Forum for Translators: Re: Anyone ever work with Travod or Wordminds Translation?
I am wondering if anyone has ever done any work with Travod or Wordminds Translation. We were looking at them as a translation partner but when we did some research they both show up on the translator scammers website and also on the translation ethics blogspot site. Any comments would be much appreciated.
The TSD and Translation Ethics websites give fairly accurate information about these translation agencies/companies.
I used to work for them in the past. Very low rates. Ridiculous deadlines. Payment after two months (and sometimes later).
After they started using Memsource, I stopped accepting projects from them. After introducing Memsource, they reduced the rates even more.
Of course, they are probably one and the same organization and they are based in Moldova. They use fake contact details and most of the PMs use fake names.
I am not sure if they are scammers or if they steal CV identities to bid for projects.
Avoid these two like the plague. They play dead when it comes to payment.
Good company, check their Proz profile is 4.8/5
Always pays on time and if you are a good translator you can ask in advance to be paid.
I would recommend working with them, give it a try. If you don't like you can always change to other providers.
I've had no problems with them
Thanks Dave and John for your responses. I wasn't sure how long ago the information I found was from and was hoping to get some present day comments from translators who may have worked or are currently working with them.
Wordminds Translation is listed on TSD and if you check out the notes you will see that the reasons are justified (fake company/contact details, names, etc.).
Furthermore, this company offers very low rates and expects translators to accept discounts on repetitions and fuzzies. Of course, it is highly probable that they charge their clients 100 per cent.
As far as I know, they do not have any form of quality assurance and if there is a quality issue, however minor, they do not pay their translators on the basis of a contractual clause that states they are not obliged to pay the translator if there is an issue (This may have changed, but I really suspect it hasn't).
Their deadlines are not realistic at all, and there is always a PM who will hassle you during the course of the project.
There will always be a variety of opinions over someone's work. Sometimes is even hard to define what is worth trusting and what is not, especially now when there are so many ghost companies and scammers.
Here are some facts, we hope will bring more light regarding our activity:
- Our main asset is the urgency of our translation
- We have offices in UK, Romania and Moldova and our staff is multicultural and thus ensures good communication with our International Community
- We are proud to have many happy clients and translators which inspire us to become better every day (here are some: https://www.proz.com/blueboard/41437)
- Most of the Language Service Providers, including us, use CAT tools and that is exactly why these were created for
- We offer regular market rates
- We are members of esteemed organisations. Please check it out (https://translatorswithoutborders.org/sponsor/sponsorwordminds/ / https://www.gala-global.org/company-directory/wordminds-ltd)
Thank you for your attention and looking forward to have you joining us and get to know us from another perspective.
Sincerely,
Wordminds Team
"- We offer regular market rates"
Now, I know this is NOT true. The AVERAGE standard rate for the translation of a contract from French to English (I refer to legal texts because Wordminds used to offer me work in this area)is approx. EUR 0.11. Wordminds do not even offer half that rate!!! (And, of course they demand discounts on fuzzies on top of this).
I have worked with Wordminds on quite a number of projects and never had an issue with payment. Deadlines are tight, but sometimes it is possible to negotiate a better deadline. Rates are rather on the low side, but you are never forced to accept a project. All in all, I am satisfied with my collaboration with Wordminds.
On translation scammers, they post all companies or translation ethics blogpost writes about Bigword or Transperfect, the biggest translation agencies in the world. I would check reliable sources, like Gala, online press, Proz profile before working with this or other agencies.
Please find below some reliable sources for your record:
Proz - https://www.proz.com/blueboard/41437
Translators without borders - https://translatorswithoutborders.org/sponsor/sponsorwordminds/
GALA - https://www.gala-global.org/company-directory/wordminds-ltd
Best,
Wordminds Team
Travod pay ridiculously low rates and then you have to wait at least 2 months to get finally paid.
This free list of blacklisted agencies may prevent you from getting burnt:
www.translatorsbar.com/_iserv/dlfiles/dl.php?ddl=free-blacklist-of-translation-agencies.doc
I lately completed a project for Travod and also one for Wordminds and I noticed that they seem to be identical, in regards of their payment policies, Memsource etc.
If they do not pay me and turn out to be scammers I will let you know as soon as possible.
I worked 3 times in 2018 with Wordminds . 1 rather big translation and 2 small ones.
I delivered in time and sent my invoices (july, september and december). For the big one they told me that they had given it to someone else and that I could not send an invoice. I discussed and after a lot of trouble they wanted to give me 20 € as compensation. I have never been paid for the three jobs. I reminded them during the month of december 2018 and they told me they intended to pay. Never received anything.
I do not think that I will take another job from them.
They often do that. They assign you a job. You complete it and deliver on time and then they claim they cannot pay you because they assigned the job to somebody else and then they offer you an insulting amount as compensation. It is not surprising that they are listed on the Translator Scammers Directory.
Avoid Wordminds!!! Terrible terms, I regret that I didn't check them out before starting to work for them. I had to threaten them with a law suit and bad reviews in order to get paid. I did get my payment, however after about 6 months.
