TranscribeMe Transcriptionist Reviews

Pros

Flexibility is great for WFH

Cons

Audio quality occasionally but not controlled by admins

Pros

Consistent work is usually available.

Cons

--Meager pay by the hour is disguised by paying per page regardless of the quality of the files being assigned. --The minimum page requirements made it so I was required to work for them part-time at a minimum, with only 3 weeks per year where I could be exempted from that requirement. --Despite my typing an average of 95 wpm, their page requirements took a minimum of 20 hours per week to complete, even weeks after training was complete. Their response when I expressed concern about this was that in the several upcoming months I "should improve to at least minimum wage." In the meantime, I was told to keep working for less than minimum wage while also being required to work a certain amount per week. --Independent contractors' communications between each other were carefully monitored. My communications were censored on Yammer multiple times, including when I asked questions about an announced major change to the required software. Any attempts to establish communication outside the company's control were immediately removed. --Outdated software was required to be installed on my personal equipment; this company provided absolutely no hardware. --Their IT person was insistent that I allow them to remote into my computer despite that step being completely unnecessary to install the required software and prove I had the required hardware.

Pros

Friendly staff, were easy to work with

Cons

Pay rate was quite low

Pros

Wonderful support community, there are discussion groups, a full-time support/helpdesk available to address issues and answer questions. The site is easy to use and you can set your own hours. Pay is decent for the work done and is paid out once a week.

Cons

Work is not always available so sometimes you have to sit and wait, but there are plenty of different tests for qualifications you can take to increase the pool of work available to you.

Pros

- Simple, more so if you can really focus on the task - Quickly paid via PayPal, minimum to pay out is $20 - If you're the right type of person, it can be pretty interesting. The audio to be transcribed could be class notes, work notes, a book reading, town hall meeting or presentation; it could also be a shopping list or boring list of inventory part numbers. There's various accents and dialects, and occasionally will have to do a little online sleuthing to find out what's being referenced, understand the context better, and of course how to spell it.

Cons

-Don't expect to reach any sort of livable wage, 1 audio hour may average $15-22/hr but 1 audio hour (especially if it's a full hour of engaging conversation with 3 or more people using unfamiliar terminology or slang, or speak with heavy accents) can easily take 5-10 hours, even with experience. - Inconsistent workflow, everyone's jumping to grab the same audio files, they go fast.

Pros

There is nothing positive about this company unless being bullied by managers and making $1.25 per hour is your dream.

