“I chose WriteSmartly because they were a bit more inexpensive than others and because they made many promises concerning their product.
Their promises were not kept.
First, they promised that because they are working internationally that my work would only be edited by those who are American English-speaking editors; this was not the case. There were instances where certain edits to my text were changed to adopt not American phraseology. These instances were confirmed by others.
Secondly, my manuscript was edited by 3 different people, which I believe tends toward a non-cohesive outcome, which certainly seemed to be the case.
Thirdly, there were a couple of instances concerning the age-appropriateness of the language they used, which should not have been used due to the age of the characters. In other words, the language they used would never have been used by 12-year-old girls.
Lastly, there were changes made that were mistakes, and many mistakes of mine that were missed. When I received their edited version back, I reread my manuscript and places all of these mistakes they and I made (including spelling errors) in bold, and sent a similar letter as this, to them that corrections be made, I received the “edited” version back in only 2 hours and 20 min. I didn’t open the attachment but merely responded with a “thank you”, assuming the corrections were made because I had laid them all out for them in bold. This would be the only way they could have made that many corrections that quickly. Anyway, because I did their work for them, and since I paid them my hard-earned money, I wanted them to “see” and correct all of their errors. My only mistake was believing that they had actually corrected everything and then sent it back, but since I was not in a hurry and since I had been writing this story for over a decade, I didn’t open their “corrected” version for 6 months. So, when I finally did, to my astonishment, nothing had been noticeably changed; All the mistakes that I had put in bold letters were unchanged and left in bold. Being in a bit of shock, I immediately wrote them a similar letter, letting them know I would like a refund or I would be writing a poor review of their service. The response I got was one of almost anger; that I would dare do such a thing seeing that they offer “unlimited” revisions within a month, ( I remember it only being one revision), and since that month was up, I was out of luck. When I pointed out that this was not a simple matter of them making a few mistakes, but not keeping their original promises of using only American English speaking editors and proofreaders, that their work would be high quality (perfect), and the fact that my revision of their region went completely uncorrected, I offered them one last “deal”; Send me back half of the fee I paid, or finish correcting my manuscript. I told them that there was no need to respond; Either fix it or refund the money. They sent an automated sounding response immediately, but since have not refunded me or corrected my document. That was over a month ago. I explained to them that the fact that I did not detect their errors until 6 months later did not apply since they did not keep their original promises anyway. I am not satisfied with their service and would not recommend their services to others.
Doug Doan author of “The Mystery of the Weeping Oak”
Sadly, my work will probably never be published.”
