Forgive me, Maria, but like many of your other ill-considered statements that assertion is very misleading. What do you mean by "does not cover the rest of the world"? EN 15038 certification is available in the USA, for example, and in all Arab contries, just to name but a few. An international committee has been selected to create an ISO standard for translation and interpreting services. ISO / TC 37 / SC 2 / WG 6 “Translation and Interpretation Processes”. It will unify the European EN 15038 Standard, the American ASTM Standard and the Chinese Standard into a unique ISO standard. It is at present in committee stage or beyond.

But we can make a start. EN 15038 is accepted by most of the world already. I do not know in which countries EN 15038 certification is definitely not available but I will try to find a list somewhere. In the meantime, I believe that what I claimed holds - if you do work for a translation agency that is unable or unwilling to obtain EN 15038 certification then you are taking a considerable risk.

If the agency happens to be located in a country that refuses to recognize EN standards then the risk is likely to be even greater but certainly not less. In the interim stage, I would be willing to accept the written assertion of an agency that although EN 15038 certification is not available at their location, they guarantee their compliance with all its provisions.

I have amended my TC profile with the following: "I am prepared to work only for translation agencies that are EN 15038-certified or guarantee that they fully conform to all the requirements of EN 15038."

Derek 

This is a list of "Quality-Oriented Translation Companies" and Practical aspects of EN 15038

I have only done a cursory check, but the site looks interesting:

http://www.eutecert.eu/?s=136

Especially as it also features at least one nonpayer and some slow payers ...

I agree with you that "Quality-Oriented" is not the same EN 15038 Certified - so how about you doing a new search then? Help us find the real list that Derek mentioned. 

Nanna

Extremely interesting.  In the list I found a couple of organizations that I worked for once or twice and would never work for again.  They certainly fulfilled all the formalities and jumped through the right hoops for officials. 

I was not impressed with either of the two entities on any level.  It was appearance of quality by following the stated rules.

I would say that those in the list may be quality-oriented translation companies, or they may be translation companies that are able to meet the appearance of being quality-oriented.  I work with quality-oriented companies who do not, however, necessarily follow those particular sets of rules.  At the end of the day, however, only the translator doing the work can guarantee quality.  How is anything else possible?

Maxi

Derek, what are these standards?  If they are quality standards, such a standard belongs to the translator, not the agency who is a middleman or broker.  If an agency pretends to offer quality, when they don't even provide the service, then the agency is competing against me. 

As a translator here is what I need from the agency:
- put me in contact with work
- provide information in regards to the work (communicate with client) when necessary
- pay me my fee on time.

Do these standards do that?  I am unfamiliar with the whole system.

Maxi

One important aspect mentioned there is "due diligence".

I believe that any translator who accepts work on the basis of a simple e-mail, makes a translation and then does not get paid for the work has not exercised due diligence and fully deserves not to get paid. They would not stand a chance in court.

That is one aspect that Maria is overlooking, contributory negligence on the part of the translator! Her implied proposition that translators should be entitled to assume that everybody offering translation work on the Internet is honest, competent and good-willed by default is clearly untenable. We are under no moral obligation whatever to help save the suckers from the hustlers and the dilettanti.

The first step is always to establish the bona fides of the Buyer (i.e. the translation agency) if otherwise unknown - e.g. get a creditworthiness statement from the Buyer's bank. What is that you are saying? You have no idea which bank they have their account at? You really are crying out to be scammed, aren't you!

The whole translation deal should be fully documented. That is one of the reasons why I would never touch any job labeled as being "URGENT". That label almost always means: "We recognize that the deadline is unreasonable but we are desperate and if the worst comes to the worst we can always claim that the translator delivered late. We have cut all the corners that we can and we certainly don't have any time for formalities like establishing our creditworthiness."

The more I look at this subject, the more I am convinced that Maria has gone off completely on the wrong tack. The translator's answer to Cain's question "Am I my brother's keeper?" is clearly "Certainly not if he or she has failed to take even the most elementary precautions!"

I really don't see much point in continuing this thread!

Derek

Hi Maxi,
some answers here: http://www.statsaut-translator.no/Files/Standard-15038-final-draft-en.pdf

No, the standards tackle the very problem that you mentioned, Maxi - the incompetent translation service provider (TSP). They set out certain minimum requirements for a TSP and certification provides for independent inspectors who visit their premises and check whether or not that TSP meets those requirements. It is not a trivial inspection, there are reports that it can cost a large agency as much as GBP 20,000 and take several days. And there are provisions for annual audits to ensure that the standard is maintained. I feel sure that they would immediately expose any superficial operation that existed only to scam translators.

I am beginning to feel that it is in translators' basic interest to ensure that as many agencies as possible obtain EN 15038 certification and help to squeeze out of the market all those agencies who can't or won't. Every time that translators accept work from an uncertified agency they are potentially encouraging and supporting the fraudulent, the insolvent and the dilettanti.

Translators of the World Unite! Rise up against the TSPs (translation service pirates)! Lay them in EN 15038 chains once and for all!

Of course, an inevitable side effect will be to force most of the cowboy translators out of the market, too, because an EN 15038-compliant agency would not be able to hire them!

 Derek

Now that its readership jumped up to almost 22 average viewings per post?

(BTW, I checked our 25 Most Active Threads for the Last Ten Days last night and guess what? The most viewed were posts from Translators' Encounters (427), Inside the language (320) and  Beautiful songs, beautiful lyrics (230). Tells you what people real interests are when they come to a cafe'...)

Anyway, that EN 15038, or whatever (which as an agency owner I would care less about), does it require that you pay freelancers within under 50 days which is pretty much common market practice these days (Post #96352)? What if I regularly settle within 60 days, do I lose EN 15038?

Jacek