I als wrote a review earlier this year. I have been contacted several times by them for other tasks and when I asked them that they could confirme paying me in time I never heard them again.
Today again they contacted for a long term job for an EU-tender. I think that am not going to accept it because the risk is too high.
Those requests for EU tenders are a big scam. They use your qualifications and experience to get profects and they basically steal the work and give it to their slaves who work for between 2 and 4 cent per word.
As I have mentioned many times before, avoid Wordminds! Not just because they are listed on the Translator Scammers Directory, but also because they offer ridicously low rates and expect you to finish the job within a ridiculous deadline.
A few years ago (when I did two or three projects for them), they started asking me to review a lot of projects. I guess they were having quality issues at the time. Actually, they were having a lot of quality issues. All the projects they asked me to review were worse than Google translations.
Wordminds charges their clients approxcimately 12-14 cent per word, but they pay their translators between 2-4 cent per word and expect enormous discounts on fuzzies. Of course, they charge their clients the full amount.
I have been waiting almost 2 months for payment and the finance department of Wordminds just ignores my emails.
The rates are low, comparing to what we had 10-15 years ago, but that's the industry average, unless you work directly with an end client or big companies. I've been never given 2 or 4 cents per word rate for translation, that's what they pay for proofreading. ALWAYS read or ask to read the payment terms before accepting a task, it's something around 40 or 45 days they're sending the money, but as long as it's workflow is constant, I have no problem with it.
PS: Whenever I ask for a sooner transfer, they do it.
I assume you work for Wordminds, because only representative of Wordminds would claim that their "slave" rates were the average. Actually, the average rate of reputable agencies is EUR 0.08 per source word. As far as I know, Wordminds Ltd pays between EUR 0.04-0.05 per source word. They also expect discounts on fuzzies. Of course, they probably charge their clients the full amount.
I doubt they even pay within 45 days judging from a lot of feedback I have read online. There are even negative reports about late payments (and even no payments) on this thread.
You assume the workflow is constant. My reply to this is: why work more for slave rates when there are many reputable agencies offering much better rates and conditions?
I have had enough of this company spamming me. I have asked them several times to stop, but they continue. They are very aggressive spammers. I am not interested in their offers and very low rates. I doubt they are located in England. English companies do not offer such low rates.
I´ve been working for Wordminds for several years now, never had a problem with payment. Always got payed in time. PM are very nice and respond at any time of the day immediately. Deadlines are tight, but you choose to take on a task or not, so this works well for me.
I think plenty of evidence has been gathered at TSD to confirm that Travod/Wordminds is a scam organisation http://www.translator-scammers.com/pdf/TSD-Note-73.pdf
Insulting rates. Unrealistic deadlines. Hassle. Poor communication. Late payment or no payment.
Not true. Great Project Managers, good rates, payment on time.
This is my experience with them.
I have been working with both agencies for several years now. The PMs are super friendly and the payments have never been delayed (I work for both regularly with monthly invoices). I am always very surprised when I see negative reviews/comments.
I used to work for Travod/Wordminds. We were located in Moldova and yes everyone was using fake last names (Sales managers) to pretend we were from UK. PM's were using their real names. I am not sure how legal was that. Owner's real name was Sergiu Matei a.k.a Matthew Smith. I think he sold Travod since it has a different owner right now. Real name of Travod is Focus Marketing S.R.L. This was the company I was working for. It is located in Chisinau,Moldova. We didn't have any offices in UK. I think they bought a virtual office or something to avoid paying taxes. The bank account was from Latvia then they changed it to a different country and so on.
I remember they were making exceptions for some translators if they asked to be paid right away. So you can go ahead and ask.
Overall it was a nice company to work for. Maybe some things changed since I worked there about 7 years ago.
Ohhh you asked about the money, I was getting my 250$/month on time lol
Wish you good luck. Stay safe and sound!
Gala member and Legit Proz account https://www.proz.com/blueboard/32078
Working with them for 5 years, PMs are great, payment on time and adequate.
I have worked with Wordminds translations for a few years now and my collaboration with them was always professional, there was good communication, easy invoicing procedure and payment on time as agreed.
A very good translation company to work at. The PMs at Wordminds are very friendly and they give the freelances best instructions but in a short and simplest method. They do not use very lengthy instructions whereby we save time. Also their payment comes out on time and they give best value to our time and work.
Hi,
You were asking about Wordminds and Travod.
I've enjoyed a good working relationship with both these companies - Travod since 2016 and Wordminds since 2018.
It took some time to settle on a reasonable rate-per-word with Travod, but once done, they've been reasonably consistent (explaining when the client was looking for a cheaper rate).
I've found it easy to negotiate prices, deadlines, etc with both companies.
In short, I can recommend the both.
I am working for Wordminds several years now, and I had always good experiences. True, the deadlines are often very tight but you can always ask the team for extending them. The payment was always on time. One time I asked them to pay me a little bit earlier because I was short and they granted it. So far the best company I worked for the last years!
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