
Never ever do business with Samsung India Software Operations - etfb
http://www.quirksmode.org/blog/archives/2012/03/never_ever_do_b.html
======
csomar
I fully understand this guy, and if you haven't been to a third world country,
you won't. Just an example that pop my mind: The people injured (because of
security forces violence) during the Tunisian revolution are still not treated
and compensated. The fucking reason? "I'm still making a list of these people,
ehh, it should be ready hopefully by the next month... ehh, hey look there are
around 900 of them. I'm doing a really great job. Once the list is ready,
we'll see what to do". It's more than a year and just a fucking list of people
names who have been injured is not ready.

NEVER, EVER do a business in a third-world country where the law isn't imposed
properly. NEVER, EVER do business with a third-world company before taking up-
front payment. Know this: It's _impossible_ for them to transfer money. There
are few cases when they can, and it'll take it to their central bank
authorization before the money makes your hands.

~~~
PakG1
I have a friend who has a Tunisian contractor. The guy went AWOL for a while
and fell into major depression. He's back on track, but for a while, he was in
dire financial straits, but couldn't figure out how to motivate himself out of
his depression. He got injured in that revolution too. I had a long
conversation with this guy. He was offered the money, but rejected it on the
grounds that he couldn't accept money for service for his country. So he
signed some papers saying that he refused the money, waiving his right to get
it later. Later, he needed that money and couldn't even pay ISP or phone
bills, which is why it was so hard for him to get in touch.

Basically, I think his story indicates to me that there were people who were
given money? Or maybe they were promised, but never received it, don't know.

~~~
csomar
I didn't say the gov. didn't want to pay. They actually did massive, direct
and no conditional pays in many times in the last year. The issue is with 9
person team that are complaining to work until 10 P.M. to get the list done.
It's not about the will to pay or something, it's because "screw you", you
know what "fuck you", who does even care?

Point is: Be careful making a business in 3rd world country.

Edit: Do you have his phone number or somehow to contact him? Maybe I could
help him or something.

~~~
PakG1
I have every way to contact him, but he's still doing contract work for my
friend right now. He seems to be back on his feet and fairly happy. So don't
think I'll do anything to bring up poor memories unnecessarily. :D

~~~
csomar
Pretty good. What the field he is contracting in? If it's Web/Mobile
development, I'm interested to get in touch just for networking as the tech
scene is small.

~~~
PakG1
Gave him your contact info.

------
suprgeek
I think this post conveys a little bit of the frustration that normal (sane)
Indians feel everytime they to deal with public or private bureaucracy. After
4-5 such mind numbingly stupid episodes, your spirit is crushed and unless you
are made up of a special kind of Iron in your soul, you begin to despair for
India.

Unfortunately for the author, he (assumption) got caught in the double f*kup -
an incompetent HR dealing with an bureaucratic Govt. ruleset regarding foreign
currency, tax and payments.

This is NOT the exception. He did NOT get unlucky. This is the norm for Indian
systems. If they work seamlessly first time around, it is a miracle. Let this
be a warning to those with Great dreams of coming to India and making it big.
The level of dysfunction, inefficiency, bureaucracy and corruption in India is
just staggering.

------
etfb
PPK is usually such a polite lad, so it's all the more effective when he
really goes off. This is how bad customers should be outed, in public. Bravo!

------
nsns
From my own experience, private Indian businesses tend to pay promptly and are
very reliable, yet become hopelessly entangled in endless bureaucracy once
payments become international (this is probably the Government's fault, not
their own).

My solution (which isn't too practical, perhaps not even legal, yet works)-
travel to India once a year and collect your fee in cash, you'll also enjoy a
great trip (Bangalore Butter Dosas and mysore pauks with south Indian filter
coffee, culinary heaven) ;)

~~~
csomar
Sorry, if you know that you can't pay (because of gov. restrictions) or you'll
have problems doing it; why engage with an international entity?

~~~
__alexs
Because you like international travel, don't mind fighting through the insane
Indian Visa process and love a good curry?

~~~
cturner
Save on the visa hassle altogether and come to London :)

------
nkoren
This rings true, but the OP's decision to burn his bridges is unfortunate.
This is just how Indian bureaucracy is. It's a combination of 19th-century
British Civil Service, crossed with 20th-century village socialism,
implemented by 21st-century people who are just as confused as you are by the
system they've inherited.

