Yes! Nothing major, of course. A middle-of-the-road topic, not too easy, not too difficult and betrween 1,000 and 1,500 words. And give 'em a deadline for the day before yesterday

It might well be worth the money and will also give you a very good idea of their range and the quality they deliver. Thsi way you also have a good gauge of whether working with them is something even worth considering.

Eggs and omelettes

I would, but I have no intention of working for them if they esteem Japanese to French translations to be worth between £0.03 and £0.065 per word, or that any translatiuon is worth those rates for that matter... adn I'm anti anyone who won't pay travel expenses for interpreters. It's just not fair. Obviously, these are within reason, but I often call upon London-based translators, and live a good 3-4 hours from London, so imagine if I didn't cover their travel costs?

Stéphanie, I'm confused too.  Here is what I thought was happening:

- There is an agency that wants you to pay for very low rates.
- You think it might be a good idea to pose as a customer, present some document for translation, and ask for a quote
- This way you would know what this agency charges clients, while asking translators to charge a given amount

Did I get this right?

Now Nanna is saying that you should get your own employees to translate this document.  If my first premise is right, then I cannot see how getting your own employees to translate a document will allow you to know how much another agency would charge for that document.  So I'm also confused.

Unless the question is: how much work is the document, and can you tell by having your own employees translate the document.  Maybe what I set out isn't the story after all.

I wrote: Post #248988

"Instead, why not create a short document and let one of your employees handle the whole thing from start to finish?"

PS: Enough already! I am finished here for the moment. Have work to do

Actually, Nanna suggested to go further and commission the Ridiculous agency in question to deliver a trial translation:

The only purpose of this, I understand, would be to keep this thread alive. I'm also for one thread being active!

That's maybe because that job came from the Palestinian Territories where the average yearly income, as estimated by the World Bank in 2007, was $1230, i.e., just over $100 a month (http://www.teachmideast.org/geography/palestine). Could that be true?

If so, with $0.02/word and 60,000 words, one could earn the average annual income in just one month...

No wonder they got 3 bidders...