If so, then they deserve at least a 3. I'm not sure whether you can still give them a 3, but if you can, I see no problem in you posting your old comment, with an added note about the blackmail (though don't call it that). Note that if you don't word your comment carefully, you're unlikely to make friends.
If a client gets lots and lots of entries in the Blue Board, then the high ratings will drown out the low ratings eventually, if they mostly deserve high ratings. I just wonder how many others like you have removed their ratings, just to get paid... hence the 5/5 record.
This is just my opinion.
Samuel
| | | | Sheila Wilson
Spain
Local time: 17:36
Member (2007)
English
+ ...
| Now you know how they... | Sep 11, 2012 |
Iuliana Isac wrote:
had a BB rating of 5/5.
I was sort of blackmailed. We will pay you, but you MUST remove the BB entry, so that everybody should see that we have an impeccable business conduct. I must admit that, after receiving the money, I did delete the entries.
ProZ.com will still have those BB entries you made, Iuliana. IMO, rather than writing new reviews, you should reinstate those by sending a support ticket and informing staff of this blackmail. It is totally against the rules (and rightly so).
[Edited at 2012-09-11 13:47 GMT]
[Edited at 2012-09-11 13:48 GMT]
| | | | Cristiana Coblis
Romania
Local time: 19:36
Member (2004)
English to Romanian
+ ...
First of all, in my opinion, BB records should be taken with a grain of salt. I personally always double check using other resources.
Your experience is not entirely singular. I went through something similar some time ago. After numerous reminders left unanswered, a stellar agency finally paid the invoice. I went to BB and left them a 3, which I though was fair. Then, I received a phone call from the vice-president of that company to ask me to change it. We had a very polite conversation... See more First of all, in my opinion, BB records should be taken with a grain of salt. I personally always double check using other resources.
Your experience is not entirely singular. I went through something similar some time ago. After numerous reminders left unanswered, a stellar agency finally paid the invoice. I went to BB and left them a 3, which I though was fair. Then, I received a phone call from the vice-president of that company to ask me to change it. We had a very polite conversation where I explained why the rating was a 3, he apologized but asked me to change the rating and I refused, as it reflected my experience. Still working for that company to this day, when I choose to.
I have knowledge that other colleagues have been contacted by various outsourcers to change their ratings. It also is rather obvious that some comments and ratings are not that objective and describe grey zone situations.
I can honestly say that I had great cooperation at good rates with agencies that have a 2-3 star rating in BB, but do not care enough about their BB record as to contact people and ask them to change their ratings.
It depends on how you choose to use BB. If you use it as a tool to get payment in desperate situation, then you've accomplished your goal. If you use it to reflect your actual experience, then you should not remove or change your record, rather you can add another record to say that things improved.
All in all, BB is still a useful tool, although it leaves a lot of room for subjectivity. ▲ Collapse
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Iuliana Bozkurt
Romania
Local time: 19:36
Member (2008)
English to Romanian
+ ...
TOPIC STARTER
Samuel Murray wrote:
1. If I understand correctly, you would not be able to. You can only comment on a Blue Board record once per year (though you can edit your entries in limited cases for some time). And you can only add another entry for those agencies 1 year from now if you had done any paid work for them between now and 1 year from now. This is how I understand it.
Dear Samuel,
nice seeing you around - you know me by my recently changed name, Iuliana Bozkurt .
I just wanted to tell you that, apparently, you can submit a ticket asking the proz.com staff to remove your entry for a specific outsourcer. Even if you made that entry, say, 1 day before. This is how my entries got deleted anyway.
I think I will indeed put another entry on the BB, especially for one of these perfect outsourcers, who was really nasty.
Cheers!
| | | | Iuliana Bozkurt
Romania
Local time: 19:36
Member (2008)
English to Romanian
+ ...
TOPIC STARTER
Cristiana Coblis wrote:
First of all, in my opinion, BB records should be taken with a grain of salt. I personally always double check using other resources.
Your experience is not entirely singular. I went through something similar some time ago. After numerous reminders left unanswered, a stellar agency finally paid the invoice. I went to BB and left them a 3, which I though was fair. Then, I received a phone call from the vice-president of that company to ask me to change it. We had a very polite conversation where I explained why the rating was a 3, he apologized but asked me to change the rating and I refused, as it reflected my experience. Still working for that company to this day, when I choose to.
I have knowledge that other colleagues have been contacted by various outsourcers to change their ratings. It also is rather obvious that some comments and ratings are not that objective and describe grey zone situations.
