| Pages in topic: < [1 2] | Freelance Boomerang Thread poster: Beatriz Ramírez de Haro
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Tom in London
United Kingdom
Local time: 14:34
Member (2008)
Italian to English
Beatriz Ramírez de Haro wrote:
..... he introduces himself as the "Principal" of a Japan-based provider
We don't even know if the Japan part is true.
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They market their services on a well-structured and professional-looking website (headquartered in Japan since 2008).
| | | | LEXpert 
United States
Local time: 08:34
Member (2008)
Croatian to English
+ ...
Interesting metaphor - since unless you actually strike whatever you're throwing your boomerang at, it's likely to come back around and hit you in the head.
No thanks.
| | | | Daryo
United Kingdom
Local time: 14:34
Serbian to English
+ ...
| not a scam per se, | Feb 6, 2016 |
more the kind of "middleman's logic" that exists in many agencies, only pushed to ridiculous extremes.
It's the kind of selling methods that may make sense for commodities/generic goods;
BUT anyone trying that kind of marketing methods for translations is blatantly showing their total ignorance of the language business and should return to selling soaps and brushes ...
This kind of "language business experts" deserve only the delete/block button
[Ed... See more more the kind of "middleman's logic" that exists in many agencies, only pushed to ridiculous extremes.
It's the kind of selling methods that may make sense for commodities/generic goods;
BUT anyone trying that kind of marketing methods for translations is blatantly showing their total ignorance of the language business and should return to selling soaps and brushes ...
This kind of "language business experts" deserve only the delete/block button
[Edited at 2016-02-06 11:03 GMT] ▲ Collapse
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| Not necessarily a scam, just a stupid way to shift accountability | Feb 6, 2016 |
Let's assume a client of mine has some material they want translated from EN into both PT and ES.
Then assume I can do high quality work from EN into PT, charging $1,000 (unnamed currency, just for reference) for that job, and hand over the EN into ES part of it to Boomerang. They'll give me $150 as a commission.
One point to consider is that I remain accountable before my end-client for the PT-ES work.
... See more Let's assume a client of mine has some material they want translated from EN into both PT and ES.
Then assume I can do high quality work from EN into PT, charging $1,000 (unnamed currency, just for reference) for that job, and hand over the EN into ES part of it to Boomerang. They'll give me $150 as a commission.
One point to consider is that I remain accountable before my end-client for the PT-ES work.
Things that may happen include:
a) From their other $1,000 (same price, right?), they hire someone to do the EN-ES translation for $500 or less, pay me $150, and pocket $350. Pretty slick!
b) They use Google Translate to do it and, from the other $1,000, they pocket $850! Way slicker!
My client appreciates the quality of the EN-PT work I delivered, however they bluntly reject the EN-ES, demanding that it be completely redone from scratch!
Now I'm left with $150 to get a $1,000-worth EN-ES job done, at the risk of losing my client (who paid $2,000 for both jobs)!
I have a similar situation all the time, however I handle it differently.
Trying to explain it briefly, I translate EN-PT, yet speak IT/ES/FR sufficiently to get by, however not enough to translate these professionally. Bottom line is that I can work with pretranslated material in these three. I also offer full video localization services, i.e. in the worst of all cases, from video tape (though nowadays 98% is already in digital format) to a fully-authored, interactive, dubbed or subtitled DVD... or any part of the process. The "only" things I outsource are translation involving IT/ES/FR and the actual dubbing work.
I have a very frequent client, a local translation agency, that mostly requests video work from me involving EN+PT+ES. I have a reliable FR video partner, and unfortunately my reliable IT video partner passed away last year (haven't had any such request lately). It took me some dedicated effort to find reliable partners in ES, but I found two, and I have been successfully working with them for a while already.
In such cases, I offer the agency the option of hiring my partners directly, and I'll coordinate the work with them. This agency (and most others in such cases) did NOT want that! They want to have me accountable for the entire project!
While I do full subtitling and DVD authoring work, when the job involves dubbing (I partner with one of the top local dubbing studios), the studio bill is always several times my income from the project.
