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Legal advice please!
Thread poster: Georgina Izzard
Kirsten Bodart
Kirsten Bodart  Identity Verified
United Kingdom
Local time: 21:20
Dutch to English
+ ...
I'm sorry Feb 19, 2014

efreitag wrote:

Kirsten Bodart wrote:

On the upside: you are in another country and you can tell him to stick it. […] maybe you'll get away with it as it is not a lot. Another hint: if you don't pay and the bailiff doesn't contact you for another 5 years, the debt automatically expires. Interest is 8% pa I think.



Do you really think this is a good idea? Hint: replace "Bailiff" with "translator" and read your suggestion again.



[Bearbeitet am 2014-02-19 15:27 GMT]


but do you think it is just fpr someone to pay more in recovery costs than the original amount? I personally have encountered this, and you bet it's genuine. 600EUR debt, 2000 EUR bailiff's fees for a translation that was three times the same thing (literally) in four copies. I ask you, you consider that just? If the agency is genuinely bankrupt or has appointed no legal successor, the debt cannot be recovered. The lawyer should have done his work, but there is much riff-raff (excuse the term) amongst Belgian lawyers. 250 EUR seems to be a little low for a hearing and hours of work, I'm afraid. In Belgium there is no such thing as fees according to 'Streitwert', unfortunately, and a good lawyer' hourly fee is about 200 EUR (depending on the nature of your business).

By all means contact the Brussels bar for some advice and good luck with it.


 
Fei Ge
Fei Ge
United States
Local time: 16:20
Member (2012)
Chinese to English
+ ...
Legal trouble company owes me thousands Apr 17, 2018

Hello I’m in the US and recently did work for a company in India. It was a big assignment, they sent me a purchase order after it was completed, and I sent them weekly updates with proven progress and they accepted the quality of all my updates. When the project was finished, apparently the client asked for additional clarification on the topic that I was not able to provide and the translation agency told me they had to cancel the project and would not be paying me. I worked on this assign... See more
Hello I’m in the US and recently did work for a company in India. It was a big assignment, they sent me a purchase order after it was completed, and I sent them weekly updates with proven progress and they accepted the quality of all my updates. When the project was finished, apparently the client asked for additional clarification on the topic that I was not able to provide and the translation agency told me they had to cancel the project and would not be paying me. I worked on this assignment for appproximately 3.5 weeks and spent countless of hours doing it. I had to even hire a subcontractor because the work load was too intense and now I owe them money too. The purchase order in the end was $3000. Is there something I can do legally to acquire my pay?Collapse


 
CATHERINE GROSY
CATHERINE GROSY  Identity Verified
France
Local time: 21:20
English to French
Make an entry in the Blue Board Apr 25, 2018

markge wrote:

Hello I’m in the US and recently did work for a company in India. It was a big assignment, they sent me a purchase order after it was completed, and I sent them weekly updates with proven progress and they accepted the quality of all my updates. When the project was finished, apparently the client asked for additional clarification on the topic that I was not able to provide and the translation agency told me they had to cancel the project and would not be paying me. I worked on this assignment for approximately 3.5 weeks and spent countless of hours doing it. I had to even hire a subcontractor because the work load was too intense and now I owe them money too. The purchase order in the end was $3000. Is there something I can do legally to acquire my pay?


Recently I was encountering difficulties in getting 10-week old invoices paid as well as an older debt from 2 European agencies. They ignored email reminders. I sent them recorded delivery letters but I also made an unfavourable entry in the Blue Board detailing what had happened. When I validated the entries, Proz asked me if I wanted to report that these agencies owed me money. So I did that. And that very day, one agency paid the old debt even before they received the recorded delivery letter, so my guess is Proz contacted them and they reacted to that.

In the case of the other agency, they reacted to the recorded delivery letter and I've almost recovered all they owe me. You can charge the price of the letter, too. It seems to me that this Indian agency is just dishonest and made you work for nothing. Sadly you'll probably have to go further and start legal proceedings. Personally I never work for agencies outside of Europe and the USA. The chances of being scammed are much higher in countries where workers aren't protected by the same laws as in Europe or the USA, and it's just not worth it, without mentioning their low rates.

Good luck!


 
CATHERINE GROSY
CATHERINE GROSY  Identity Verified
France
Local time: 21:20
English to French
More information on this topic Apr 25, 2018

markge wrote:

Hello I’m in the US and recently did work for a company in India. It was a big assignment, they sent me a purchase order after it was completed, and I sent them weekly updates with proven progress and they accepted the quality of all my updates. When the project was finished, apparently the client asked for additional clarification on the topic that I was not able to provide and the translation agency told me they had to cancel the project and would not be paying me. I worked on this assignment for appproximately 3.5 weeks and spent countless of hours doing it. I had to even hire a subcontractor because the work load was too intense and now I owe them money too. The purchase order in the end was $3000. Is there something I can do legally to acquire my pay?