I've done and still do a lot of work in/for India -- mostly for the government
and various quasi-governmental agencies. A couple of rules for having a
successful outcome:

1.) Cash in advance: 10% to 25% the project fee, depending on my familiarity
with the client. Expect to negotiate for 3-6 months before this is agreed to.

2.) Additional milestone-based payments, with a contract stipulating that no
milestone will be delivered until the prior milestone payment has been
received. Make sure that ALL project expenses are covered by these
intermediate milestones.

3.) A final payment of 10%-25%, which is basically all margin. Expect to
receive this 6-12 months late, and adjust your project costs accordingly.

This might sound unbelievably aggravating, but if you go in with these
expectations then it's really not so bad. The bureaucracy just kind of washes
over you eventually. (Oh, and tip #4: if you can at all afford to, pay
somebody else to deal with the bureaucracy....). In truth, most Indians are
tremendously honest people -- despite the impression that their bureaucracy
gives -- and although I've endured screw-ups and delays that have been
_significantly_ worse that what the article describes, I've never not been
paid. And in the end, India is a fantastic country with fantastic
opportunities (and fantastic people and fantastic food), and it would be a
shame to miss out on all that.

So I hope that this article (and others like it) doesn't scare anybody off
India. Just calibrate your negotiations accordingly, and enjoy it!

~~~
masklinn
> Just calibrate your negotiations accordingly, and enjoy it!

Or just go do business with people living in countries where the insanity is
more toned down, and enjoy it more.

------
kghose
FWIW a PAN card is a photo id document that has a tax payer identification
number. You can use it to open bank accounts too.

Cash deposits into a bank above a certain amount need a PAN number.

It is widely used as an id document in India (where a passport or voter id
document was once used).

I didn't know people without Indian citizenship could get PAN cards.

PS. One way of handling Indian bureaucracy is by hiring a middleman (say a tax
consultant) who handles the necessary formalities, including bribes and leg
work.

India is what India is.

~~~
lisperforlife
But we need to simplify things. As an Indian business serving Indian customers
I can tell you that the whole thing is pretty fucked up. I cannot put it more
politely than this. Most of the enterprise clients of mine have 30 to 60 day
payment cycles which involve a lot of paper, rubber stamps and signatures.
That is just retarded. To add insult to injury the government expects you to
pay service tax (due on the date of invoice) for the money that you have not
collected yet. I regret setting up a business in India. There are too many
unsavoury things to deal with.

~~~
mattmanser
30 to 60 day payment cycles are in every country, nothing special about India.
One main contractor I worked for in the UK (manages the building of buildings)
used to have a dashboard showing how late payments to them were in 30, 60, 90,
90+ slots.

There are plenty of guides and advice on what you should be doing to avoid
this as an SME or sole contractor.

------
javajosh
Any western programmer should be grateful: if not for this sort of thing, the
world's applications would be written in Bangalore just as the world's
electronic goods are produced in Shenzen. Politicians take note: fuzzy things
like "fairness" really does have an influence on a nation's fortunes.

------
jarsj
Never work with anyone in India, especially the big names, without taking
atleast a 50% advance, and holding the source (or some other leverage) before
the other 50%. You will be surprised how fast things move when they want them
to.

------
asto
_<https://www.google.co.in/webhp?q=ganesh+patel+siso> _

Pro-tip: Don't toy with people. Most times you will get away with it but
sometimes you will get fucked.

------
X4
"Never ever do ______ with ______" Hope you see why this is utterly wrong.

Generalizations about country/etymology shouldn't qualify to be up-voted in
HN, please.

I don't mind when people use bad words or flu as long as I can emphatically or
technically understand why and the location allows it. In this sense I can
feel and understand why Mr. Koch got upset.

I think he should've put the generalizations into Pandora's Box, because the
internet is a public space that never forgets.

The victim's explanations are usually generalizations and overreactions, in
rare cases I've seen people reacting accordingly. It's part of being gentle to
react accordingly, we know it's hard to apply. You can be harsh when the
situation requires it. That said, I'm sure there are better ways to "fight"
for your right and the money. I agree that this looks like it's not worth the
effort, but you will not know this for sure unless you try it. As long as all
you loose is time, you can tell that you're enriched by another experience
that will guide you in your next project into a better management.

(I'm not an Indian and my opinions aren't set in stone.)

One last word: Trust what your feeling tells you. If your customer replies
after months you know you've a bad customer, even before the project starts.

