| Pages in topic: < [1 2] | Poll: Have you ever told a client you are not interested in continuing working with them? Thread poster: ProZ.com Staff
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Rebecca Garber 
Local time: 11:54
Member (2005)
German to English
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Once was due to non-payment. They would only pay the day before they wanted another project completed. This happened three times. Then, they wouldn't agree to my terms of payment up front.
And come September, I'm dropping a new agency. They insist on haggling over rates. They demand discounts for repetitions, which I give them in the quote, and then insist on another discount on my already discounted rate. It's simply tiresome.
| | | | Mario Chavez (X)
Local time: 11:54
English to Spanish
+ ...
| There's one like that in every continent :) | Aug 23, 2017 |
Natalie Soper wrote:
An agency owner would always return my work with questions about why I didn't translate xyz in a certain way. The answer was almost always "because if I had translated it literally, it wouldn't make any sense in English."
I'm happy for clients to ask me questions, but this happened so many times with just this particular agency - and it was very time-consuming to go through the work again and explain my translation choices. After I'd explained them, the owner would never reply with thanks or acknowledgement or anything - until the next job came along.
On top of that, they paid late (and their payment terms were 45 days as it was). After chasing them for a month after the due date on one occasion, the owner surfaced and apologised, but I said that we shouldn't work together any more. Too much hassle! I think we just weren't on the same wavelength...
I started working with a project manager (2002-2003, I think). Very pleasant fellow, but, like in your case, Natalie, his second-guessing my translation choices became wearisome. We spoke over the phone about that and I articulated as clearly and politely as possible that he was crossing the line of what a project manager is supposed to do. He smiled it off, didn't give it too much importance. But we stopped working together since that day.
Not in the same wavelength, as you said.
| | | | Rebecca Hendry
United Kingdom
Local time: 16:54
Member (2005)
Spanish to English
+ ...
When I first started out I did a lot of work with an agency that paid average rates but initially always paid on time. However, payment gradually got later and later, and I got sick of the anxious wait and the constant need to send reminders. In the end the managing director was so rude to me about it that the decision to never work for them again was very easy, and I was quite blunt when I explained my reasons why.
| | | | | Third time's the curse | Aug 23, 2017 |
I haven't myself, but I asked my associate over lunch, who has. Mind that I'm re-telling from memory what she told me, so some details are bound to be off.
She tells of a project manager of a big Brazilian pharma company (who had been a long-time professional acquaintance from when he worked for a different company) who contacted her for a job, and certain terms were agreed upon, but after the invoice was sent for analysis by the financial division, Finance determined they could onl... See more I haven't myself, but I asked my associate over lunch, who has. Mind that I'm re-telling from memory what she told me, so some details are bound to be off.
She tells of a project manager of a big Brazilian pharma company (who had been a long-time professional acquaintance from when he worked for a different company) who contacted her for a job, and certain terms were agreed upon, but after the invoice was sent for analysis by the financial division, Finance determined they could only pay half the agreed-upon fee. My associate refused, and the situation repeated itself later on with a different project.
On the third time, the project manager assured that he had spoken to Finances and the quote wouldn't be reduced. Later on, a member of Finance calls my associate, giving an impossible deadline for the 20 or so documents that were to be translated. She explained that she couldn't deliver them all in that time frame, but perhaps she could work on the most important documents first and deliver as many as she could. Then the project manager calls her and asks "did you tell Finance that you refuse to work with us?!". She had to carefully explain that's not quite what she had said.
That was the last straw, and she told the Projects guy that she couldn't work for a company like that. He understood perfectly.