I can honestly say that I had great cooperation at good rates with agencies that have a 2-3 star rating in BB, but do not care enough about their BB record as to contact people and ask them to change their ratings.
It depends on how you choose to use BB. If you use it as a tool to get payment in desperate situation, then you've accomplished your goal. If you use it to reflect your actual experience, then you should not remove or change your record, rather you can add another record to say that things improved.
All in all, BB is still a useful tool, although it leaves a lot of room for subjectivity.
Dear Cristiana,
I liked your distinction between the reasons why we use the BB. To be honest, I use it in both cases: when I have an excellent collaboration with someone and I am so happy about that that I want everyone to know it, OR when I find myself in the unpleasant position of chasing my money. Nonetheless, I think I will put another comment for those agencies, at least to make my colleagues aware that they can expect difficulties in receiving their payment.
Thanks,
Iuliana
| | | | Tom in London
United Kingdom
Local time: 17:36
Member (2008)
Italian to English
| A reminder... | Sep 11, 2012 |
Further to my earlier post above, on a positive note:
This thread has reminded me that I've been too lax about giving *good* Blue Board comments and ratings to the *good* agencies for whom I've worked.
I've just added one now- and I'd remind colleagues not to forget to do it !
[Edited at 2012-09-11 14:20 GMT]
| | | | Cristiana Coblis
Romania
Local time: 19:36
Member (2004)
English to Romanian
+ ...
Iuliana Isac wrote:
Dear Cristiana,
I liked your distinction between the reasons why we use the BB.
Well, this is how most people use it. Some even use it for revenge or punishment, which becomes quite apparent in some comments. I do think however that most people use BB to either post very positive or very negative experiences, but not so much in between. I mostly use it to pre-qualify potential clients and decide what to charge them. Some people feel entitled to add a 1 or a 2 to a BB record, I mostly feel entitled to add to my rates when quoting to some outsourcers, I find this is more effective
Nonetheless, I think I will put another comment for those agencies, at least to make my colleagues aware that they can expect difficulties in receiving their payment.
I would be curious if that is possible. Rules say you have to wait a year and have another project to report on. In any case, you can still use other such boards to record your experience if you choose to.
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neilmac
Spain
Local time: 18:36
Spanish to English
+ ...
| Avoid them like the plague | Sep 11, 2012 |
How to deal with ''5 star agencies''? - Don't, if you can avoid it. In my experience, the glossier the websites and the more "professional" they claim to be, the more demanding they tend to be and the more hassle it is working with them.
CAVEAT: I do usually wait for 90 days before throwing a hissy fit though, as Spanish companies are notoriously less "urgent" when it comes to stumping up the readies.
[Edited at 2012-09-11 17:20 GMT]
| | | | JaneD
Sweden
Local time: 18:36
Member (2009)
Swedish to English
+ ...
| Native language exposure | Sep 11, 2012 |
neilmac wrote:
How to deal with ''5 star agencies''? - Don't, if you can avoid it. In my experience, the glossier the websites and the more "professional" they claim to be, the more demanding they tend to be and the more hassle it is working with them.
CAVEAT: I do usually wait for 90 days before throwing a hissy fit though, as Spanish companies are notoriously less "urgent" when it comes to stumping up the readies.
[Edited at 2012-09-11 17:20 GMT]
Just to go completely off topic, I do like to read neilmac's posts as they remind me how English sounds as she is truly spoke; "stumping up the readies" sounds just like the kind of thing I would say to blank looks from my Swedish friends!
Back on track - I rely on the Blue Board as a serious resource, and I would definitely be wary of any agencies that employed such dubious tactics, so I very much appreciate contributions to the BB by colleagues who have been on the receiving end of them.
Jane
| | | | John Fossey
Canada
Local time: 12:36
Member (2008)
French to English
+ ...
| Just tell the truth | Sep 11, 2012 |
Iuliana Isac wrote:
I must admit that, after receiving the money, I did delete the entries. Now I am thinking: should I still put a not-quite-positive remark on their BB page?
I had the recent experience with Proz.com that after the client paid I was not allowed to leave a "didn't pay" record on the BB. I don't quite follow the logic, but in any case I changed the entry to reflect what had actually happened (only paid very late, after much correspondence and after posting on BB), along with a 1/5 rating.
It's true that you can only post once per year, but you are simply amending your original posting, not making a new posting.
The truth needs to be told, that's all.
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