How do they do it?

[alexpgp]

I am told that translators working in Europe often have to wait for inordinately long periods to get paid, and I've proof it's no exaggeration.

I've had an interesting history with a French agency I've done some work for.

The first job I did for them was a rush, wherein we agreed on the rate, but not the terms of payment. My bad. Theirs, too, except that when I sent an invoice with my standard "30 days net" terms, I was told the agency paid "60 jours fin de mois," which basically translates as: "payment 60 days after the end of the invoicing month," effectively 60 to 90 days, depending on when during the month the work was done.

Or so I thought.

Silly me.

I hadn't reckoned on the agency's decision to cut checks in the middle of the month (for which there is actually a refined formulation in French, such as: "60 jours fin de mois le 15," which means: we pay on the 15th of the month starting 60 days after the end of the invoicing month, i.e., up to 105 days after the work is submitted.

Here's their payment history:

Invoiced	Paid	Aging
2/8/2007	5/14/2007	96
2/12/2007	5/14/2007	92
2/20/2007	5/14/2007	84
2/23/2007	5/14/2007	81
3/13/2007		198
3/16/2007	7/3/2007	107
4/4/2007	7/3/2007	89
7/5/2007		86

What's funny is that the agency's rating at proz.com pretty much uniformly shows it to pay "on time." (Perhaps my standards are too high?)

Here's hoping I get paid by Halloween!

Cheers...

UPDATE: Three Four more emails have gone out the wire inquiring about payments, or to be more precise, the lack thereof. Grrr.