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Reviews 39
Gözde Zay
Dec 22,2024I am the leader of a technical team composed of highly skilled professionals, including engineers and technicians, who work on demanding projects for high-profile clients like Meta. Despite our expertise and contributions, Gengo’s handling of payouts has been deeply disappointing. 1. Payout Delays and Poor Scheduling: Gengo promises payouts on the 10th and 25th of each month. Today is December 22nd, and I was assured my payout would be processed on the 25th. However, I have now been told I won’t receive payment until January 10th—even during the Christmas period, when timely payouts are critical for many of us. This is unacceptable, especially when Meta and other clients Gengo contracts us for are known for paying on time. 2. Lack of Flexibility and Communication: Gengo’s support team has repeatedly ignored the urgency of the situation, despite me explaining that I need these funds to pay my team. They refuse to escalate my request to a senior finance manager and instead stick to generic, unhelpful responses. This demonstrates a lack of care for the people who keep their projects running smoothly. 3. Hidden Fees and Transparency Issues: Our earnings are already reduced significantly due to Gengo’s platform fees, PayPal fees, and poor exchange rates. These deductions are not clearly communicated upfront. For a company that expects the highest level of professionalism from its freelancers and teams, this lack of transparency is both frustrating and unfair. 4. Disrespect for High-Level Professionals: We are not just individual translators; we are a team of engineers and technicians who deliver technical expertise to Gengo’s clients. For a company working with globally respected brands like Meta, their failure to meet basic financial obligations reflects poorly on their operations. While the projects we’ve worked on through Gengo are rewarding, the payout system and lack of respect for freelancers and their teams overshadow any benefits. Other platforms, even those handling similar high-profile clients, are far more transparent, timely, and professional. If this issue is not resolved, I will be left with no choice but to escalate the matter. I will inform my entire team to share their complaints on all relevant platforms, including Trustpilot, Glassdoor, and professional forums. Additionally, I will notify our clients directly about these issues, as their reputations are tied to Gengo’s performance. I urge Gengo to reconsider its payout policies, especially during critical times like the holiday season, and treat its technical teams with the respect they deserve.
Emiliano Garay
Sep 02,2024Bad quality translation. They use Google translate.
Jon
Mar 28,2024This company is selling machine translation at human translation prices. If you actually speak the language natively you'll understand this when you see translations for words like "Sign up" directly converted into phonetic foreign borrow words like サインアップする instead of the natural and correct translation of 登録する. I rejected the translations stating this, but Gengo staff said my rejection wasn't valid and that these were "quality translations." AVOID THIS COMPANY AT ALL COSTS.
Stefan Nelson
Nov 10,2023Google can provide the same translations for 0.00 cents. It's a much better deal, and no, it doesn't matter if you pay for their "higher quality" service, Google can still do the exact same job... why pay for it?
Annett Roessner
Jul 06,2023I have been translating for Gengo for a couple of months now and have had a read through the reviews with many clients complaining about issues with their translation. I basically only ever work on jobs at the Pro level rate of $0.09 because only this rate allows for enough time to produce a quality translation. In regards to the bad reviews: I believe this is a matter of you get what you paid for. If you submit your translation as a standard translation the translator gets paid a measly $0.03 to $0.035 per word which is way below industry standards (at least a third lower than what a professional translator usually charges). Generally speaking, a translator translates around 300 words per hour. This means a translator makes around $9.00 per hour at these rates. In most countries this would be below minimum wage and without any of the perks that come with being employed (annual leave, sick leave, paid public holidays. So, in order to make some money a translator will need to churn out at least 600 words per hour if not more. Hence, the quality of this translation will never be as good as a translation done for the Pro rate of $0.09. Put simply if you want a high quality translation please submit your job as a Pro job and a professional translator will work on your translation. You simply cannot expect a high quality translation at the standard rate. For even higher quality translations, provide as much context as possible and a glossary if needed. Also, if you submit your translation through their system it gets split across different translators. This means that your final translation will be inconsistent in style and terminology. In order to avoid this simply submit your translation in a word document or excel spreadsheet. A professional translator will then ensure style and terminology are consistent across your whole document. I hope this is helpful. Thanks, Your Master educated Professional Gengo Translator
Dfrance Luna
Jun 25,2023I dont wana give them even a single star as well. They are hiring translators worldwide, they take tests, and then they say "oh we dont have much colections ye ye ye...then they say install rss feed....thats always empty....then their support says umm we hv preffered translators...ye ye ye.... I am a pro translator and didntget job since months... I think there are indians behind it making people fool, as the girl talking me on the behalf of their support looks indian hindu....
Very Unsatisfied
Mar 03,2023Their big headline on the website says "Professional translation within hours" which is a complete lie and any translation you order will take at least a week before corrections. The home page also says "Ready to get started? Translate instantly using our order form." - Yeah right. I rejected my translation because it did not meet our needs and there were errors on every email (11 emails / 5500 words) and explained that I only used them because of speed, so what did they do. Gave it to someone else to translate so now it's going to be another week or more. Complete and utter discrace - will never use again and I will be publishing this review over social media.
Ashley Ritesh Boodhoo
Aug 11,2022Just took the MCQ test to be approved as Translator (French to English). I have been reading, writing and speaking both languages for 35 yrs. And been doing professional technical translations for the past 10 years. I got only a 1 out of 5 correct... either i am completely inept or their tests are biased/ wrong.
