Sometimes They Come Back: Is Eurostreet Seeking Translators or Vu Comprà?

The Eurostreet Società Cooperativa (Via Losana, 13, 13900 – Biella, Italy) is on a new hunting expedition, this time looking for native English speakers it can underpay, undercut, and abuse economically.

Their most recent offer, sent in a mass email blast in February 2013 to Italian>English translators culled from a data dump of the Langit City site, is even more reprehensible than usual.

Because “alle volte ci capita di dover rinunciare a lavori importanti perchè non abbiamo abbastanza traduttori di madrelingua Inglese” (“at times, we have to let important projects go because we have too few native-English-speaking translators”), Eurostreet has made a gigantic sacrifice in order to offer ... wait for it ... 11 lousy Euros per cartella.

But there’s more. On Planet Eurostreet, a cartella is 1500 keystrokes MINUS THE SPACES. And the offer is BEFORE taxes (which, for Italian freelancers, are now up to around 35%). Oh, and yes, you’ll be required to take a free translation test first.

Il Segno di Caino simply cannot understand why Eurostreet is having trouble finding native-English-speaking translators, can you?

Not only have things not changed since Il Segno di Caino wrote about Eurostreet three years ago, they’ve evidently gotten much worse. Eurostreet’s prices have dropped more than a third from the price list they posted in 2010.

How could Eurostreet possibly still be in business? Well, you could write and ask Claudio Ranghino, who is supposedly Eurostreet’s “legal representative” (commerciale4@eurostreet.it).

When Mr. Ranghino wrote to threaten a lawsuit against the individual who brought Eurostreet’s latest outrageous offer to Il Segno’s attention, however, he promised to sue for “diffamazone” instead of “diffamazione.” So draw your own McConclusions about where he got his McLaw degree.

(Actually, an internet search suggests the probability that Mr. Ranghino isn’t a lawyer at all. In that case, he might like to know that impersonating a lawyer is illegal, whereas calling an offerta al ribasso di merda an offerta al ribasso di merda is not. Meanwhile, if you read Italian and you’re interested in Eurostreet’s extremely inflated opinion of itself, you can find it here in this message offering the agency’s services as language experts to poor, defenseless Italian school children.)

In any case, here’s the answer to the above rhetorical question. Eurostreet keeps its doors open because:

·               a) exactly like other single-celled organisms at the bottom of the food chain, Eurostreet is a perfect fit for customers who don’t mind sifting through mud; and

·               b) self-harming idiots continue to accept Eurostreet's translation rates, though they'd be a tough sell even in a third-world country. Hey, translating for Eurostreet probably beats wandering the piazzas of Italy muttering “Vu comprà?”

Eurostreet clearly has no intention of being ashamed of itself. So let’s shame the translators who work for Eurostreet instead. There’s a word for what they are, and that word is “scabs.”

What’s more, if you are a legitimately qualified Italian>English translator, they and Eurostreet have their grubby hands in your pocket.

Are you angry yet?

Eurostreet of Biella Gets a Makeover -- But It's the Same Old Eurostreet

I'm not sure I can manage to be cynical enough about Eurostreet Linguistic Services' new makeover.

Eurostreet (located at Via Losana, 13 in Biella, in the Piedmont Region), which also does business as Eurostreet Services and Eurostreet Cooperative, has been offering starvation wages to translators for years.

Recently, however, Eurostreet has reappeared with a new name, ItaTraCom (ironically enough, this stands for "Italian Translation Community," though you normally don't expect people in your "community" to try to drive you out of business), and a new raison d'être. Now it's not just a translation agency; it's a translation broker.

Eurostreet/ItaTraCom.com, of course, still offers translations from every language in the world into every language in the world -- a sign of quality you can always count on.

ItaTraCom.com, what's more, now publishes its "Price List" online, just like the bargain menu at McDonald's. (Click to enlarge.)

The problem is not just that the prices (which are the end prices that Eurostreet/ItaTraCom.com asks of its clients, remember) are outrageously low: the translator typically receives 1/3 to 1/2 of what an agency charges its clients, and that's before taxes.

And it's not just that Eurostreet/ItaTraCom.com is engaged in the growing practice of offering take-it-or-leave it maximums to translators and distorting the meaning of "independent contractor." (More and more agencies, in fact, are following this practice, telling clients up front what they will pay and, in the process, giving translators almost no ability to negotiate their own rates.)

The real frosting on the cake (or the cherry on the tart, as they might say in Italy) is in the small print:

In the event you should consider our prices (indicated above) to be unacceptable or overly burdensome, please send us an estimate of the amount of translation work you anticipate ordering from us in the course of a year along with the percentage discount you consider appropriate. We will contact you to discuss an agreement regarding the price of your translation that does not compromise the quality of service or, in the alternative, to define the repositioning of translation quality in keeping with your actual needs and the price you expect to pay.

In other words: not only does Eurostreet/ItaTraCom.com promote the practice of allowing agencies to dictate price to translators, it's willing to let that inexcusable custom trickle down to its own end clients.

Eurostreet/ItaTraCom.com also makes clear that it is more than happy to engage in one of the more nefarious and widespread abuses practiced by agencies: the volume discount. Obviously, I have no problem if agencies choose to give their end clients volume discounts. The insult comes when they expect (or demand) that translators do so.

The fact is, it takes a certain amount of time to translate a page of Italian. That time remains constant, whether there are 10 pages or 1000. The volume discount should come out of the agency's pocket, not the translator's.

With practices like these, though, one begins to wonder. Are we talking about translations or are we dickering over babouches in a dark alley in Marrakesh?

One of the great ironies in ItaTraCom.com's servile plea to potential clients is the tacit recognition that cost actually is related to quality. In essence, they're saying, "Look, if you want a really inferior translation, please don't let price be an object. We can provide bad translations for even less!"

Eurostreet, it's worth noting, is the agency that recently won a huge annual contract with the Region of Lombardy for translation and interpreting services. Like the Italian Ministry of Tourism (cf. the Trust Traduzioni scandal of early February 2010), the Region of Lombardia has also chosen to award a government contract for cut-rate services to a translation mill.

The only difference is that Trust Traduzioni and the Ministero di Turismo received negative publicity for choosing an agency that denied translators a living wage. The Region of Lombardy and Eurostreet have gotten away with it.

Get ready for a new tsunami of Inglisc and Italish in Italy's capital of fashion and finance. Eurostreet and ItaTraCom.com are the newest marchet lìder in undervaluing the work of translators.