LanguageLine Solutions - Monterey, California

Sam V

(Contractor Review)
If I could give zero stars, I would.

This company is all about exploitation and treats its contractors with extreme unfairness. As an L5 interpreter—at the highest level of interpretation—I worked hard to maintain professional standards. Despite this, Language Line repeatedly pressured me to lower my rate. I stood my ground, but in retaliation, they reduced my call volume and eventually found excuses to dismiss me from work altogether.

This is the worst company I’ve ever worked with. They are unfair, biased, and only care about their own profits. They have no regard for the well-being or fair treatment of their contractors. If you think you can build a career or make a living here, think again. Don’t rely on this company—the sooner you get out and find a more reliable job, the better.

Stay away from Language Line if you value fairness and respect in your workplace.

Nora Nasa

Im an Uzbek interpreter.
This is my personal experience and opinion about the business.
In the past i have worked as an independent contractor for a different company. There, if they had work for me, the money was good but if there was no work, I was left high and dry.
Here at Language line, Im a full time employee. I have a stable income. If anyone worked in Social services call center or dispatching they would understand the meaning of high volume calls. But here at language line, personally the call volume i receive is not heavy at all. (If it changes, i will update this post)
I did receive equipments to make my job easier. And the recruiter said if any of the equipments break they can replace them.
The training was intense. When i was attending the training sessions, the sheer amount of information that was provided for us made me hesitant about the job. But once I started my job I never looked back.
Currently my goal is to become a Level 5 interpreter. I hope someday i will achieve my goal.

Mr. initiator

Language Line Solutions is literally a modern day sweatshop. Management doesn't care about its employees. Minimum wage pay for extreme load of work and responsibilities. One has to know specific lingo and terminology to handle all kinds of medical calls, insurance (auto, home, life, etc.), 911, FEMA, court, immigration, prison, etc. A single call can go on for hours. Very high call volume. The calls are physically, mentally, and emotionally taxing. The month long training is disorganized and insufficient for all one is expected to learn, memorize, and execute. No paid lunch which is only 30 minutes. No paid holidays or PTOs, no paid internet or equipment. No real benefits, incentives, upward mobility opportunities or salary increases yet this company charges its clients $4.95 per minute per call, while the employees get paid 22 cents per minute. Need I say more? This company doesn't care about interpreters and continues to protect its monopoly in the interpretation industry by shipping jobs to third world countries where they can take advantage of loopholes and easily exploit poor and vulnerable workers for money. Don't even waste your time trying to communicate with management because your words will fall on deaf ears. Or they might just copy and paste some meaningless responses to all the criticisms. Stay away from LLS for the sake of your mental health and physical well-being.

Iryna Pavlov

This company is threatening me filing a lawsuit against me, because they claim that I, as an ex employee, havi returned the working laptop back. I have all the proof that all of the equipment has been sent out, moreover it was received by the company, but they still threaten me, using a position of being a large company, they harass me and pressure me. The problem is that they have a total mess internally, people are incompetent as when I tried to set up the equipment shopping back I spoke with 2 or 3 people and it seem like they didn't know that the previous one was already communicating me. It's been 2 month since the equipment was sent out, including the laptop, and now all of the sudden they send me some email that they may file a lawsuit if I won't return the laptop, and they existing pathological pressure by threatening that this will impact my credit score and so on! I have returned everything, I was a good employee who complied with all of the guidelines and it was me who initially initiated the return process. If needed I will fight back, because this is embezzlement of employees.

Fabiola I. Pineda-Nguyen

My husband works for this company. For what I seen and heard from him, this company is awesome. I remember in 2014, I was pregnant with my second child, and my husband's coworker organized a baby shower for us. It was really nice gesture from them. Now that my husband is been having some medical issues, the company understands and has helped him to work from home while he heal. They throw many small parties for the holidays and fun occasions. Lunches and other. Great company to work and get services from.

CFDH

Es un buen trabajo para iniciar, y si tienes buen nivel de inglés, vives en América Latina y deseas un trabajo remoto. Pagan muy poco para el trabajo que se realiza.

Arvy Yrveth

Interpreters, please don't work here. Clients, please don't use them.

An absolutely terrible company. They are proud to exploit employees and interpreters. They pay interpreters 0.13 per minute while charging clients $4 per minute, that's how they are able to expand their businesses and waving their exploitation proudly.
They micromanage like crazy and expect people to fall in line like slaves. Absolutely horrendous company.

DoctorTruth61

BLUF: Due to subjectivity, conflict of interest, lack of professionalism and lack of clear criteria I would not utilized this company for any reason, personally nor professionally.

My former employer utilized this company for proficiency testing and translation although it was an obvious conflict of interest to have the same company test and qualify your translators that you also pay to translate for you. It's in this companies best interest to give lower proficiency scores to make more money with translation calls. There seems to be no accountability or formal appeal process for the scores they give and the company does not seem to be certified or accredited by anyone other than itself.

One of my colleagues also complained to me that her tester didn't have anywhere near her level of proficiency and although he graded her with a 5 (the highest score possible) the tester would most likely not score better than average himself if he had to take the same test. There also seemed to be very little consistency with the proficiency scores they gave vs that persons ability to use that language in practical application. Even native speakers would receive low profeciency scores while persons who were not able to translate efficiently received higher profeciency scores which shows a lack in consistency.

The criteria they give for proficiency scores is very general and when I questioned why my score feedback conflicted with the criteria provided they told me they use a different criteria on a scoresheet, something that is not provided to testers. This seems to be a very deceptive and dishonest practice. When I asked for an objective third party to review my test, they mocked that request by having another one of their testers justify the previous score. The testers also reviewed one of my previous test scores from over a year before and although their feedback showed improvement my score stayed the same. They justified this by telling me that giving the student the same score as prior tests shows accuracy in their testing, which would mean that they are predisposition to give the testers the same scores as previous tests. There seems to be very little objectivity in how they conduct business.

Furthermore, when I scheduled my test I was not told how much the test would cost, not even after I provided my credit card information. I did not find this out until my credit card was billed that they charged me significantly more than they usually charge my employer. The tester tried calling me for hours at a number different than the one I provided. Instead of testing in the morning I had to test in the evening at the end of the day when they finally figured out they should call me at the number I gave them. In addition to my score feedback conflicting with the criteria they provide the test feedback had many errors including time of day and even the client listed was incorrect. They responded very obtuse and defensively to my questions, and refused to correct any of the wrong information. Their seems to be very little professionalism in how they conduct business.

My experience with their translation services is that the translators would not always have a good English proficiency and although they were able to converse well with the citizen it was common for them to have trouble translating that back to English.

I would not use this company for any reason and anyone that is looking to utilize a translation service would be better off spending its money on a more reputable and certified organization.