Christa
Jul 27,2022The test is absurd, because i know English well enough to pass. They refuse to communicate about the results, which i also find very unreliable.
Manuel
Jun 21,2022Even if you're native, tests are extremely dumb and unrelevant. Gengo is toxic and should be avoid by anyone and by any means.
Christy Mohring
Oct 07,2021Gengo is unreliable and poor quality. I submitted a document for translation, and when they had completed this, I compared it to a free translation through google. It cost me over 300$ and when I rejected this, because I am not able to use it, my money was not returned. It has been an awful experience and I will not be returning or recommending this service to others. Save your money, Google translate will provide you with the same quality. Or connect with a freelancing company to help you. When I rejected the work and it went under review, they decided this met quality standards and that I should be more specific as to my requests. Poor customer service and an absolute rip off for your money.
Otaku Hacks
May 26,2021I used Gengo to once translate a letter from Eng->Japanese that I wanted to send to my girlfriend's company about their poor COVID work-from-office rules. I received the translation in less than 24 hours and upon showing it to a JP friend they said it was mostly perfect. There are lots of negative reviews on this site, but this is my own experience
Davichi
May 19,2021Wish I had read the reviews before wasting time and money on Gengo. Save yourself some hassle and just use google translate because that is what they will do. Although I paid for a pricier bespoke service, I was given a translation that was a word for word Google translation. It lacked nuance and was riddled with 'Google translate' mistakes that a native speaker would never make. Even though I repeatedly pointed out the errors to the supposedly 'native speaking' translator, the issue was never resolved. The customer service team was equally unhelpful and they seem to operate a "no refunds no matter what" policy. An altogether unpleasant and highly tedious experience, I will not use this company again.
anZU
Jan 22,2021The worst translation platform ever. The navigation is terrible, it works really slow and the translation quality (PRO plan, btw) is pretty controversial.
EYTHOR
Nov 07,2020I asked for a translation of 30 page text for which I paid US$ 760 as soon as I requested the translation. I initially sent in a pdf file, but was asked to send the text in a format where the words could be counted. I later found out the reason for this this odd requirement. The first translator held on to the job for 10 days without translating anything, then declined it. It went on for a few days like that, a translator accepting the job and then later declining it. Finally a translator promised to deliver the translation within few days, and although the time that the task had taken by then exceeded what I was promised in the beginning, I accepted it. Once I received the translation, the text did not sound right. Being bilingual in those languages myself, I found some major errors in the translation, and the text looked odd to me. More of out of fun, I decided to "google translate" it. To my utter surprise, I found every word, every sentence, to be an exact copy paste from Google Translate, except here and there where some very minor changes had been made. It took me hours to communicate with ever changing persons in charge at Gengo both to get the translation speeded up, and later to point out to them what had happened. I got fully refunded in the end, but I ended up loosing four important weeks. I ended up with a translation I could not use. Except for getting the refund, the company did not offer any compensation and just put the whole blame on some unscrupulous translator of theirs. Apparently, there is no quality checks done and no monitoring of the translators. Appalling experience.
Jens
Aug 18,2020Gengo has never been amazing, but they truly get worse and worse every year. The pay is awful, the managers and senior translators are arrogant and the test expectations (especially "pro" and higher) are absolutely ridiculous, especially considering the pay. They just don't want you to earn more since that would mean less profit for them. Over the course of my working life I have proven my excellent language skills numerous times and they still reject me. Not to mention that getting a job is like gambling – immediately clicking on the notification is frequently too late: another translator has already claimed the job within like 20 milliseconds. I had a translator score (measuring the quality) of almost 10 (the maximum) for years, but then they overhauled the feedback system one or two years ago and I'm hovering between 6 and 7 now, which results in less work being available for me. The rules are getting stricter and stricter without any increase in pay. The weighting is nonsensical (e.g. why do three 50-word jobs count as much or more than a 2000 word job?). The feedback system is nonsense and really just a way to suppress your score and force you to work harder because you get less jobs with a lower score. However, the quality of work stands in no relation to the pay whatsoever. A "real" translator (with a degree, etc.) would never work for the abysmal amount that you earn, yet they expect a comparable quality of us. Plus, many jobs have completely broken grammar and spelling, literal gibberish, and Gengo still dares to give you a bad score for your translation (despite making it coherent) while the source is just absolute garbage. I do not recommend working at Gengo.
Gladys Xu
Jul 14,2020It sucks. It is not ethical and treats translators as machines. I doubt how good the quality the final translation would be, produced by translators under a harsh deadline and toxic environment.
Tychus Zoe
Jun 02,2020It's a super terrible company. Their translation is like a sheet and the freaking translator told me she is a native speaker. What the hell.
GIms
May 19,2020What a Bullsh*t company! The English-Korean pair tests were the worst quality word-for-word translation. The reviews were completely bullsh*t too. It's obvious the so-called professional reviewers are probably the same people who translated/made up the terrible word-for-word tests. Also, it turns out the reviewers also work as translators at Gengo, so clearly they don't want competition, so they would dismiss any great test translations with made up, bullsh*t, phony excuses which is possible because their reviews are final and no rebuke is allowed. One of the worst translation companies ever!
MX Leo Williams
Jan 26,2025I requested my payment on the 3rd of January, 2025 and received a date that my payment would be sent out by the 25th of January, 2025 after missing the deadline of January 10th. It should be $100 paid out to me today. My paypal is this same email address on my account. Nothing has changed.