Complaint Review: FirstEditing

More blatant lies. You don't even know who I am, since I am filing this complaint anonymously. This just proves that your above claims about me delivering projects late, etc. are complete falsifications, since you have no idea which one of your many exploited editors is writing this.

Keep lying. I hope you do so that you can dig a grave deep enough for me to bury you in lawsuits.

As this person states, he is a former independent contractor with FirstEditing.com. He was let go because his work was being delivered to clients late with no communication with the administrators for assistance. FirstEditing does have a staff of 1 full-time and 3 part-time administrators who work with the editors to assist them with clients so they can dedicate the majority of their time editing the documents they receive.

This former independent contractor was also dishonest during the interview and hiring process as well. He states he was recruited out of college. His resume and supporting documentation lead our hiring staff to believe he possessed the minimum criteria required for our editors.

With regard to his claims that we encourage our editors to edit documents hastily, this is simply not true. We do provide competitive delivery times to our clients. However, we always tell the editors to let the administrators know if they need more time to edit a particular document so they can arrange with the client for more time or adjust their schedules to allow them more time to edit the documents.

This former independent contractor did not follow these guidelines and was consistently late in delivering documents to clients. He was ultimately dismissed because of extreme lateness with a large document which resulted in having another editor re-edit the document from the beginning and refunding the client in full because of the lateness and lack of communication from this former independent contractor.

I can tell you exactly why your edits were crap.  As an unfortunate former editor for this godforsaken place, I can testify to the fact that First Editing siphons off 70% of client pay, leaving the editor with mere pennies for over a week's worth of full-time work.  You're pretty much only paid $1.00 per page, so that's $100 for editing 100pgs, line by excruciating line.  I had to work two part-time jobs AND edit full-time in order to meet my bills; I literally worked around the clock - I worked my part-time jobs during the weekdays and edited nights and weekends, and I still only earned about $25k/yr TOTAL, including all of my jobs.  

FE's excuse is that they need all this money to pay for "company expense".  Translation: Most of the money goes into the salaries of the very many administrators, who serve no purpose other than to act as middlemen between the clients and the editors, forwarding emails back and forth, messing orders up and getting in the way, all because FE doesn't want their editors interacting directly with the clients, in case we run off with "our" clients and rob FE of their inordinate percentage.  

To address the issue of low pay, FE instructs their editors to simply edit the manuscripts as quickly as possible and move on to the next one, not bothering to spend any real time to do our best; in other words, just half-a*s it and edit as many manuscripts as humanly possible.  The more you edit, the more you and FE earn, since you're paid per manuscript.  Needless to say, editing quality suffers.

If it weren't for the recession, there would not be a single editor working for this company.  Of all the many ad-hoc jobs that I have worked, this one is the worst (and I've even worked as a stable-hand, shoveling horse manure).  Don't be fooled.  FE will tell you all sorts of sweet lies and sugar-coat their language to get you to work for them, saying things like how they pride themselves on having "very low turnover".  This is an outright lie.  During the very short period of time when I was there, there were already several instances of mass exodus when editors were leaving, fleeing for their lives and sanity.  I also heard that this company has been accused of money laundering, which isn't surprising at all considering their greedy nature.

Moreover, they state on their websites that they don't use freelance editors, that all their editors are "full-time professionals with a minimum of 10 years experience" and that they have a "chief editor" who spends extra time "re-reviewing" your work.  What a blatant lie.  Everyone at First Editing and their sister company, Book-Editing-Services.com, are "independent contractors" (aka. freelancers). How else could FE get away with their poor level of pay?  As an independent contractor for First Editing, I also edited manuscripts for Book Editing Services; it's basically the same pool of hapless freelance editors, the same administrators, the same people, no matter the name of the "company".  And "minimum of 10 years experience"?  What a laugh! I was recruited straight out of college with no real prior work experience, let alone 10yrs of professional editing experience.  And I have yet to hear of a "chief editor" who spends extra time on any manuscript.  You hurriedly edit the manuscript, then email it off to the client, and that's it.

My advice:  do NOT go anywhere near First Editing (or any of their many other sister companies, like Book-Editing-Services.com and ThesisEdit.com) unless you want to be exploited as an editor, or have your manuscript hastily edited as a client.

Let's just say that my last day there was the best day of my life.

As we have so few requests for refunds, I am familiar with this case/claim.

The work provided included CORRECTIONS of all errors within the document. Thus, the single quotes were automatically corrected throughout the entire document as part of the editing service. (Yes, it was excessive.) The client claimed that this was unnecessary and stated that the correction only needed to be cited once.

This is a rather unusual request as we provide the necessary corrections to the entire document on behalf of the client. Thus, the client has all the changes made directly to their documents. They need only review the editing provided for them.  Should the client wish to NOT accept the changes provided on their behalf, they may simply select that option within Track Changes when reviewing the document.

The client was asked to give specific concerns regarding any other "errors" or omissions that they felt were made by their editor. If that information is provided, we gladly re-edit the document at no cost as part of our satisfaction guarantee. We did not receive that information. Perhaps the client had already hired the other editor.

Nevertheless, we would be happy to rectify this situation immediately on the client's behalf. Please simply contact our Client Services Department and refer to this report.