So usually where I start off is pros. Yeah, actually, it's the proz.com blue board. And I've mentioned this before, but first of all proz.com is the main translation website for freelance translators. And the blue board is where they list all the companies and they give them a score. In general, the scores should be around five or high fours. If it's anything lower, like three and definitely 2.2, then that's, that's a red flag.

That's a bad sign. For example, we'll take you know, we'll take this one and see what it says this studio on it group. It has, as you can see, lately, so what it has is, is well actually, it's just very, it's all a bunch of bad ones. At the beginning. You can see actually it started off with a bunch of fives, then there was just one one then another one here and then they've delayed payments for years. Please cherish your reputation in the translation market and apparently they don't cherish it because a bunch of people have problems.

And so anyway, let's do this. I want to do this again because I was contacted about a specific group called one hour translation. And I've seen this around quite a few times. So I thought it would be worth looking into. Here we go when our translation right away we see they have their base set of Cyprus apparently and they have 3.8 this is not very good. And in fact, we see lately they have a debt to pay me since August, I posted a critical comment including a new hybrid translation, and was banned from their website without notice, although my last payment is still pending.

So it seems like they have issues with payment more than anything. Otherwise, these are all good. Now usually most agencies will just have five and you know, that's kind of the standard on this website and you get a different feel for different websites how they work, but that's how it usually works here. Again, didn't receive payment. I advised them to redo a translation and to proofread the text was awful. I was blocked as a vendor that doesn't seem very nice, unethical.

I'm sorry. Professional behavior. And so yeah, these are the bad things, obviously, they're good ones as well. But to me, this is a red flag, when you see 3.8 in the past 12 months 3.2 this is not good. Once again, the you know, usually here, they're all five someone will give, even if one person gives the tour or one, you know, the rest of the five. And that's usually how it happens.

So this is actually quite bad. Also, because once you give, once you give this, you can actually change it. So what happens is sometimes people aren't getting paid, and they're like, Oh, this company hasn't paid me in three months, or six months or whatever, they give a one and then the company does pay them because they want to get rid of that. And so they'll raise it, you know, and they'll give it like a three or four and say, Oh, the company finally paid me so I raised my rate. So the fact that obviously this company when our translation hasn't even bothered to try to follow up or try to raise these, that's also a red flag to me, right? So anyway, and if you're not sure about this, what you can also do is check the forums to see if anyone's talking about anything pros comm has its own forums.

And here you can search for one hour translation that go until I did the search for him already. And and then you get to see a bit, you know what some people are talking about. And, you know, you can just scroll around and see what it says here. Let's see what one hour translation There we go. I used to start working for low cost translation websites, such as one hour translation, or the Spanish probate like blah, blah, blah. So basically a low cost translation website, it seems like one of those websites that don't pay too much, they obviously don't seem to care very much if they pay you or not.

And, and, yeah, so I don't know, to me, that's a couple red flags. Now, if you're still not sure, though, because you know, it was kind of ambiguous. There were quite a few fives and everything like that. Then there there are definitely other places you can check. Usually for me, the second place that I check is translators cafe comm if it would load Sorry about this lately I've been having some issues. So and actually I should show you here when our translation I spelt it all attached maybe if you do like this No, sometimes if you do various different variations of of the company name some other things pop up like Let's try one hour translation.

But no these are all obviously different. So yeah, and pros usually does a good job of combining them when they should be combined into into one company. So here we go. And first of all, this is a very confusing website to me, so you'll forgive me if But no, first of all, you can check the discussion forums. And I'd never remember how to do out here. Do the search, I guess.

One hour translation. There we go. Let's see what pops up a boring scammers pretend to be Danko. I'm not sure. Maybe they're pretending to be gay Danko when our translations calm. I've checked a little more.

And while the two agencies named Dan I've more or less the same setup working methods and payment schedule, the websites are dissimilar. And I made a mistake thinking that Danko is also one hour translation. Well, they're not there are different companies. I know that and actually there I would head back to here because as I mentioned, the pros is usually very good at combining different websites, you know, even when sometimes they do try to be different or try to come up with a separate name because their first name has a bad reputation. proz.com is good at combining them but here it shows it's a different company. Go Yeah, I mean, again, I've heard it before so I do know And anyway, so there you go.

There's another place you can go if you want under translators cafe and if I find it, I think was under community as well. There we go community Oh Hall of Fame and shame. There we go. And this is this functions. Pretty much just like the blue board under pros. And here you can see one hour translation, except as you can see, they don't combine them.