Cons

I'm a professional transcriptionist, and this is single-handedly the worst company I have ever worked with. The pay is illegally low (and I mean it truly is actually against the law). They advertise $15 per audio hour. The industry standard for transcription time is 4x the length of audio, i.e. a 1-min audio clip will take a professional 4 mins to transcribe accurately. That means their advertised pay rate is $3.75 per hour. And I'm sure this brings some people in, because "Hey, it's lower than minimum wage was in 1975 but at least I can work whenever I want, right?" No, you can't. There are very few jobs available, no matter how many "teams" you're on. I'm on 5 teams, including being a 2-step QA (which advertises the second-to-highest pay rate at a whopping $23 per audio hour), and most days since I've started contracting here, I've only been able to get maybe 15-30 minutes of actual audio in a day. You basically have to be sat in front of your computer logged on all day -- like 10-12 hours, to even get that much. As a QA, you have access to longer files, but the audio and first-draft transcription are so bad that those end up taking me generally 5-6x longer, making my pay for them even less. But how can I blame the other transcriptionists for that when the audio of every single file TranscribeMe accepts is so poor and who are literally making pennies for transcribing it? Even after several months and moving up to join multiple teams, I never cleared more than $60 a week, sitting more than 9 hours at the computer every single day, just waiting for work. If you count the time spent sitting in front of your computer, let's say a minimum of 8 hours, waiting for jobs, you're literally making $1.25 per hour. Still worth it? And this is not counting the additional hours upon hours of "study" time to learn their guidelines, study for the "advancement" tests, and then actually taking the tests (which generally take 3-4 hours each, and require multiple attempts because you don't get feedback on what you do wrong and all of their test study guides and style guides are out of date). I know people are still going to apply because it's home-based and requires zero experience (which really shows in the quality of transcription they produce), and because people are desperate. This company exists to take advantage of desperate people. Don't do it. Google transcription jobs and submit a sample to any of the literally thousands of other freelance transcription services that exist. Even the lowest of other independent companies START their rates at $42 per audio hour. That's standard in the industry. If the pay weren't bad enough, then there's their training, which consists of outdated PDF guides that don't match their unsearchable database online. But to top it off, there's the attitude and treatment from the managers. The ones I've had dealings with are the most condescending bullies I've ever worked with. Here's what I've seen in my feed in the last week: a mod ridiculed an employee for having the gall to ask a question that gasp! had been asked before, 13 months ago. A mod bullied an employee who pointed out that what was in the style guide was not what was being followed in practice, saying he should have been able to figure that out himself and he was a time-waster for asking anything. An employee asked how much a QA made in a week, and a mod acted as if that question was so inappropriate it couldn't even be answered, even after multiple other employees expressed interest in the answer as well. An employee asked how long it took others to pass a certain exam; a mod jumped in and told the employee he shouldn't be asking, he shouldn't even be taking the exam (that's open to everyone), and that he wasn't following protocol. Simply for asking a question to other employees! An employee pointed out an inconsistency in a process that seemed unfair, and he was banned before the end of the day. When another employee questioned what had happened, they were banned too. It appears that anyone who pushes back the tiniest bit is banned from TranscribeMe immediately. Just scrolling through the feed from the last six months is hilarious because fully 40% of the users from that time period have been banned. It just baffles me how this company exists. If making $1.25 per hour, tolerating public abuse from your manager, and risking getting banned for arbitrary and unfair reasons (and if you get banned before you've withdrawn your money, well, say goodbye to that money! They are literally stealing money from employees) sounds good, then by all means, try out TranscribeMe. Or, read the reviews on Glassdoor and Indeed, the complaints on the Better Business Bureau, and very soon a California labor law violation suit as their pay doesn't meet the minimum for CA (or anywhere in the US) and their employees should actually be legally classified as employees and not contractors, and find yourself another transcription company. This place is not worth it. Not worth it by a mile.

Pros

I enjoy the work, when it's available. It is a field I'm skilled in. I consistently get 6% or less editing needed when it goes to a QA (which, according to them is an excellent job, as some of the editing done is how that particular QA likes it).

Cons

It takes about 30 minutes to an hour to get through a 2 minute audio clip. And you earn 50 cents for a 2 minute clip. All of the audio clips I've worked on have been fairly poor quality- lots of background banging noises, speakers' voices were very quiet but buzzing in the background was very loud (yes, I have the correct headphones). Despite the fact that all of the reviews for every job have been labelled "Excellent Job!" and are better than their expected average, I have not been able to pass the exam to level up for higher pay, and honestly it seems purposeful, so they can continue to pay next to nothing for their workers. Their QA's also tend to make grammatical decisions that don't align with their Style Guide, and don't make much sense.

Pros

Seems consumer-friendly on the outside

Cons

Difficult application process for what dosen't seem to be so laid back

Pros

The only pro would be if you're living in a country where the conversion from the American dollar to your country's currency is quite high. Then maybe you'll be able to afford to live. You probably won't though.

Cons

The low pay is awful. If you live in the United States, you will never, ever make a living wage by working with TranscribeMe. The admins are cliquey, unhelpful, and at times downright rude. The review periods are unreasonable. They happen without warning and sometimes drags on for weeks, delaying pay. The constant updates on Yammer are annoying.

Pros

The team is really nice and helpful all day long. They never make you feel bad for not knowing something and asking.

Cons

The pay, even for a very experienced transcriptionist, is very low. You have to test up into special teams or QA before you have a steady flow of work. Work is uploaded a couple of times during the day and it goes quick! I know some of the new people have posted on our Yammer board that they have been there a couple of weeks and have yet to find a job to do! You can test up to QA where you have all the work you want, but the timestamping can take so long that you will be lucky to make $1/hr. No I didn't leave out a second number!