Why do I still do this?

Keyboard-of-Japanese-language (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Today - again - I got an inquiry from a German company about a medical translation from German into Japanese. Naturally(!), as a native German I am NOT SUPPOSED to translate into Japanese.
In the mail I was asked, whether I can do it, of if not, maybe recommend someone who can. The rate offered was about 25% of what Japanese companies usually pay me for a Japanese-German translation.

Since I do not translate into Japanese, I offered to asked someone else.
Response: "YES. Please do."

So, I actually contact a colleague, write some mails, even get on the phone.
Naturally, even for a Japanese translator in Japan working in the German-Japanese language pair (which is cheaper than the other way round), the offered rate was still well below 50% of the "normal" rate.
And that from a rich country like Germany!

My colleague recline the offer. No wonder.
And I communicated these things to the company in Germany.


I ***DO NOT*** mind referring jobs to colleagues at all.
What I ***DO MIND*** is the fact, that the company in questions did not even say thank you.
I spend "considerable" time and effort - even phone costs - to find THEM(!), not me or my colleague, someone who can help out and do not even get this little "thank you".

I should probably stop being so nice ...