Lost In Translation

[hans1977]

Hi all,

I've just been trough a translation/legalization procedure that i would like to share with you.

I started off at the P. S. Print And Sell company, opposite the Phaiyathai Hospital in Sriracha, with my document for legalization and my passport.

I showed the woman in there the document to translate and she asked me to show my passport, so that she could get my name right, and told me to pay 350 THB. I told her that i previously payed 300 THB for a bigger translation in Bangkok, and asked her why she wanted more than them although there were very few words to translate.

She said that the price is per page and that a very crowded page might become more expensive to translate as well. She then continued to point out that the shops down the street would charge me more, and that i could always go to the place in Bangkok.

However, i decided to let them do the job for me, and 30 minutes later the translation was ready for me to pick up.

The following day i went to Bangkok to legalize the document. Well there, they told me that the translated document wasn't up to their standard for legalization. A small note on the backside of the paper wasn't translated, and they had managed to get my name misspelled although they had got my passport and the original document to show them how to get my name right.

So my efforts to make this procedure convenient were now completely spoiled and i had to drive around Bangkok to find a new translator. I found one, relatively quickly, and the price for his translation was only 200 THB.

I went back to the P. S. Print And Sell company to tell them about this story. First they were very unwilling to do anything about it, but after i pointed out that they indeed had my passport and that they had not given me any contact details to use, if there were problems, they agreed to give me a "special offer" to get a maximum of 300 THB back if i could show them that i really went elsewhere to get the translation right.

To me Thai business repeats itself like this over and over again; we were wrong, and you have wasted your time and money because we have failed, but you have to pay us something anyway.

It all seams so useless to me, and i can't really see how anyone will benefit from this kind of behaviour. I mean, it would have costed them only 50 THB more and a few "i'm very sorry for our mistake", just to make me happy to recommend them to other people.

So my conclusion is that you are better off going somewhere else with your translations.

/Hans

[mrt273nva]

i am sure that they believe that they had done nothing wrong. responsibility is not a familiar word in this country.

[hans1977]

I think they already admitted that it was their mistake, but they just wouldn't pay it all back and apologize for their mistake. That's what's make them look so backwards, i think.

/Hans

i am sure that they believe that they had done nothing wrong. responsibility is not a familiar word in this country.

[PattayaParent]

"It all seams so useless to me, and i can't really see how anyone will benefit from this kind of behaviour. I mean, it would have costed them only 50 THB more and a few "i'm very sorry for our mistake", just to make me happy to recommend them to other people."

But why would you recomend them to other people if they screwed it up in the first place?

[hans1977]

Because of the lack of responsible people doing business in Thailand, so someone who concerns about their customers would probably improve quickly while they in the meantime will give you the money back if they fail.

/Hans

"It all seams so useless to me, and i can't really see how anyone will benefit from this kind of behaviour. I mean, it would have costed them only 50 THB more and a few "i'm very sorry for our mistake", just to make me happy to recommend them to other people."

But why would you recomend them to other people if they screwed it up in the first place?

[sriracha john]

Sriracha.

So my conclusion is that you are better off going somewhere else

Spread the news far and wide,

I agree wholeheartedly.

Edited June 5, 2008 by sriracha john

[hans1977]

Thanks! I thought it would be one of the better ways for me to proceed about them...

/Hans

Sriracha.

So my conclusion is that you are better off going somewhere else

Spread the news far and wide,

I agree wholeheartedly.

[NanLaew]

300 baht, around 10 bucks. File under live and learn and move on. If 3000 baht about 100 bucks, definitely worth sorting out to full customer satisfaction.

The concept of 'customer service' and 'the customer is always right' is mostly alien here though.

[hans1977]

Or it could be seen from the Thai side where it's a day's pay for a normal worker in a factory, or 2-3 days' pay for many people in the rural areas?

But, anyway, the amount of inconvenience and time for this poor translation service are quite large, and it would not have been guaranteed that a more expensive or cheaper translation would have been better or worse.

/Hans

300 baht, around 10 bucks. File under live and learn and move on. If 3000 baht about 100 bucks, definitely worth sorting out to full customer satisfaction.

The concept of 'customer service' and 'the customer is always right' is mostly alien here though.