[Edited at 2017-08-23 18:23 GMT]
[Edited at 2017-08-23 18:25 GMT] ▲ Collapse
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Sheila Wilson
Spain
Local time: 16:54
Member (2007)
English
+ ...
| Yes - on several occasions | Aug 23, 2017 |
One failrly regular agency unilaterally decided to increase the payment term - and then didn't even pay on that deadline! I was going to exit fairly politely but the delay made me quite direct. And I very regretfully parted company with the biggest CAT provider. I was doing annotation for them and it was fascinating but very poorly paid. Each project paid less and finally it became ridiculous. Another agency only ever sent one job. It was such a bad experience on every level that I gave them a ... See more One failrly regular agency unilaterally decided to increase the payment term - and then didn't even pay on that deadline! I was going to exit fairly politely but the delay made me quite direct. And I very regretfully parted company with the biggest CAT provider. I was doing annotation for them and it was fascinating but very poorly paid. Each project paid less and finally it became ridiculous. Another agency only ever sent one job. It was such a bad experience on every level that I gave them a 2 on the BB. That was 7 years ago. I got an email last week: would I proofread their own website  ! I don't think they'll be back for a third round  . ▲ Collapse
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Elizabeth Tamblin wrote:
An agency kept sending me job offers, but even though I replied within minutes, they always came back with "the job has already been assigned". It was so annoying that I eventually told them to take me off their list, but they still send me these offers from time to time. If I were a paranoid person, I might imagine they were deliberately trying to wind me up.
I have experienced this too. I think I know this agency (if you have been translating medical texts).  They just do not stop sending the offers. I have filtered them off in my inbox.
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I simply stopped taking jobs from them, and when they asked why I told them the reason:
1) your payments are always late
2) your rates are too low
so I will take jobs from you when I have nothing better to do...
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The title of this message will probably suggest to a number of readers which payment "system" I'm referring to. I once had the misfortune to work with an otherwise satisfactory agency that was affiliated with the company operating RIPOFF.
First, I was obliged to wait until the total amount due exceeded a certain value. It took three months of small jobs before the dribs and drabs added up to a big enough balance for it to be worth asking to be paid. Then I found that the "system" di... See more The title of this message will probably suggest to a number of readers which payment "system" I'm referring to. I once had the misfortune to work with an otherwise satisfactory agency that was affiliated with the company operating RIPOFF.
First, I was obliged to wait until the total amount due exceeded a certain value. It took three months of small jobs before the dribs and drabs added up to a big enough balance for it to be worth asking to be paid. Then I found that the "system" did not provide a way of making such a request. Nobody at the agency knew anything about it.
Resolving this issue took an exchange of 28 emails, involving at least 5 different people, over a 10-day period. All this for $270.50, minus the outrageous $10 PayPal charge.
I told the agency I wouldn't be working with them any more, and why. Since then, I have turned down jobs from at least three other affiliated agencies, citing the same reason.
The parent company's Blue Board entries are just as bad now as they were then. It beats me why anybody would take on work from them. ▲ Collapse
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Umang Dholabhai wrote:
Elizabeth Tamblin wrote:
An agency kept sending me job offers, but even though I replied within minutes, they always came back with "the job has already been assigned". It was so annoying that I eventually told them to take me off their list, but they still send me these offers from time to time. If I were a paranoid person, I might imagine they were deliberately trying to wind me up.
I have experienced this too. I think I know this agency (if you have been translating medical texts). They just do not stop sending the offers. I have filtered them off in my inbox.
The agency name begins with the letter K. I don't know what type of texts they deal with, as they never actually sent me any work, just the annoying offers that fell through within minutes.
| | | | Mario Freitas
Brazil
Local time: 13:54
Member (2014)
English to Portuguese
+ ...
