Complaints

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• Initial Complaint

  Date:09/26/2025

  Type:Order Issues
  Status:

  AnsweredMore info

  Complaint statuses

  Resolved:

  The complainant verified the issue was resolved to their satisfaction.

  Unresolved:

  The business responded to the dispute but failed to make a good faith effort to resolve it.

  Answered:

  The business addressed the issues within the complaint, but the consumer either a) did not accept the response, OR b) did not notify BBB as to their satisfaction.

  Unanswered:

  The business failed to respond to the dispute.

  Unpursuable:

  BBB is unable to locate the business.

  I hired Dissertation Editor in August 2025 for line editing and formatting services on my doctoral project. Their service order contract specifically stated that if university guidelines differed from APA 7th edition, they would defer to the university guidelines. I provided my universitys official Doctoral Project Template and Academic Review Checklist in advance.Despite this, the returned draft did not meet either my universitys requirements or the companys contractual obligations. Major issues included: Document edited into ************ voice, though my university requires ******************* tense until IRB/Academic Review approval. Table of Contents formatting incorrect (page numbers, indentation, subheadings misaligned). Theoretical Framework incorrectly placed in both Chapter One and Chapter Two (should only appear in Chapter One). Abstract left as placeholder text, not a completed =250-word abstract with keywords. Literature Review and Methodology sections edited only at surface level, not aligned with university requirements.These issues directly contradict the companys promise to follow my universitys guidelines over APA. I paid for services that were supposed to ensure compliance, but the draft I received cannot be submitted and has caused significant delays in my doctoral program.

  

  Business Response

  Date: 09/27/2025

  The client received the edited document on time and asked several questions in response to the editor's comments. She had been hoping that all issues in the document would be resolved, but our academic integrity policy prevents us from making direct changes to a client's content. When issues relate to writing on the line level or formatting, we can address them in a client's document, but when they relate to structure / organization / argument, we can provide feedback in the form of marginal comments (which her editor did), but cannot substantially alter the content. We asked the client to send the most recent version of her document in MS **** format so that we could provide a quote for follow-up editing based on her attempts to correct the content, which she eventually did on 9/24, after some back and forth about file types. We were in the process of providing a quote for follow-up editing (items not included in the original service order), when she made this complaint on 9/26. 

  Per our Terms and Conditions, finding errors in an edited document does not automatically entitle the client to a refund, and we will work with the client to fix any objective errors in the document. None of the outstanding items the client is mentioning here fall under that category. She notes that the abstract was left as a placeholder. We do not agree to write abstracts for clients, and doing so would contravene our academic integrity policy. Likewise the misalignment she notes between the literature review and methodology section with her university requirements is content related, and falls outside our editorial purview. 

  In this instance, no refund is warranted. However, in the interest of resolving this amicably, I've processed a refund of $1,106 (the total the client paid in expedited service fees) and reached out to her via phone, email, and text, to offer to have a conversation and resolve the issue. I've also followed up offering to help resolve any extant non-content-based issues in the document. 

  Customer Answer

  Date: 09/29/2025

  Better Business Bureau:I have reviewed the response submitted by the business and have determined that the response does not satisfy or resolve my issues and/or concerns in reference to complaint # ********. Please add your rejection comments below; if you do not provide any details, your complaint will be closed as Answered. 

  I reject this response. My complaint is not about content creation but about editing compliance. I provided the Doctoral Project Template and Academic Review Checklist, which were supposed to be followed. The editor, Dr. ******* did not adhere to them. Formatting, template alignment, and APA issues remained unresolved, which are part of the contracted editing scope, not content creation.
  In my first conversation, Dr. ******** also assured me she would personally review my document before delivery, but that assurance was not upheld. Because of these failures and delays, I had to pay for a 30-day course extension, which created both financial and academic harm.
  A partial refund of the expedited fee does not resolve these issues. I am requesting a full refund of all fees paid. I remain open to resolving this matter amicably, but only if a full refund is issued.

  [You must provide details of why you are not satisfied with this resolution.  If you do not enter a reason for your rejection, your complaint will be closed as Answered.]
  
  Businesses and Customers should be civil, courteous and polite in their responses to complaints. It is important to remain professional and productive when participating in the BBB complaint process.
  
