Dear Colleagues,

An increasing number of translators have been cheated by unscrupulous translation agencies that have contacted those translators directly via their profiles by e-mail or other means.

Generally, there's nothing wrong when this or that outsourcer contacts you directly to offer a job but remember to check the agency (or individual) at the Hall of Fame and Shame and at other similar payment and business practices tools.

The Hall of Fame and Shame is where we report dishonest clients and agencies. More and more translators start to understand that it's necessary to not only attempt to get one's fee but also to warn other colleagues to avoid dishonest operators. Reporting dishonest clients and agencies result in many of them being deprived of their rights to post job ads at TranslatorsCafe.com and other translation portals, which in turn makes it very difficult for dishonest and unscrupulous clients and agencies to find any linguists willing to accept their job offers.

When the right to post job ads have been suspended or blocked at many places, they try actively to find a way out of their exile. One of those ways is by contacting translators directly.

A rule of thumb:

If you have been contacted directly by an outsourcer offering a job you should first of all check their reputation via the Hall of Fame and Shame and other similar payment and business practices tools.

If you see that your potential client has got negative feedback from other translators, you will be wise never to accept any job from that outsourcer since you may end up working for nothing. In case the job offer looks too tempting to pass up, and if you are interested in a gamble, you should only take the job if the outsourcer is willing to pay up front.

If you neglect to follow the above basic rule of good sense, we should expect to see you pretty soon at the Hall of Fame and Shame mourning your money...

Dear Virtual Chairperson,

The first person who receives the posting job subject is someone of your team. It's very weird that under the some rules their's no control about contents of job poster's message. When any job poster is mentioning to contact directly with his other email address, immediately your team should warn him about it before the ads in the air.

Please try to change the method of your work control.  The rest will die itself in the middle of the way.

Thanks

Joon

Hi Joon,

It seems you don't quite understand what we are talking about here.

We are talking about those outsourcers who are already forbidden to post job messages here because of non-payment issues. Trying to find new translators-victims they start to contact freelancers directly by e-mail or other means. Nobody can control that except freelancers themselves. So please don't wait for a nanny - secure your business yourself...

NK

Thank you, Nikita,

Now, I can understand.

Joon

Originally written by Yousra Shahy on February 19, 2007 6:00 PM What about those who do not have access to "the hall of fame and shame"?

Originally written by Lucia Montenegro on February 19, 2007 7:01 PM I don't have access to the Hall of Fame and Shame yet... I'm planning to upgrade my account as soon as I get a translation job here... is there any other tip that can help me in this case?

Dear Yousra and Lucia,

Certainly the best way to secure yourself is to upgrade your TC membership, get full access to the Hall of Fame and Shame and thoroughly check everyone before accepting a job.

But even if you haven't upgraded to Master Membership yet you still can use some information of the Hall of Fame and Shame.

Go to Agency Search by Name on the TC home page and find an agency in question (you can also find any individual TC member in freelancers section). At the end you should get at agency's profile page and see something like in the following screen shot:

You can't read the details in the Hall of Fame and Shame if you are not a paid member but you can see the resulting rating in Traslators' Rating section in agency's profile. In many cases it's enough to decide whether you want to accept a job from this outsourcer...

Please note: You can find only those agencies that have been registered at TranslatorsCafe.com by their representatives or submitted by other TC members.

NK

Thank you so much for your advice! I'll keep on reading your posts as well, as you always give very good hints

Lucia

Dear Nikita,

what if the agency is not even a member of TC (so no rating), yet they have contacted you via TC ?

Teodora