| Several Times | Aug 25, 2017 |
There were several clients I "dismissed", for several reasons:
1. Refusal to renegotiate (low) prices
2. Completely incompetent revisers
3. Start sending me images, poorly scanned pdfs and even cell-phone pictures of documents regularly
4. Decided to use a mandatory cloud platform like WordBee
5. Overcriticizing my work in an intent to lower prices
7. Taking too long to pay, requiring repeated "reminders" regularly
6. As my portfolio improves, I get rid ... See more There were several clients I "dismissed", for several reasons:
1. Refusal to renegotiate (low) prices
2. Completely incompetent revisers
3. Start sending me images, poorly scanned pdfs and even cell-phone pictures of documents regularly
4. Decided to use a mandatory cloud platform like WordBee
5. Overcriticizing my work in an intent to lower prices
7. Taking too long to pay, requiring repeated "reminders" regularly
6. As my portfolio improves, I get rid of the worst clients regularly
[Edited at 2017-08-25 05:40 GMT] ▲ Collapse
| | | | | Yes, a little while back! | May 18, 2019 |
An agency forfeited around $1000 because of a time bar condition in their PO document for raising invoices. As a freelancer, I consider it unjustified to punish me for delayed invoicing rather than late deliveries. I have never ever missed a deadline. I told them I do not subscribe to their policy and hence not available for any further projects.
[Edited at 2019-05-18 07:50 GMT]
| | | | Kevin Fulton
United States
Local time: 11:54
German to English
Christine Andersen wrote:
I have told at least two to remove me from their database because their online platforms were simply TOO MUCH HASSLE. The rates they paid did not justify hours of sweat and tears, first to get hold of the text, then to deliver the translation, and finally to invoice them, before I had to make out another invoice to satisfy the tax authorities.
Two years ago I told a client that I would henceforth stop working for them. I was spending more time reporting the QA work (via 2 different portals) than actually doing the work, plus I had to chase them for payment. I stated this politely but in no uncertain terms. Then a half-dozen people at the agency contacted me wanting further explanation. Life is too short for hassles like that.
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I have – mostly due to fiendishly difficult working environment, such as their own CAT tool (not difficult to learn how to use it, but very time consuming to handle) and the most absurd QA process, which obliged me to run the text through two different applications with their input file and which generated “false” errors. It literally took more time to “fix” something that wasn’t broken that to do the actual translation.
Of course, I suggested to use my own CAT tool and... See more I have – mostly due to fiendishly difficult working environment, such as their own CAT tool (not difficult to learn how to use it, but very time consuming to handle) and the most absurd QA process, which obliged me to run the text through two different applications with their input file and which generated “false” errors. It literally took more time to “fix” something that wasn’t broken that to do the actual translation.
Of course, I suggested to use my own CAT tool and to trust my own QA process, but my suggestion was ignored.
This only happened to me with one client, so far I remember. ▲ Collapse
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...and my very first regular customer at that.
Everything had been going nicely for years. The first hit our business relationship took was their starting to migrate client after client from actual CAT tools to XTM, which is one of the most useless wastes of development effort and cloud space I have ever seen. Either way, with them being my first regular customer, I somehow managed to swallow my pride (not without constantly nagging them about the sheer uselessness of XTM) and continue wor... See more ...and my very first regular customer at that.
Everything had been going nicely for years. The first hit our business relationship took was their starting to migrate client after client from actual CAT tools to XTM, which is one of the most useless wastes of development effort and cloud space I have ever seen. Either way, with them being my first regular customer, I somehow managed to swallow my pride (not without constantly nagging them about the sheer uselessness of XTM) and continue working for them.
The last straw was when they replaced their somewhat slow, but perfectly functional vendor portal by no less than four separate portals for different management tasks - with me remaining unable to submit an invoice for several weeks due to their completely incompetent handling of the user/vendor migration as well as their unresponsive support (also, the only thing those four new portals did better than the old one was their not 90s-looking design).
The post-last straw was their complete disregard towards my GDPR-compliant request to have my data deleted. Even after I finally received confirmation of the data deletion, I received three or four requests from their PMs, but by then I did not really consider this to be worthy of even another second of my time. Luckily, I haven't heard from that horrible customer in about a year now.
Oh, by the way, this entire company with all its international offices is rightly banned from posting jobs on ProZ.
[Edited at 2022-03-23 14:09 GMT] ▲ Collapse
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