Scam alert: Parkstone Press / Sirrocco Publishing September 30, 2009
Posted by Jill (@bonnjill) in Business practices, Scam alert.trackback
One of my former students was just scammed by Parkstone Press / Sirrocco Publishing. She thought they were legit because they sent her a contract. After not receiving timely payment and having her e-mails ignored, she attempted to contact them by phone. Unfortunately she then learned that the New York and U.K. office phone numbers listed in the contract were fake. Upon further research on Payment Practices and Proz.com, she found out that they have done the same thing to countless translators in the past. All 3 company listings on Payment Practices (searching for “Parkstone”) have a PP Reliability Score (PPR Score™) of 0 and a Translator Approval (TA Score™) (would you work for them again?) of 1, which are as bad as it gets. I cannot stress this enough. You should always research potential new clients on the various payment practice groups that are available to translators or at a minimum do a Google search before agreeing to accept a translation job. Hopefully this post will serve as a warning to potential translators in the future.
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I fell for a scammer once near the beginning of my career as a freelance translator, though I suppose I should be grateful to the swine. A few hundred euros is a cheap lesson in the importance of due diligence.
A lot of our business is based on trust, and I find this a good thing. However, here ol’ Ronnie Raygun’s advice is relevant: “Trust, but verify!”
Sometimes verification is not easy. One of my favorite direct clients was obtained after I insulted the consulting recruiter for the new translation team by calling him a fake and pointing out that he was invisible on the Internet and met a number of criteria for scammers. However, in the end he was able to verify his identity by pointing out that we were part of the same translators’ association, which goes to great lengths to verify identity and qualifications.
I’ve set up a blog to report on the fraudulent practices of Artfise, which is the name of Parkstone’s Paris bureau. You can see it here:
http://artifiseinparis.blogspot.com/
I am an English- German to French translator and have been scammed by Parkstone too. I signed a contract with Parkstone for a 50000 word translation in April 2007 after negotiating a extension for a deadline which seemed very unreasonnable to me. Before signing the contract, I was given a sample of the text to translate which they approved, but when I asked to see the full manuscript before agreeing to sign, they bluntly refused for reasons of “confidentiality”. Being totally ignorant of the right procedures, I finally agreed and did the job which was very hard work.
Hi Marie,
I’m an English to French translator and I’ve read your post with great interest as I worked for Parkstone in February and haven’t gotten paid either although the book I translated was released last Thursday. The contact you mentionned (Elizabeth Woodwille) sounds very familiar indeed as she was the one who asked me to do the job. I also exchanged a few mails with Eliane de Seresin whom I called in July to ask whether I would ever get paid. I was then told to contact the New York office by mail as Artfise did not deal with payments, or so she said.
So I would really appreciate if you could give me a few tips on how to proceed next. Would you suggest I sent them a registered letter, too? I don’t intend to let go either.
Hi Pierre,
I would suggest you read the other comments and contact those people and see what they have done. There is also a website devoted to Parkstone cited in the comments as well. I’m sorry I can’t help you more, but I’m sure the others can. Good luck!
Sincerely,
Jill
Hi Jill,
Thank you for your message. I knew about the website and I’m going to post something pretty soon. I’m going to try to contact the people you mentionned as well.
Thank you again.
Pierre
Continued message:
After sending numerous messages to chase them for payment, I rang the Paris office (the contact person was Elizabeth Woodville) and was told that they were experiencing some treasury problems and had their accounts department based in Vietnam! Finally, I sent them a registered mail urging them to pay me unless they wanted to be taken to court. I have been involved in a lawsuit with them for two years now and am determined not to let go. I would be very grateful for further testimonies of other Artfise/Parkstone victims.
Hi,
my experience is similar to Kevin’s and my first “client” was a con artist who still owes me some 90 euros plus late payment interests for over 3 years.
A cheap price for learning my lesson, as I did not fall for Parkstone/Artfise et al. when contacted through my profile on a translators’ site.
My advice: always double- to quadruple-check everything. And if your gut feeling still says “NO”, then abstain and move on..