Okay, I could apply some markup on what I pay my partners, so I'd accrue some risk capital to cover anything that went wrong. However if I did it, sort of second-tier agenting, this would detract from the agency's price competitiveness before the end-client. It would increase he chances of us all losing the entire job to a competitor. So I charge from my client/agency exactly what I pay to my partners.
However there is one catch here. What if... the end-client cancels the job under way?
This has never happened so far, but I must be on the safe side. The agency is enough of a frequently-recurring client for me, so I could share the blow... if limited to my personal work.
I explained to them that I am not surcharging for the outsourced work for the sake of keeping the final price competitive, which entitles me to demand up-front payment for all the outsourced services I'll be hiring, and they agreed. Of course, if they need, they can always demand a partial advance from their end-client, that's their call, and a very sensible idea.
The intent is to prevent a midway cancellation with no-pay forcing me either to collect from the agency an amount they didn't receive, or worse, paying my outsourcees from my pocket, to keep them happy and available next time I need. Up-front payment covers it perfectly, and I pay them COD.
Of course, I took great care in selection to assure that, if there are any quality issues, all my chosen partners are fully capable of fixing them immediately and unaided.
This has been working fine for a few years already, our average is between 1-2 such video jobs per week, every week of the year, of course, comparatively few involving dubbing and/or the three languages I don't translate.
The key lesson here is that accountability cannot be outsourced, like these Boomerang people are trying to do. ▲ Collapse
| | | | | Check full headers | Feb 6, 2016 |
Tom in London wrote:
Beatriz Ramírez de Haro wrote:
..... he introduces himself as the "Principal" of a Japan-based provider
We don't even know if the Japan part is true.
Tom is right. Beatriz, you could have a look at the full headers of the email you received. Using one of the many free "Whois" services available online you could then check the originating IP to have a basic idea of the country/region where they are based (and do the same with their website address to see when/where they registered that domain, etc.).
| | | | | Post removed: This post was hidden by a moderator or staff member because it was not in line with site rule |
IP address is from Italy, indeed. Rome, actually.
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| Post removed: This post was hidden by a moderator or staff member because it was not in line with site rule | Samuel Murray
Netherlands
Local time: 15:35
Member (2006)
English to Afrikaans
+ ...
| Not a scam, not fishy, simply a finder's fee with a special name | Feb 6, 2016 |
Beatriz Ramírez de Haro wrote:
Additionally, we're introducing a new collaboration scheme, called "Freelance Boomerang".
It's unfortunate for the client that some translators have a negative connotation for "boomerang", but "freelance boomerang" as a name for a finder's fee scheme doesn't sound too bad to me. To me, the word "boomerang" is not a negative word -- it relates to something coming back to you.
There are obvious questions, though, e.g. "15% of what" and how can you (the freelancer) be assured that the quality of the translation into the other language will be good enough not to damage your existing relationship with your client.
But instead of just assuming the worst, why not reply to the client and raise your concerns?
| | | | Tom in London
United Kingdom
Local time: 14:35
Member (2008)
Italian to English
Samuel Murray wrote:
Beatriz Ramírez de Haro wrote:
Additionally, we're introducing a new collaboration scheme, called "Freelance Boomerang".
It's unfortunate for the client that some translators have a negative connotation for "boomerang", but "freelance boomerang" as a name for a finder's fee scheme doesn't sound too bad to me. To me, the word "boomerang" is not a negative word -- it relates to something coming back to you.
There are obvious questions, though, e.g. "15% of what" and how can you (the freelancer) be assured that the quality of the translation into the other language will be good enough not to damage your existing relationship with your client.
But instead of just assuming the worst, why not reply to the client and raise your concerns?
One should never click on any links in emails like this, and never reply. Your reply, confirming your name and identity, is exactly what they are after.
Don't respond to spam: here's why
http://www.pcmag.com/article2/0,2817,2376031,00.asp
[Edited at 2016-02-06 17:09 GMT]
| | | | | Appropiate name indeed | Feb 6, 2016 |
Rudolf Vedo CT wrote:
Interesting metaphor - since unless you actually strike whatever you're throwing your boomerang at, it's likely to come back around and hit you in the head.
No thanks.
since whatever you do in such a situation could be bad for you.
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| I was offered the same deal... | Feb 6, 2016 |
...and replied with my rates and stating that I was not interested in becoming a dealer in translation.
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