Scribendi
Transcription

Is Scribendi a Scam or a Good Editing Job? – [Short Review]

ScribendiIf you are looking to make money from home as an editor then Scribendi is one of your options. But is this place a very good option? Or is Scribendi a scam that is just going to be a waste of your time?

Well I can assure you that they are not a scam. They are a legit company that will pay you… however there are a few downsides and complaints to this job. In this review I’ll be going over it all including how the job works, the pay, complaints and more.

Scribendi Editing Job Review

Scribendi provides editing and proofreading services for English documents. They hire editors to work both remotely and in their offices. The remote editing position seems to be what most people are interested in because of the freedoms that come with it and it seems that this position is more readily available.

With the remote editing position you are able to work from your home and work when you want to. Scribendi receives documents that need proofread + edited and this is exactly what you do to them.

What The Job Is Like

At Scribendi you get to work when and how much you want to, as long as you meet their requirement to do 10,000 words each month in order to stay active. You will be able to skim through a board or different jobs that are available and pick what you want to do.

If you are new to this, which I’m assuming that you are, then you will likely be stuck with editing ESL papers and technical documents. Much of the editing will be done for academic papers and what this means is that there is more work in the school year than during the summer time, which you can look at as a downside.

After you complete an editing job you will submit it though the Scribendi back to the client. They will then be able to take a look at what you have done and either accept it, reject certain changes, or reject the whole darn thing and ask for a refund, which is a major complaint that I will be going over in the next section.

The pay can be good or bad. There are 3 things you need to take into consideration when looking at the pay: The turnover rate (how fast you get the job done), the length of the paper (longer documents can pay more per word), and whether or not the client accepts your work. I have read reviews from people claiming to make as much as $20/hr while I’ve read other reviews of earning only around $5/hr on average. Generally speaking it seems that most people are earning less than $20/hr without a doubt.

Complaints

Low Pay

Pay really varies a lot and depends on how fast of an editor you are. You get paid for the projects you complete so the faster you complete them the faster you get paid. The problem is that many people just aren’t cut out for this job and don’t make much. I’ve read over reviews on sites like Glassdoor of people claiming they make as low as $5 per hour on average…. which is insane.

The pay also depends on the length of the document. So some projects will pay more per word than others if I understand this correctly.

Clients Have All The Power

After you edit a project and submit it back to the client it is their job to look it over and see if they approve of the work. If the work is no good they can reject it and if this happens you don’t get paid. Unfortunately clients seem to be abusing this ability and Scribendi gives them what they want.

I have read over some reviews where remote editors were really upset by this. They claim that Scribendi doesn’t even contest clients’ rejection/refund requests and don’t take into consideration anything except what the client is asking for. They don’t consider the fact that the original paper might have been a load of trash and that it needed a miracle, not an editor. Some clients seem to have absolutely ridiculous expectations and expect an A+ paper no matter what piece of crap they throw at the Scribendi editors.

 From an Ethical Standpoint…

One complaint that I have regards the ethics of this job. Much of what editors are doing is correcting academic papers for students, many of which speak English as a second language. Its nice and all but is this really the right thing to do? This helps them get better grades when their writing abilities have not improved and is not allowed in schools (at least as far as I know).

Additionally, it would be nice if you could help people out by providing feedback so they know what they can do to improve the next time around. From what I’ve read Scribendi tells editors to just correct the projects and not to provide feedback on what they can do better.

Conclusion on Scribendi – Is It Worth Your Time?

Scribendi is definitely not a scam. They have been around since 1997 and do what they say they do. If you do hear people calling it a scam its likely because of how they tend to cater to the clients’ every desires even if they make no sense and screw over the editors. There are a lot of people that are really upset with them from this kind of thing and rightly so.

Some people seem to like the job while others seem to hate it. There are a lot of varying reviews when it comes to the overall opinion of things so if you were thinking about applying I would suggest reading over the editor reviews on sites like Glassdoor, Indeed, etc. Also you are going to have to make sure they have positions open in the first place on the Scribendi jobs page.

Transcription jobs like Babbletype and Transcribe Me might be something else you want to look into, although you won’t make much with them.

And before you leave you might also want to take a look at how I make a living working online for myself. You can read my “make money online guide” here where I explain what I do, how it all works, and what I consider to be the best way for beginners to get started is.

Don’t forget to leave any questions or comments below and I’ll get back to you as soon as I can 🙂

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