thebigword Arvostelua 55

The worst organization exploiting interpreter. Their is below the minimum, they havent paid me for two months of salary they promise you then they tell you it is too late you are allowed to claim it with in 60 days it is expired that is what they told me. You will never speak to a managment you will be only speaking to customer service in India they will tell you some body will call you back then no body will call u, you email them they dont replay. Never ever work for this inhuman agency. If you care about people dont use them they care only about profit. The government should ban this organization I dont know why the DWP uses uses them funds them. Zak

I got hired for the Dutch Police Coordinator role on a night shift work from home base.
Instead I had to chase HR/Recruitment/Management for the start date (December 2022).
Eventually, I ended up working for the UK police for 4 months, after chasing up again.

Too much happened at this company, but in a nutshell:

* They couldn't even spelled my name right: it took many emails, a formal complaint ánd 5 months for them to correct it
* Incapable of dealing with work-related issues in a timely manner, when the proper solution was suggested by myself
* Management and HR are non-existing
* Management and HR are very unprofessional and lying
* HR don't respond to emails, only when they feels like it
* Manager of Dutch market doesn't want you to express any opinion about anything
* You have to make upfront costs and chase them for months to get reimbursed
* They supply you with an used laptop; from day 1 I have had problems with logging into it and other systems
* When you want to get reimbursed for additional equipment like a laptop stand, wireless keyboard and wireless mouse, you have to fill in a form that's longer than a mortgage application, with irrelevant questions
* Company doesn't recognises you during the Christmas Holidays at all, even though working through the pandemic
* Very poor and inedequate action taken after formal complaint

If you're in the market for a long, rewarding career, at a company where you aren't just a number, don't sign up for this company at all!
If I could give no stars at all, I would. This is by far the worst company to work for and I worked literally on every continent!!!

Cooperated with them for a long time. It was good for a time before mid 2000s. They had a regular flow and a quite nice, on time processing/invoicing flow. Work was smooth, projects interesting. Many project managers/teams were really good.
However since mid 2000s, I had several unilateral rate reductions over the years, as of 2008. Initially, with the excuse that the company was undergoing difficulties due to crises etc., You'd get a dramatic email from a project manager/marketing guy, promising higher workflows for a rate reduction. The negotiation was of course rhetorical, as rate was reduced anyways or you "could lose workflow", then workflow went down anyways. Although obviously mildly exploitative, cooperation was still doable if you had different income sources from other activities and were on the look for an easy inflow of work. The flows were stable and relatively easy. Relationships were overall cordial, with occasional improvements in time. Many project managers really good.

But since late 2021-early 2022 operations seem to have been taken over by a whole different type of entities, literally overnight in my case. It started with new managers from what seems to be an Indian branch that overtook jobs for accounts i had been following for decades without any issue. After the shift to the new team, upon delivery most jobs magically started to have "issues", some "serious issues" or require extra attention. Aside from one job with issues and a few jobs for which clear instructions had not been clarified, the rest of the jobs had no major issues or no issues at all, with most of them being false positives due to wrong QA settings on their side. Jobs that had compatibility issues, previously fixed by their internal tech staff, became "undeliverable". So, a job translated and delivered several times was canceled and left unpaid after i explained they had to sort the technical issue at the source, with the PM seemingly unable or unwilling to understand and persistently asking me to deliver a job i had translated and redelivered multiple times already. They also took on sending post translation QA checks on a regular basis. Rate adjustments never mentioned, seemingly expecting execution at no extra cost. Many of these jobs are sent for QA with wrong settings, so that false positives are in the dozens or higher, with sole issues being the occasional spelling issue or a missing term. All of a sudden, minor delivery delays resulted in instant rate reductions.
They also don't seem to have any awareness of time zones. Whereas in the past the branches in Leeds, NY and Tokyo were aware of time zones, now demands extend beyond working hours, with pressing requests made late at night despite the working hours being stated clearly. You can be having dinner, be in bed, having a hike, be at a hospital. They seem unaware of time zones. They send mails and in case of no answer in a few minutes they push more mails to press you on menial yet time consuming, unpaid tasks.
Whereas jobs before were allocated automatically and picked by me the day after and translated, now you have to rush and reply to their constant requests for confirmations.
The perception is that of a sweatshop with people waiting at a PC all day till a job comes in, rather than simply have a workload assigned so it can be executed and planned with other events of life.
Rates got worse, too. Pre agreed min charges that had been honored for years got ignored. Requests to adjust rates ignored. Since the same period some jobs on their portal didn't get approval for payment. Working has become a constant exercise in emails back and forth with constant problems. Which is clearly not a good sign.

Finally, recently, maybe given the growing frequency of confrontational communications that had never occurred in the past, they took on sending "translator satisfaction surveys" (Your opinion is very important for us). Normally I wouldn't care, but just to see what happened I filled the survey twice at a few weeks' distance and what happened after, for whatever reason, is a workflow drop.

For a time I honestly wondered if i was dealing with the same company or if they had been hacked by some group of fake operators. It's only after that i realized they had handed over my workflow to an entirely different group that, i am told, has taken over, with a style that is, how to say, quite different.
It makes for a quite unpalatable experience. (
And, please, no more translator surveys either)

Never hire the agency for sign language interpreters – they have a bad reputation in the Deaf community.

I am Deaf and DWP used the Big Word to arrange a BSL interpreter for me but he was not adequate and I’m not 100% sure if he was fully qualified.

I felt uncomfortable, I couldn’t communicate with the advisor and I felt the interpreter was almost making fun of BSL as a language.

If you want to use an agency to hire a sign language interpreter, please use a Deaf-owned agency.

