Jitka Trnková | Wednesday, 21 October 2015
“I did not receive the translation by the deadline in the order.”
Step number 1. Ask the translation agency for its general terms and conditions!
The order becomes binding if it is confirmed by both parties. If there was a violation of certain provisions of the order, the procedure should follow the general terms and conditions of the agency concerned. For this reason the general terms and conditions are an integral part of the order. If you do not read these terms and conditions beforehand, or the translation agency doesn’t even have them written down, then you run the risk of your complaints not being addressed by anyone at all in the event that there is a problem due to the agency not complying with the order. If such a violation of the conditions by the translation agency then incurs some further damages that you want to address through the courts, you are in a very disadvantageous position. Even if the general provisions of the Commercial Code apply when concluding the contract (order), it may not always be specific enough to directly help you solve your problem. So, if the arranged deadline for delivering the translation was not met by the agency, you have the right to make a complaint about the translation. Once again, the procedure for such a case should be described in detail in the general terms and conditions of the given agency. If the delivery date for the translation has passed and you still don’t have your translation, contact the translation agency and find out why this situation occurred. Ideally, the agency will communicate with you, explain the reasons why this has occurred and negotiate a settlement. In this case the settlement should be a discount on the translation that was not delivered by the deadline arranged in the order, and in the event that you have incurred any more damage, the translation agency should willingly cooperate with you in seeking a solution for the damage incurred. In the less ideal case the agency will not communicate with you at all. In this case you should send your complaint to the agency in writing, and if there is still no response from the agency, then the only thing to do is to deal with this unpleasant matter through the courts.
In the 9 years of our existence we have dealt with just two complaints about the translation and interpretation services we provided, which, upon examination, were found to be baseless.