Unpaid repetitions .....

This morning there was a job offer on one of those translator sites.
It says there:
"There are 2866 words of which 1526 unpaid repetitions."
Yet, I suppose, those "unpaid repetitions" will need to be worked into some sort of file or delt otherwise with in a fashion, that requires human time and effort. Then "unpaid repetitions" means "unpaid work".

Naturally, the job offer continues:
"Payment is made within 60 days via Bank transfer for EU accounts or Paypal for non EU accounts (company located in France).
Please note we do not pay Paypal fees."

It takes half an eternity to get paid AND the translator has to bear all the burden of transfer fees.
Funny, if I as a customer order something over the net etc. *** I = the customer *** have to pay postage, handling and bank fees. Naturally.

So, why for heavens sake do I as a service provider have to cover all those expenses for the client; who is not even my direct client ?????

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Transperfect - the rich giant -

Image via Wikipedia

I get in more or less regular intervals "job offers" form the translation giant Transperfect.
However, in the past I had mostly BAD experiences with this company and these experiences also showed, that it does not pay (literally!) to work for Transperfect. The current exchange rate also greatly contributes to this situation.
Transperfect apparently also a bad reputation as a non-payer.
Yet, the responses from the project managers force me to believe, that I am either dealing with DO NOT care (at all) about the people they are dealing with, or else are so rich, that they run this company purely for fun.

Below a few quotes from communications with PMs

Transperfect: (2012/02/24 8:50)
We have a new *English**into **German *Translation and Proofreading job we need your help with!

My response:
My experiences have shown that it does not pay (literally!) to work for Transperfect. But I have to survive too and therefore cannot afford to work for peanuts.

Transperfect: (2012/02/24 10:13)
> Would you be able to do the Proofreading for $25?  It should only take about an hour to do. 

My response:
Well, you should know that the funny payment practices of Transperfect inevitably lead to a situation where I have to PAY the bank -
one way or other - about 30 USD or more in bank fees to get your 25 USD!
I prefer to do work that actually pays ...

Transperfect:
We have a new English into German Translation job we need your help with!
This will be a flatrate of $10 to do this super small job!

My response:
NO thank you.
I believe I explained this before.
10 USD: the bank fees to get this would be about 30 USD!
Even if I would ask for PayPal (which does not give me any money at all; only some virtual nonsense that I can ONLY use to buy useless things on ebay), YOUR COMPANY applies a fine (they call it handling fee) of 10 USD for this "extraordinary difficult" transaction.

Funny, for everybody else on the planet that usually works fine and is free.

So, again and again, you ask me to work for free.
Having a family, I cannot afford to do that.
And I would like to believe that you couldn't afford it either.
Or do I have to assume, that I am dealing with people (Transperfect) that are so rich, they do not need to work at all and are engaged in these activities purely as a pasttime??????

Transperfect:
Sorry about that.  Will keep that in mind


Transperfect: 2/29 (= next day!) 12:07
We have a new Egnlish into German Translation job we need your help with!
Stats are  78 new, 16 fuzzy, and 3 gold words.
DEADLINE: Translation 12pm EST  2/29 Wednesday. This will be a flatrate of $10

Just yesterday this very person said: "Sorry about that.  Will keep that in mind."

Maybe there is not enough mind to hold this information ...

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