~~~
masklinn
> Generalizations about country/etymology shouldn't qualify to be up-voted in
> HN, please.

What country? (and what does etymology have to do with the whole mess?) He
said not to do business with a private company, ranted at lengths on the
subject and clearly explained that the issue was solely HR/business and that
his relations with the engineering side had been nothing but good?

What generalization are you talking about?

> The victim's explanations are usually generalizations and overreactions, in
> rare cases I've seen people reacting accordingly.

Considering PPK's history of not being a sanguine lad, the mere fact that they
got him to react to such length, on a former business partner, is a huge red
flag with warning sirens.

> You can be harsh when the situation requires it.

I'm guessing he thought the situation did require it.

> As long as all you loose is time, you can tell that you're enriched by
> another experience that will guide you in your next project into a better
> management.

You're joking right?

------
kremdela
Sounds like ppk just needed to vent, I've done this before on the internet and
regretted it. Totally agree that more transparency in the client-vendor
relationship would always be helpful, but airing grievances should be saved
for Festivus.

------
ghoul2
As an Indian, who lived in the US for a while and now back in India, this
isn't surprising at all. For a foreigner who deals with working systems
mostly, I can see how this is hair-tearingly painful, and it was for me when I
returned for the first six months or so, but then, one makes peace with it -
what choice does one have? :-|

While we are ranting, here's one of mine - it does not involve international
payments or any such "usual suspects" of bureaucratic morass.

Warning: very long rant TL;DR - my chances at working for (what was then) my
dream employer foiled by incompetent HR exec and the companies unwillingness
to be accessible on phone.

A few years back (I was already back in India), a friend of mine, working for
Google Mountain View, submitted my resume to their internal HR system as a
hiring lead. Initially Mountain View handled the process directly from the US,
and I had 5 rounds of telephonic interviews. The interviews were intense, and
amazingly fun. Each lasted between 1.5 to 2 hours - during one, my interviewer
challenged me repeatedly into rearchitechtecting the entire Youtube stack.
Another interviewer told me at the end, "I hope I get to have you as a
collegue soon". A third one, when I thanked him at the end for taking the time
out to thank me, told me - "No, the pleasure was entirely mine. Its rare for
me to have enjoyed an interview so much". Needless to say, I thought I'd done
really well.

After this, I guess my file was transferred to Google India (Bangalore).
Instantly the entire "feel" of the process changed. While earlier all phone
calls, emails etc were polite, well written, clear and quick, now things
flipped. This google HR exec - responsible for my file, initiates her first
contact with me not with a phone call, or email, but as a "xyz@google.com
wants to be able to chat with you" request on gtalk. No introduction, no idea
who she is. I generally refuse requests that I am not expecting, but here I
guessed that the person was a google employee and thus this could possibly be
related to the interviewing process and accepted the request. I also sent her
an email asking her about this and to let her know that the place where I was
working at that time blocked gtalk (for good reason) but I had a personal
blackberry so it would be better to communicate over a phone call or email
rather than over gtalk IM. This mail went unanswered.

A few days later, I return from work to see a message from the HR exec saying
"are you there?" on my gtalk window from earlier in the day. I see she is no
longer online. I again drop her an email restating preference for email/phone.
No answer yet again. She has never given me a phone number I can call so there
is nothing else I can do. Google-ing also does not give me a phone number I
can call either.

About 10 days go by, suddenly I receive an email from her, this time simply
stating, with no preamble:

"I am arranging for you to travel to Google Bangalore for face to face
interview on $date. I am booking flights for you to travel...."

This is accompanied by departure times of flights from my place of residence
to Bangalore and back on the same day. The trouble is, the flight time each
was is 2 hours, and she is arranging a flight that departs at 4:30AM, reaching
6:30AM to Bangalore, me arriving at Goog Bangalore office @ 9AM (yes,
Bangalore traffic is THAT bad) and then return flight at 8pm. TO catch the
4:30AM departure, means I'd need to be at the airport latest by 3:00-3:15AM,
which means I'd need to leave home by 2AM. That implied not sleeping at all
the entire night. Having done interviews before while not having slept the
previous night, I did not want to do this and told her that I'd rather fly in
the previous evening, spend the night at a hotel in Bangalore, and then attend
the interviews the next day. I even find an itinerary from the same online
travel site she had used that would suit me perfectly, and was quite a bit
cheaper, easily covering the cost of an overnight stay in a cheap hotel. No
replies for a whole week. She does leave me messages "r u thr?" on gtalk a
couple times which of course I am unable to respond to.