Here are the full details:

2.5 - How to open a non-payment report for certain outsourcer? [Direct link]

During the submission of your LWA entry as per FAQ, after sending the LWA entry for vetting, in case if the rating of the LWA entry is very low (1 or 2) you will be given the option to report any non-payment issue involved with the outsourcer and you will see a message "You entered a low LWA for this outsourcer. If you have not received payment, report a non-payment for this outsourcer". Please press on the button “report a non-payment for this outsourcer”. You will be redirected to another page where the possibility to enter data regarding your non-payment issue will be provided. After filling in all the necessary information please press on “Preview non-payment report” button, check carefully your non-payment report again and press on “Submit non-payment report” button to open a non-payment issue for your LWA entry.

If the LWA entry is already submitted and approved by PoZ.com Staff, however, you have not opened a non-payment report please contact site Staff , to request to open a non-payment report for your LWA entry. Please make sure that your non-payment report is in line with Blue Board rules .

The non-payment report is visible only to ProZ.com Staff and to the outsourcer. Service providers who report non-payment issues are required to update their LWA entries on time to make it clear if the payment has been made. If it is not possible to edit the LWA entry (whether because the reply has been already submitted by the outsourcer and as per Blue Board rule #3 , the LWA entry is not editable, or the LWA entry is too old) service providers should let site staff know if and when the non-payment issue is resolved (by submitting a support request, to inform they have been paid in full).

Note: In the case of outsourcers, if they have resolved an open non-payment issue, they are invited to contact site staff , and ask them to confirm this with the service provider. Only when the service provider confirms payment has been received in full, the LWA entry will be removed from the Blue Board record, allowing the service provider to make a new LWA entry reflecting the current situation. Note that this new entry may contain the same 1-5 rating as the entry that contained the non-payment report.

For more information regarding the use of Blue Board on ProZ.com please check the article “Using the ProZ.com Blue Board” .

5.1 - I have made a non-payment report for an outsourcer and it hasn't appeared yet. [Direct link]

First, please note that all Blue Board entries require vetting by site staff before they are made public (see http://www.proz.com/faq/3040#3040).

As of April 2016, in the case of non-payment reports for corporate members of ProZ.com, please note that outsourcers are notified of these reports before they are made visible in order to give the outsourcer the opportunity to confirm if the entry is in line with the conditions for making non-payment reports as described in http://www.proz.com/faq/2995#2995. You should have received an email from site staff notifying you of this policy upon making your entry. Your non-payment report will be made visible shortly if it is line with the rules for making Blue Board entries.


 
Nikki Scott-Despaigne
Nikki Scott-Despaigne  Identity Verified
Local time: 21:20
French to English
Differentiating costs and fees Apr 28, 2018

You might like to check what the instructions you gave to the lawyer actually included. Perhaps the agreement you signed and/or the law enables the lawyer to take such action and that you must pay.

In such situations, any agreement reached should clearly state what you are seeking to achieve and what you are prepared to pay to obtain that particular result. Note that a distinction is to be made between costs and fees. "Fees" are what you are to pay the lawyer for the work he carries
... See more
You might like to check what the instructions you gave to the lawyer actually included. Perhaps the agreement you signed and/or the law enables the lawyer to take such action and that you must pay.

In such situations, any agreement reached should clearly state what you are seeking to achieve and what you are prepared to pay to obtain that particular result. Note that a distinction is to be made between costs and fees. "Fees" are what you are to pay the lawyer for the work he carries out in accordance with your instructions; "costs" are whatever costs will be run up in order to achieve your aim. The lawyer's time is charged as a fee, the bailiff will count as a cost.

The combination of costs and fees often means that paying a third party professional to recover unpaid invoices is simply not economically viable. Using a small claims system is often a good solution. Failing that, the only other option is to write it off as a bed debt, morally and/or in your accounting, depending on the type of structure you have and what you are actually able to write off.

It's such a pain, as time spent working for someone who never pays, is time you could have spent working for someone who would have paid.

Edit : In any event, I suspect that the lawyer should have kept you up to date with action he/she was taking and probably sought your consent to costs and/or fees exceeding the amount of the claim. This is called a Pyrrhic victory and is of no use to you. There may be professional conduct rules requiring him/her to inform you when this type of situation arises, or you may simply have to accept that you need to pay him/her and put it down to experience.



[Edited at 2018-04-28 12:16 GMT]
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