Hi Pierre,
Interesting to see how many people have been scammed by Parkstone. It almost seems like it is common practice for them not to pay their translators! I would suggest you follow the legal procedure and send them a registered mail with a payment deadline, just to see how they react. But whatever you do, keep track of all your communications and the names of the people you communicate with. I have found stunning information as I did some research on the Net about the people who work for Artfise and their connections. I wish you good luck and keep me posted!
Marie
Hi Marie,
Thank you very much for your reply. I did what you told me to do. I haven’t heard from them since. But I don’t really expect much from them anyway. I also had few friends of mine review the book I translated on Amazon and elsewhere. Each of them mentionned the fact that I didn’t get paid for the work. It may prove useless but who knows. Have a good day.
Pierre
Hi Marie,
I’m afraid the registered letter I sent them didn’t lead anywhere.
Could you please tell me what you suggest I do next? Everybody seems so quiet about it. As a member of ATLF I tried to explain on their forum what the problem was and didn’t get any satisfying answers. As if I mentionning “Artf/Parks” was like blaspheming or something.
I mean, should I consider myself on my own from now on and try to contact some good lawyer or is there any other way to deal with it?
Is there any chance to gather all the translators who have been scammed by Artf.Parks and go for a joint action?
In case you want to contact me by mail : baril.pierre@orange.fr
Thanks in advance for your answer and Happy New Year btw.
Pierre
Marie, you write:
“I have found stunning information as I did some research on the Net about the people who work for Artfise and their connections.”
What exactly do you mean by this? I’m sure we would all be very interested to know. Feel free to communicate by email should you prefer to keep this confidential…
- disgruntled (of the artfiseinparis blog).
Hi everyone,
I too have been scammed by Parkstone Press.
Do any of you think we bring a class action? If nothing else, then to chase them round the bend. I am determined to put up a fight, and we are clearly in the right here, even signing contracts, some of us delivering work for a few thousand dollars’ worth. (They even published a translation of mine! Imagine the bloody nerve!!!)
I see enough grounds to go for it…
Miriam
I’m up for it. Let’s hope we won’t be the only ones.
Pierre
Do you think there’s a particularly good way of pooling all of us, seeing as there has been mention of scammed colleagues on other sites? I’m fairly certain there’d be more people up for it if they knew about it. What do you think?
Well, I think you’ll find all you need to know on the blog I mentionned. And you might think : “wow” all these people who were scammed by Parkstone. Great.” But I couldn’t really get any help from there. But at least you’ll see plenty of interesting testimonials. If you get a chance, take a look at the comments. Also very interesting.
You’ll find my e-mail in one of my previous posts.(january 28).
(That’s my real address by the way. I know I should have been more careful but it’s too late for that anyway.:) )
Honestly, I have no idea. Have you checked out the artfiseinparis blog? You may want to try and ask disgruntled about it.
Sorry, I wish I could give you a better answer. Again, I think a class action is a great idea. Using Facebook could be another way. Maybe.I’m willing to try anything.
Please keep me posted.
Pierre
As for the blog, the answer is ‘not yet’. I’ve only just started researching the Parkstone scam.
Facebook might be a good idea. I will also try and ask around on forums/bulletin boards.
e-mail me at ‘glesca at gmx.net’ if you want to (my email address for spam / public sites, will then give you my “real” address)
those of you interested in discussing such matters may wish to know that i have a dedicated a page of my blog to the issue of a possible class action law suit. really, it’s just a place where you can leave comments and get in touch with one another but it seemed a good idea to centralize information on this issue. feel free to visit and have your say:
http://artifiseinparis.blogspot.com/2010/02/possible-legal-recourse.html
Hi everybody,
I did a huge project for Parkstone last year, fell for them, but because they seemed to be a big and well known publishing house I didn’t double check. Now I’m still waiting for the 4700 USD which is quite a lot! They even sent me the book, imagine! I’m a member of the German literary translators’ association who provide a kind of legal help, their attorney sent some emails, but now he doesn’t want to go any further. I would gladly take part in that class action law suit – would you please keep me informed? I will try and contact some of you privately. I also think about hiring a money collectors’ agency, but don’t know which one yet. Does anybody of you have any recommendations? Any experience? Success stories?