  FAQ
  
  Regards,

  Marycarmen

   

   

  

  Business Response

  Date: 10/03/2025

  ********** ******** Case History
  
        September 4: We returned the completed editing order to Ms. ********* As Ms. ******** had purchased our line editing services, the edited documents included editorial feedback from the project editor on issues of content and structure. The order return email included instructions for review and follow-up editing. It also reiterated the service contract stipulation that any additional editing of material that the client might add during revision of her edited document would not be included under the terms of the original order and would instead incur new fees for editing the new material.
        Upon receiving her edited documents, Ms. ******** called our office to express that she was pleased with the work and ask a couple clarifying questions about the editors feedback. She asked if it would be possible for the project editor to make corrections on content-related issues on her behalf.
        After reviewing the feedback at Ms. ******** request, our Senior Managing Editor determined that addressing the feedback would indeed require adding new content. Via email, our Senior Managing Editor explained to **************** you are the author, we cannot make [content-related] decisions on your behalf and are also not in a position to add content from your research notes, so it will be necessary for you to review and address the feedback yourself. [] Once you do so, you can submit the revised document with your updates and clarifications for Dr. * to implement your updated instructions and review your changes, ensuring that they are both clear and compliant with APA
        Ms. ******** responded via email, saying: I understand now that many of Dr. *s comments require my input as the author. Honestly, since Ive been working through this process for quite some time, I had hoped the editor could handle all of the corrections directly. However, I see that is not the case. She also asked if there would be additional costs once she sent her revisions, and a member of staff responded in the affirmative, reiterating the policy set forth in both her service order contract and the order return email. Ms. ******** responded to that clarification with a simple Thank you.
        September 11: Ms. ******** emailed our office to inform us that she had revised her edited draft, submitted it to her university for review, and subsequently received feedback and change requests from her university. She asked us whether addressing the feedback and change requests would fall within the terms of her original order or constitute a new order for follow-up editing. In response, our team asked her to provide us with a copy of her revised document in MS **** .docx format.
        September 17: Ms. ******** sent her revised draft as submitted to her university. Having secured a copy, we used MS ****s compare documents tool to generate a markup of all the revisions Ms. ******** had made subsequent to our editing. This is a standard practice which enables us to determine the extent of a clients revisions and whether any style and formatting errors were introduced during the revision process. Ms. ********* revisions were extensivethe new version was ~****** words, of which ~****** words were entirely new material that we had not previously edited.
        The university feedback and change requests that Ms. ******** had received primarily dealt with issues of content but also stipulated a number of style and formatting corrections. Reviewing this university feedback vis--vis the change markup of Ms. ********* revisions, we were able to determine that the stye and formatting errors identified by the university were not present in our edited version but rather were introduced to the document by Ms. ******** during the revisions she made subsequent to our editing. A copy of the revision markup showing this was shared with Ms. *********
        September 17: Via phone, our Senior Managing Editor explained to Ms. ******** that she as author would again need to address the content-related feedback independently and that corrections to style and formatting errors, which could not be included under the terms of her original order, would have to be addressed through a separate follow-up order. While disheartened to learn that she still had further writing to do, Ms. ******** said she understood the follow-up editing policy and what she needed to do next. She indicated that she would first revise the document to address the content-issues identified by her university and then resubmit for follow-up editing to review her revisions and make corrections to formatting and style.
        September 24: Ms. ******** submitted her updated document. In her email, she stated that she had again met with a member of her faculty who pointed out errors in alignment between the dissertation template and Ms. ******** draft; alignment refers to whether or not the content prescribed by a template is presented in the dissertation. Ms. ******** stated: I know this has been a long process, and I genuinely value the companys guidance. I want to make sure Im on the right track and meeting the requirements my university expects.
        We responded immediately, thanking her for sending her revised document and promising that we would review it and get back to her in the coming days. A cursory review of her revisions and new university feedback indicated that her university was still not satisfied with the content of her writing and that the style and formatting errors introduced during the first round of revision persisted through the second round.
        Before we were able to thoroughly review her document and respond to her in detail, and before any communication had taken place between us regarding her new revisions and university feedback, Ms. ******** lodged her complaint with the BBB. She did so knowing both that style and formatting errors introduced during revision were subject to follow-up fees and that only she as author is in a position to address content-related issues identified by her university.
        Conclusion: Ms. ******** is therefore not entitled to a refund of the fees she paid for the editing we performed on the first version of her draft.
        The foregoing account is based on detailed client records, including emails and phone transcripts. We will be happy to provide documentation as needed to resolve this complaint.