Then she gets back saying to me saying they didn't provide hotel stays at all
(I know for a fact this wasn't true then, and it isn't true now). I
immidiately reply again insisting that I'd not do interviews without having
slept the previous night. I expressed surprise that google did not arrange for
a stay in such circumstances, but then proposed to arrange for my overnight
stay at my own cost if she'd just take care of the flight bookings as per my
previous recommendations. Yet again I fail to hear from her for a week, except
for one "r u there?" message during the week on gtalk. Each such message I
respond with "I can't access gtalk during the day, could you please call or
email instead" - these continue to be ignored.

Then she sends in an email, no content, just a flight itinerary and a hotel
stay voucher attached as pdfs in the email. She has, in her infinite wisdom,
booked me on that same 4:30AM flight that I did not want to take, but the gem
is this: instead of having me fly back the same day, after the interviews on
the 8:00pm flight, she had booked me on a 10AM flight the next day, and she
has booked me a hotel room for me to spend the night in, AFTER having done the
interviews. Both of these are already paid for.

At this stage I am having serious second thoughts about working for Google
India, and am tired of the whole thing. I just decide to go with it. So I tell
her simply that her itinerary was alright with me - certainly a mistake now
that I look back upon the whole thing, but at that time she had had me totally
worn down with her failure to communicate. So she replies, tells me she will
have a taxicab waiting to pick me up from the airport on my arrival and to
bring me to google. she finally gives me "her" cell number. I reply back
asking for the address I am supposed to arrive at and the contact number of
the cab company cause pickups at the bangalore airport were really chaotic.
She doesn't reply. I try calling her, she doesn't pick. I text her, she
doesn't respond.

D-day arrives. I try to sleep on the plane as much as I can. I arrive at the
airport, find the cabby and we swing out of the airport. The cabby asks me -
"so where am I supposed to take you?". I told him I was interviewing and
lacking any other information, to take me to the google "office". He says
there were six "google offices" in Bangalore. I try calling the HR exec, phone
goes unpicked. After about a dozen tries, I simply tell the driver to take me
to the "biggest" one guessing that largest office would probably be the
engineering location, while others being possibly sales or corporate. He takes
me to this large building which possible holds 800-1000 employees, entirely
occupied by google. I goto the reception, and tell them I was there to
interview, tell them the name of the HR exec who I was in touch with. At her
name, the two people at the reception share a "look". It takes them about 45
minutes to find out that I am supposed to be at another location, they again
call me a taxi, and off I goto another location. Repeat. Now I am at the third
location, its past noon. I finally get to meet this HR exec and I am so
mentally tired and angry that I just barely manage to maintain my civility.
She takes me to a meeting room and the wait for the first interviewer begins.
He comes in, 45 minutes later, looks rushed, tells me he had been given the
wrong floor and meeting room number and that "there was a whole mess". We
start the interview, by the end of which even he notices that my eyes are
swollen and red - he asks me and I give him a brief recap. He doesn't say
anything in response. I can tell I haven't done well at the interview, and at
that stage I am beyond caring. In any case, I can't imagine working for a
company (and here I mean Google Bangalore, not Google as a whole) that has its
head stuck so far up its a __. The interviewer leaves, I have another
interviewer come in, I do a bit better here, but I am basically only half
awake by now. There is no talk of lunch.

