The British Centre of Jesi says it has been in business since 1977 -- though it still hasn't translated its own website into English.
They offer "fast, efficient service for documents of every kind (technical, scientific, legal, and business-related) in any foreign language," and, of course, they underscore their "collaboration" with native speakers.
The History
On January 8, 2008, the British Centre of Jesi posted a job to the Proz job board:
URGENT. ITALIAN INTO ENGLISH 1 PAGE
Though the job may well have been one printed page, the word count indicated in the posting was 550 words -- or approximately 2.5 "cartelle" of 1500 keystrokes each.
Payment was "15 usd" and the British Centre further promised:
"you will be offered other projects from our agency."The rate quoted here, then, comes to approximately $6 per cartella. Note that, as of this writing, the British Centre's company profile on Proz.com indicates a "standard rate" of "0.04 Euro per word" for Italian->English translations.
Based on that, a job of 550 words should come in at a minimum of E. 22 or about $31.90 at today's exchange rate. There's no explanation for why this particular job -- marked URGENT! -- was priced so low.
I contacted the company about this job offer and their rates and received the following response:
you email, seems that you are quite bored. please just next time if u dont like the project and what offered, ignore them....and dont stress us with your tantrums.
My very first job through proz.com, as a rather naive newcomer, was through this agency. It took months to get paid a mere pittance. Stay away.
ReplyDelete