  Customer Answer

  Date: 10/07/2025

  Better Business Bureau:I have reviewed the response submitted by the business and have determined that the response does not satisfy or resolve my issues and/or concerns in reference to complaint # ********. Please add your rejection comments below; if you do not provide any details, your complaint will be closed as Answered. 

   

  
  Thank you for the opportunity to reply to the Dissertation Editors statement and their subsequent email correspondence. I appreciate that the company processed a partial refund, but this does not resolve the matter because the editing service I received did not conform to the contractual obligations or to ******************************* doctoral project requirements. My goal is to settle this dispute amicably, but I cannot withdraw my BBB complaint until the issues are fully addressed.
  Contractual obligations
  The service order I signed required Dissertation Editor to:
  Defer to university guidelines when they differ from ***. The contract states that if the schools instructions depart from standard ***, the company will implement our work in accordance with those guidelines.
  Reformat and update the table of contents, list of tables and figures, margins, and headings, and cross-check in-text citations and references for correspondence.
  Before the first edit, I supplied Dissertation Editor with the Doctoral Project Template and Academic Review Checklistfrom ******************************. These documents specify the exact order of sections, formatting, and academic requirements. I was assured that the editor would follow them.
  What I received
  Dr. ******* cover letter confirms that he limited his work to surface-level *** edits, leaving unresolved structural and content issues:
  He said he cleaned up the *** formatting and style, but asked me to review his comments because he could not correct the unclear sentences.
  He divided his comments into four categories: clarifying whether his rewrites conveyed my meaning, flagging unclear writing he could not revise, suggesting different phrasing, and noting missing citations.
  He admitted that he found missing sources and only added starter entries for me to complete.
  In other words, the editor did not correct the structural problems required by my university and failed to cross-check or complete the references. The document still contained placeholders (Dedication, Abstract), a misaligned table of contents, an incomplete copyright release, and headings that did not match the template. Dr. ****** himself wrote that the document should not be regarded as submission ready until I addressed his comments. This contradicts the claim that the editing was finished on September 4.
  Timeline and clarifications
  September 4
  The company returned my draft and sent instructions for follow-up. I called to seek clarification. My polite acknowledgement was not an endorsement of the quality; instead, I was concerned that many comments required my input and that the document was not submission-ready.
  I asked whether the editor could implement the suggested changes. I was told that content corrections would be myresponsibility. This confirmed that the service I paid for did not include the promised alignment with myuniversitys template.
  September 1117
  After receiving feedback from my chair, I emailed to ask whether the universitys corrections fell within the original order. The company requested a Word version of my revised document, which I provided along with the template and checklist.
  The company later used a compare documents tool and claimed I introduced 13,000 words of new material. In reality, the bulk of my revisions consisted of re-ordering chapters, expanding sections to meet the literature-reviewrequirements, and adding missing template elements that should have been addressed in the first round. These were not new material but necessary corrections because the initial editing did not comply with the template.
  September 24 and beyond
  I continued to correspond with the company, pointing out specific template violations such as missing date placeholders, incomplete copyright wording, misaligned table of contents, insufficient paragraphs in subheadings, and anthropomorphic language. I inquired whether addressing these issues fell within the scope of my editing package and emphasized my commitment to meeting both *** and university requirements.
  Communication stalled. I repeatedly called and emailed but received slow responses. Only after filing the BBB complaint did senior staff contact me. I was offered a partial refund of $1,106 but told that the remaining issues were beyond the scope of the contract. I cannot accept this partial refund because the original service failed to deliver the promised work.
  Committee feedback and quality of edits
  After I revised the draft based on Dr. ******* comments and submitted it to my university, my dissertation committee returned the document with extensive ******** and corrections. Their feedback highlighted many of the same issues that the editor should have fixedmisaligned headings, missing template elements such as date placeholders and complete copyright wording, improper chapter labels, insufficient paragraph depth in the literature review, and remaining anthropomorphic phrasing. The committees critique demonstrated that the edited document was not acceptable and did not align with the CalSouthern template. I had to rework large sections of the dissertation to address these problems, underscoring that the initial editing was inadequate and did not meet the contracts promise of a submission-ready document.
  It is important to note that I provided Dissertation Editor with the university template, review checklist, and a Word version of my revised draft. I also supplied a *** containing my professors corrections and a detailed comparison report showing how the editors changes deviated from the template. However, the company declined to review the *** and insisted on an original Word file. As a result, they did not acknowledge or consider the final version I submitted after incorporating Dr. ******* edits, nor did they review the comparison report.