I translated about 7 books for Parkstone plus some blurbs etc. over the space of about 3 years, and was lucky enough to get paid for some of the work, though they still owe me about 12000 dollars. Since the company has been set up in a very clever way, it is impossible to pin down the directors, and no lawyer will take up the case. Your contract is not worth the piece of paper it is written on. I am not defeatist by nature, but here I would say: It is best to take it as a lesson. I for my part at least enjoyed the work, and the two girls, Elizabeth and Eliana were professional and delightful to work with – only they never had any authority to write out any cheques.
Maybe I don’t know what I am talking about as I am only an author, but ….
Would it not be possible to add a clause to any contract recieved from anyone that “All rights to the copyright for the translated work remain with the translator until payment is recieved in full. In the event of none payment the copyright remains with the translator and the translator reserves the right to publish the work, or deal in all rights to the copyright by way of assignment to third parties to recover costs.”
If you are employed on a “work for hire” contract in the UK or USA then ´part of the contract would surely set out payment terms. If the party then renages on their part of the contract then surely the whole contract would be void and you would hold the copyright in most countries. If you are from a country that enjoys translators “moral rights” ie Germany, Brazil or France, then maybe your case would be even stronger
If someone then didn’t pay and went on to publish you could use the contract as evidence to have their book unpublished with a takedown notice to the likes of Amazon etc.
To all GERMAN (and all EUROPEAN) translators who got screwed by them: Go to the police, file an ANKLAGESCHRIFT with the STAATSANWALTSCHAFT for BETRUG (I did it via an attorney but this is not necessary) and get a little whirl in the whole affair which seemed stuck. It takes time because interpol is slow but it makes them a little fire under their asses as they start getting nervous and paying small bits.
And:
Go to their huge (!!! – I think it costs much more than the money they owe us…) booth at the FRANKFURT BOOKFAIR in Hall 8 (in 2011 its 8.0 O937) and grab Cornelia Sonntag – but beware of their cheques (written by her but pre-signed by Jean-Paul Manzo), they are definitely not covered, believe me, I tried it and my hope was disappointed.
And have a word with their old man Klaus H. Carl as well – he is an old-age-pensioner who does all the editing work for free (imagine!) and happily so because it is his hobby and they let him travel first class to the bookfair and sit in their big booth enjoying the fair and babble on how nice and fantastic they are, not realizing that he is undermining other peoples jobs.
And:
Watch out – they changed their name again – now it’s not Editions Artifise any more but Temporis Collector, same address in Paris. Even on their homepage they changed it (french version, under “distributors”).
(By the way – wonder who might act as dummy for director of this new business construction? Right, Klaus H. Carl, the innocent old man. Bet he does it for free again.)
Hi all!
Nice to have your comments about Sirrocco, Artfise. They have cheated a number of companies in India as well! Thorough this we would like to share and discuss with you how we get our payments from them.
How to punish them – they are cheating people around the globe without any fear and we cannot do anything…………
Please share your views.
Hari Om
India
There is a one stop linguist blacklist
http://translationstreet.co.uk/linguist-blacklist
You can check for scammers, bad payers now prior to taking an assignment.
Wasn’t sure about approving this comment, since it appears to be an ad. There are plenty of other bad payer lists out there. I suggest signing up for several – preferably ones that are not new since there are more people active on them. More members means more information on more bad payers.
I understand your apprehension.
However that list is not an Ad.
I agree that there are many lists out there but the TranslationStreet list allows for a search without registration.
I know because I created the System.
Although the database is still being compiled, it will likely be the largest list for Linguists on the Internet.
As for the lists age, it is in fact over 3 years old. It is just that the database requires all those entries to be manually entered into the database from ‘e-mail form’ source.
An arduous task.
The list when completed will contain over 2,000 debtors.
That said I do agree Linguists need to look at all sources for information.