A company with no prospect for promotion. Pay is less than the minimum wage. No pay increase for 11 years. Keep away from them if you can. One star should be minus 10. Although they have the contract, waiting times is more than 20-30 minutes. They make the interpreter work so hard for that little money. Exploitation.

I had to give them one star as there was no option for 'NO STAR'I have no words to describe what a fatal blow that was to the system of Justice when the Moj decided to hire these companies, when it wasn't even needed. Just to please some MP this contract was awarded to some of their friends/ family. That day was beginning of our journey as Interpreters , down the hill.I don't know how , introducing a 3rd party in the chain MOJ thought it could save money.What a fat lie!!
There was so much work for us before this contract shift but now it's just nothing.I am qualified Interpreter working since 2006 after my diploma in DPSI.I had so much work experience with police too.Pay was cut , incentives taken away ,all put in some one else's pocket.we are not fools.MOJ and big word sharing what was ours n it's going in their personal pockets.Hence I decided to start doing something else as I wasn't getting enough , even to pay my bills.
One thing which is redicolously stupid , that they can book you for all day, you get excited n take the booking n driving miles away to find out , that it's not going ahead or some other mysterious Interpreter is sitting there.You come back n only paid a £20..
Would any one travel 100 miles just to get a £20.what a bad joke!!
Worst was to hit me, when I was booked for 20 day trial for 10th of Jan 2022 ,after a year, with email confirmation from BW . Was taken by surprise when I got there ,as there was another Interpreter booked ,and I was sent back. I called them everyday till today, and they can't give me any explanation as who booked that Interpreter, as he was surely from big word, wearing their badge.but BW can't find out how he was there n who booked them ,wow really???it's been 2 weeks as they have sent inquiry to READING county court and they can't get through to them over the phone. They say they left voice messages n emails but no one is replying.They also admit , it's very strange for the court to do that..
Let me tell you what is strange.The booking officers get a bribe from dishonest Interpreters for giving them all good jobs and trials.How did I know that? Some Interpreter told me. Now you tell me if its not true!!
How come one Interpreter living close by me , get trials all lined up one after the other n me with nothing.What do I get ? I get £24 job for an hour to travel down 30 miles 😠 😡 Am I a fool.How come I'm sitting at home while someone else is doing my job,and My name showing in their system for this trial.I will surely take them to court for this ,as its not the first time it happened to me.
There was no platform provided by MOJ to complain about BW.
Sad part is that I loved this job and I had full status on national Register n soo much experience worth of so many years.All gone wasted. So changing my career to be able to pay my bills.
Big word n MOJ are both filled up with corruption .But no one will ever check or just criminal silence,unfortunately !!

The worst agency ever. They exploit interpreter, they dont pay you. You try to contact them, they have customer service from india they dont even understand uk system and I always struggle to understand them and they struggle to understand me. I have no idea why the government uses their services without Auditing them how they operate and how they treat their employers

Working as a telephone Interpreter for them for more than 12 years. They didn't pay all my calls for September 2021, locked my account and I wasn't able to invoice. Send messages and emails and no one is taking responsibility. There is no complaints department. Absolutely disgraceful attitude towards employee.

it's just bad and lazy. i have been working w them since when they got the contract but I am deeply dissatisfied. No one ever talks to you if you have a problem with invoicing and sometimes you have to hang on the phone for 40' to speak to someone when you have an urgent matter. They are keen to cover up for their mistakes, and they never assume any responsibility for their errors.

The worst company that I've been working with. Linguists, please stay away from it at all costs. I will Trustpilot had "0" score to give them. "1" is still a generous one.

Great service. Really good experience using the WordSynk system.

I cannot understand how this entity sneaked into the new dynamic booking system and how they can keep any long term government endorsed contracts.
They have the most ridiculous registration process I have ever experienced and an army of staff whose jobs are mainly to shuffle papers; there has been non-communication across the board (unless you come across an HR worker who knows what they are doing although based in a remote call centre abroad) there is no point trying to contact them via the standard or recommended communication channels about anything, I was shocked to learn a lot of my colleagues who worked for them for a few years had a similar experience:
IT system very inefficient; one department does not know what another is doing. Urgent messages hanging in thin air or being passed around from one department to another, people being sent from pillar to post on regular basis; the helpdesk is very efficient in issue problem ticket numbers while not providing any advice. The foreign remote workers who pick up the phone are underpaid exploited undertrained staff who have standard replies in front of them and in case of a specific issue they just keep re-reading them until you threaten them with a serious complaint.
It took one of my colleagues ten months to get their registration noticed and processed and even them they got stuck on some online course which was not accessible in full and presentation slides were in low resolution so he was unable to read most of them.
Huge overheads create enormous pressure on all contracts and most free-lance professionals are as a result treated like modern slaves; the hourly rates and travel are a bad joke. You can get offered a job that is 150-200 miles away without any travel supplements and on occasions someone will reply to your email explaining that if you do not request travel supplements they cannot issue them back dated !?!
If you are a qualified expert / professional who studied towards one or two applicable degrees and completed a postgraduate training specific to LAW and linguistics please avoid these 'global cowboys'.
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Over the years I have become more aware this is not an isolated issue - the lack of appropriate legislation creates this huge minefield and and enormous potential to what I would call 'well hidden corruption'. Most self employed professionals are too scared to let TBW know (or anyone else) about their reviews or do them anonymously or do not share anything with anyone that could identify them as whistle blowers.

TBW is just another entity indirectly supporting global exploitation of qualified professionals using and abusing the legislative void to bring the professional rates to the lowest level possible in order to maximise their profits.

I was a translator for them. They have an online platform where you have to deliver the translation. After delivery they simply do not approve it for payment so you cannot invoice it. You have to chase it up repeatedly. No responses

Deafening silence; applied many times no response at all.