  Despite these efforts, the company later stated that they did not have the final version of my dissertation and the comparison report. This is incorrect. I provided both the Word version of my revised draft (the one submitted after Dr. ******* edits) and the detailed comparison report to the Dissertation Editor. These documents have been included as exhibits in this BBB complaint. The assertion that they are missing underscores the communication issues and reinforces that the editing service did not adequately review or address my final submission. These missing documents further demonstrate the inadequacy of the editing and the companys failure to address the problems identified by my university.
  Rebuttal to Specific Claims
  Claim: I was pleased with the editing and asked the editor to make corrections on content-related issues.
  Response: I never expressed satisfaction with the returned draft. My questions were attempts to understand why the document still contained placeholders and misaligned sections. I asked whether the editor could implement his own suggestions, not whether he could write new content.
  Claim: I added 13,000 words of new material that introduced formatting errors.
  Response: The majority of my revisions involved reorganizing the existing content to match the template and adding required sections (e.g., a complete copyright release, a properly formatted abstract, and an expanded literature review). If the word count increased, it was because I integrated additional sources to meet the literature synthesis requirement. These are expected revisions when the initial editing fails to meet university standards.
  Claim: Formatting errors were introduced after their edit, so follow-up fees apply.
  Response: Many formatting and structural errorsmisaligned headings, incorrect table of contents, placeholder textexisted in the editors draft. Dr. ******* letter acknowledges that the document was not submission-ready. According to the contract, the company was responsible for aligning my document with the template. Requesting additional fees to rectify problems that should have been addressed initially is unreasonable.
  Claim: My complaint arose because I wanted help with content rather than line editing.
  Response: I understood that editing services cannot write new content. However, I expected the editor to format and structure the existing content per the template, correct *** and anthropomorphism issues, and ensure the document was submission-ready. When I pointed out missing abstract text and misaligned sections, I was not asking for new research but for proper formatting.
  Conclusion and Remaining Request
  I appreciate the partial refund as a gesture of goodwill, but it does not fully address the failure to meet contractual and academic requirements. The edited draft did not comply with the ****************************** template or the checklist, requiring me to perform substantial rework. I had to request a 30-day extension for my course and incur additional stress and expense because the expedited editing was not delivered.
  Therefore, I request a full refund of all fees paid. I will maintain my BBB complaint until a full resolution is reached. Supporting documentsincluding the service order, Dr. ******* letter, the edited draft with comments, my revised submission with committee feedback, and the detailed comparison reportare available for review.
  Additional communications after filing the complaint
  After I filed the BBB complaint, Dr. Lauren ******** (VP of Editing and Research) contacted me directly. She acknowledged that she had only become aware of my case because of the BBB filing and apologized for my frustration. Dr. ******** stated that she had processed a partial refund of $1,106 (the amount of my expedited service fees) and asked whether I would withdraw my BBB complaint so that she could continue investigating this issue internally and look into how we can best resolve this for you. screenshot. In the same email, she explained that finding errors does not automatically warrant a refund, implying that the company considered returning the document with remaining errors as fulfilling their obligations.
  I responded, thanking her for the gesture, but emphasized that the partial refund did not resolve the matter and that I could not withdraw my complaint until it was entirely resolved. I reiterated that Dr. ****** failed to follow the template and checklist I provided and that the inadequate editing and delays forced me to request a 30-day extension. I also noted that I would keep my complaint active until all issues were addressed.
  Dr. ******** later argued that the outstanding problems related to the content and the structure of my argument, which she said were outside the scope of their editing services. She offered to fix the remaining line-level *** and formatting issues, but maintained that the partial refund was all she could process at that time. She added that she would liaise with her supervisor and respond to the BBB complaint based on the information in their records. These communications reinforce that the company did not deliver the comprehensive, template-aligned editing promised in the contract and attempted to link further investigation to the withdrawal of my complaint screenshot.
  Thank you for your time and understanding. We can resolve this matter fairly.

  [You must provide details of why you are not satisfied with this resolution.  If you do not enter a reason for your rejection, your complaint will be closed as Answered.]
  
  Businesses and Customers should be civil, courteous and polite in their responses to complaints. It is important to remain professional and productive when participating in the BBB complaint process.
  
  FAQ
  
  Regards,

  Marycarmen