to be continued...

~~~
ghoul2
continued:

After this, the HR exec comes in, hands me a google t-shirt, tells me there is
a taxi waiting to take me to my hotel. I go out, find the taxi, ask him if he
could take me to the airport instead, he says he can't as he is only allowed
to take me to the hotel. I tell him to not bother, flag down an auto, rush to
the airport, negotiate with the airline to let me fly the 8:00pm instead of
the 10:00AM the next day, pay the are difference, and just return home.

I am thinking finally that the ordeal is over, but theres a twist. I summarize
the whole thing for my friend @ Google MV, who says he will try and find out
what happened, but turns out theres not much in file in their referral system.

Two weeks after this, the same HR lady send me a mail, yet again no preamble,
nothing. "We want you to come in for a second day, I am booking tickets" and
then the exact same content from her first email - same day return, 4:30AM
flights etc, follow. I reply to her, telling her that I'd prefer to make my
own bookings and inquiring if google would reimburse me for them (and any
policy about such reimbursements, limits, etc). She doesn't reply. Ten days
later, when she has still not responded, I request my friend @ Mountain VIew
to see if he can find me another contact (and berating myself that I did not
do this a lot earlier). He says he doesn't have another contact for me, but
that he has conveyed my concerns to "some people". A day after his email
telling me this, I get an email from the same HR person - this time responding
to my last email about booking my own flight tickets, tersely telling me -
"that email was for someone else. sorry. thanks for applying to google".

/end_rant.

What I have come to accept is, dealing with engineers is fine (as long as
language doesn't become an issue), but others, in government, or even in most
private organizations in India, are just not up to doing their jobs 99% of the
time. Its not merely an issue of corruption, its just the culture does not
provide for shaming people who are bad at their jobs, firing incompetents is
considered evil, and its not even a solution as incompetence is everywhere.
One recent report suggested that a full 80% of Indian graduates with a 4-year
degree were so bad they were not employable at all in their chosen fields -
not even with additional training.

~~~
j45
"One recent report suggested that a full 80% of Indian graduates with a 4-year
degree were so bad they were not employable at all in their chosen fields -
not even with additional training."

That helps shed some light on why the developers from India who are good are
so good, and the rest leave you wondering.

~~~
jaseemabid
Citation required.

------
j45
Sounds like you had the experience and nightmares an average Indian has in
India dealing with bureaucracy, from what I've heard.

------
senthilnayagam
most large companies IT companies operating out of India, are tough to work
with especially in contracting and sub-contracting relationships. They treat
vendors and consultants badly as they know they would easily can get a
replacement. Too much bureaucracy and lethargy for releasing payments.

------
mycodebreaks
Bureaucracy is hurting India extremely bad. At most offices In India,
government and private, you 'll see experience is given preference over
performance.

~~~
outworlder
That's even worse if "experience" happens to be measured in time.

------
jaseemabid
I am an Indian dreaming of silicon valley day and night. All shit happens here
and this place is never going to improve.

------
hermanius
Sounds like PPK didn't do the legwork. If you're going to get paid for a
cross-border contract, make sure you know what you're doing or pay someone who
does. Saying "fucking" doesn't solve anything.

~~~
niyazpk
Exactly what I was thinking. I can imagine that he has to deal with a few
_ssholes. I see how a foreigner would feel like he is hitting a wall when he
is dealing with the bureaucracy in many Indian organisations (blanket
statement), but at the same time, you have to understand that the only way you
can get anything done in this scene is to have a little patience and have a
cool head about the way stuff happens here.

I am not saying that being patient is a the right way to _fix_ the
bureaucracy, but being patient looks to me like the right way to navigate your
way around.

BTW I am not judging the way the OP responded to his particular scenario.

~~~
jey
> I am not saying that being patient is a the right way to fix the
> bureaucracy, but being patient looks to me like the right way to navigate
> your way around.

Or just avoid situations involving bureaucracies instead of bending over for
them.

~~~
gcp
Don't do any business, ever?

I've had my fun with W8BEN forms, EID numbers, and US customers. I still don't
understand why technicalities of the US tax system were suddenly my problem
instead of the customers, but realistically you either deal with this or you
don't do business.

~~~
pmjordan
Indeed, US tax forms are no fun; I've made that mistake before. It was a few
hundred dollars' worth of work - I decided that trying to chase down the
paperwork was not worth it in the end, as I made more money just spending that
time doing contract work for my EU customers instead.

Unfortunately, the US seems to get away with tax colonialism, whereby you
automatically owe them money until proven innocent even though you never set
foot there; and US citizens get taxed by the US even if they don't reside or
work there. Sounds like India is even worse in that you can't get around their
tax even after filling in the forms.

If I do business with non-EU customers in the future, it's going to have to
pay at least mid 5-digits, and a sufficient premium above my EU rates to just
pay for an expert to handle the bureaucracy and hassle for me. I'd recommend a
similar policy to anyone. The anti-EU moaners have no idea how beneficial it
is to small businesses doing something easily importable or exportable - it's
actually slightly _less_ hassle for me to do business with customers in the
rest of the EU than in my own country because I never see the VAT (which isn't
too bad to begin with).

------
jnbiche
Well done!

------
hans0l074
Indian programmer here. Typical Indian assholes! Thanks for the tip.