And I don't know. So it makes it kind of confusing also, because here we have one star, and you have five stars. Now, actually what so I've been going at this for a while, so I can notice a certain red flag here. And that said, this is an affiliate link, an affiliate link means someone who gets paid to refer you to this company. So if I click on this, and then I use one hour translation, and then of doing business with them, this gets tracked basically my you know, my ISP or something gets tracked, and this guy here gets paid. So anytime there's an affiliate, of course, they're going to give it five stars because they want you to click on this website and use it.

But here I see two users have rated this one and a both given it apparently one star. So that's what I'm going to trust. I think more than anything. You can click on it. Click on hidden you get this? It seems like I haven't paid my dues to translators cafe translators Cafe is actually it's a free website.

But yeah, you don't have access to everything when you don't pay. I thought I had access to the Hall of Fame and shame, but apparently I don't, because I'm not a master member. So if you're a master member, you can see more details, but either way, you can see the the rating they get. Now, before I sign off that usually this is all you need to more or less get an idea because these are both very translation specific pros and translators cafe. But if you're still not sure that certain other things you can do, you can just do executive search for one hour translation and review. That's what I usually do.

And you'll have here you have two things. You have Glassdoor and Yelp. So Glassdoor is a website that rates them from the perspective of employees. So if you're working there, and it rates how it is to work there, and that's 3.2. So that's what I would trust more than anything if you're going to work for for one hour translation, Yelp, as you know, reviews it from the point of view as a consumer and here it's 3.5. So you can make it what what you wish.

I don't know if I'm gonna just click on it quickly, just to show you more or less works great company and people current employee anonymous employee. So, you know, this person seems to like it used to be a great agency, no more amazing place to start a career quality, but it gives it three stars, so I'm not sure good, but she'll be employee inclusive, good service, messy management. So I don't know, you know, here here, it's a bit all over the board. So and actually, this shows you well, because many times, I mean, look, if it's a scam, it gets quite obvious as a scam, when our translation does not seem to be a scam, but it does seem to be quite iffy. And so, you know, it goes back to the low cost translations. If it's low cost, then maybe you can Go for it.

But otherwise, I don't know. I'm here. There's one other place that I want to share with you, although I really don't have much luck with this here, BB. This is a better business bureau. So this is for companies in the States. It said it was based out of Cyprus, but for some reason they have it listed here, although it's not BBB accredited, but it gives it an A plus.

And then it has one negative review. So this literally could not be more confusing. I don't know what's going on here. Composite Score 3.682 customer complaints. I really don't know what's happening. Let's click on the customer review to see what it says.

And you'll get an idea beware of I guess they'd like that the numbers does rob me. I've been working for blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. And they give a comment. You're really a translator for when our translation is such a service provider, I suggest that you contact your translators. So anyway, so this is precisely a translator working for them that had a problem with them. Let's look at the two customer complaints.

When you're go ahead document 150 words Translated by them pre estimate with 400 words still paid blah, blah, blah. Anyway, so this is a this is a client who had a problem with them. I purchased a certificate translation for this business and was given a time frame and then several mistakes need to correcting and did not Yeah, so you know, again here just seems like a low cost kind of thing. So what's your conclusion? The conclusion is always a judgment call, right? If you're desperate for cash, and you're you know, you'll want to work anywhere then sure, look up one hour translation and see but it seems like they're not very reliable, I would jump ship as soon as you can find someone else.

That's better. Here. I want to show you something that is a bit more and this is a company that I had problems with. And so I'm going to show this just because I I want to give them negative publicity anytime I can. I mean, they're not in business anymore, really. But so here I was working for inter Toronto, and you can see it there.

Traddles seems to be doing very well as five and this is out of Spain, but inter Toronto, or trade or whatever is this one based in Italy has a very low score. And it's run by this lady from Jessica Jeannie. And I mean it was basically a scam and you can see it has ones ones ones, and it does have the five, but it's five you know, because then I remember clicking on this guy one entry it's obviously that this is a fake account, there's some friend of hers who who, you know, wrote it up but anyway, all the other ones gave one and and they say terrible experience. So she still bad day basically means you know, it's the company with no money. And I obviously also gave it a one. And so what you can see here is this outsource has been banned from posting jobs@proz.com and that'll that's what will happen if you get too many bad reviews.

And so anyway, I do think proz.com does a very good job and that's why the first place I go is always I checked the blue border proz.com and so if I were you that's the first thing I would do anytime you hear about a new company, enter the name proz.com slash blue board and enter the name here and see what pops up. Then you can do all the other research if you want to clarify it or, or what have you, but this is the first place to look