Pay with Dict8

[juju1507]

I have been working s/e with Dict8 for 3 years now and my payment by cheques are arriving later and later. My last cheque arrived 8 days after it was issued and I noticed they are now sending cheques second class. Does anyone else work for Dict8 on here and, if so, are you finding that your cheque is arriving much later than it used to? I have direct debits set up deliberately for the middle of the month in order that my cheque would have cleared in time but now I am worrying that even by 15th of each month the cheque will not have cleared. Sorry for the ramble but just curious if others have noticed this.

I have typed just a few today. Wouldn't it be lovely for it to be like the old days when you would have loads of tasks sitting waiting to be typed. It would really be a tonic during these lockdown days. Oh well, at least another three weeks of lockdown to go.

Back to the refresh button!

I have had 10 letters but only short so don't amount to anything

10 for me too, which would be fine if I knew what time they would arrive, however, the 10 arrived from 9.00am until 4.30 so more time refreshing and less time typing. You really need the patience of a saint.

Can I ask if anyone ever logs in from their phone to check for tasks? I have managed 2 short tasks this afternoon.

I don't log in on my phone, never thought of trying that

Two tasks for me today...gosh I have earned £1.50!

@deewu - yes I do saves just sitting around it's a bonus when the weather is good :)

I had to laugh at James' latest email this afternoon, after the rather depressive admission that the situation is worse than he had previously thought - after all, if the number of tasks is down so is his revenue - but the comments that everyone gets the same tasks filtered through to them via their specialties is - as we know - utter rubbish. It may have been true once but I suspect when a certain someone who remains nameless took over a few years back she changed the situation, and presumably did not see fit to inform him of this. Those of us to type regularly (or try to) know this.

How many times has just one task appeared and the dictator talks about doing a clinic? A clinic of one patient? I suspect his clinic of say 20 patients is distributed one task each to 20 typists and a lucky person gets the long task and the unlucky typist gets the 10 second DNA letter.

Furthermore, if there are only showing a handful of tasks (and this usually happens with the crappy ones) and you reluctantly type one - does the number waiting to type decrease? No it stays at 5, and this continues for several letters, you type another one, it still says 5. This, I think, is because the tasks have been distributed out, say 5 tasks each to 5 unlucky typists, but one typist has decided not to type any of her allotted 5, so gradually they creep into your 'basket' as you type. If everyone had the same you would have seen '25' tasks as the number of tasks to type in the first place and not '5.' Does that make sense? Has anyone else noticed this?

These are just a couple of examples of why I think not all tasks are available to everyone, good and bad, and why some typists get all the foreign dictators and some people get all the English speaking ones as the allocation of tasks IS uneven and unfair.

I had a feeling the message was addressing the things discussed on here!

I completely agree with you Gally. The other thing that I noticed is sometimes, if I refresh, it will say 90, so (hope over experience), I will think "great, were in business!" after typing one it will say 4 - then poof - gone - so its all over in a couple of minutes and tumble weed for hours. What's that about?

There is no doubt they are following this thread is there.

We know they follow this thread after someone appeared to say how much money she earns after various comments regarding the low pay and people commented that it put them off applying. This person also seems to moderate her replies depending on what has been said to try not to stick out as too different from the rest of us, but I don't think we have been fooled. I have wondered if she is an actual real typist at all.

Completely agree with all the comments - no doubt whatsoever that someone on here is actually (like mentioned previously) working for DICT8, there is a certain tone to some of the comments that reminds me of the attitude of a certain someone in the office - wanting to be right all the time. Well I hope James has also been informed about the continuing theme in this thread, that of the nameless person - who definitely withholds descent tasks. I sometimes wonder whether she is the cause of the decline in work over the last year, that aggressive nature and know it all attitude has got to be so off putting to clients !

Hopefully things will be improving soon, although by the sounds of it, it could be a few weeks. Do most folk work for more than one company? Just wondering if anyone is busy?

No, I only work for DICT8 at present although I was in the process of trying to sign up with T-Pro, currently on hold. I even looked at the fruit-picking jobs but it seems you have to live on site and that is not feasible for me.

Same as Gally123, just DICT8, and was halfway through signing up with T-Pro

@Chrissols - Hi, I also work for Accuro and they have not issued any work whatsoever since this all started. They are very nice to work for and pay by BACS without you even having to submit an invoice. It is all done for you at the end of the month with them issuing you an invoice of the tasks you have typed. I keep a record of what I have typed so their invoice matches so you can query anything but they are lovely people to deal with, just unfortunate they haven't any work either, so perhaps when this is over give them a try.. and ditto to other recent comments

When I read through the thread I did find it strange that many on here with years of experience had continually asked for more specialities and were told no, and only one, who seemed to have started with two, after a short period of time had managed to acquire five ? This seems to be another example of a certain someone being selective and controlling. I wonder if she slaps James down like she does everyone else ?

Wow. What the hell is this? Have you all gone insane from quarantine??

You know when I found this thread, I was so happy - I thought at last I would be able to chat to other people in the same position and share experiences etc. All I've ever done is try to be friendly and helpful. But I come back to wild accusations and crazy claims. Take the message above. "Many on here with years of experience" - why the assumption that I don't have years of experience myself? Because as it happens, I do. I've been doing medical transcription for a really long time.

And then "after a short period of time" - where did you get that? I've been typing for Dict8 for years, firstly alongside my job in the local hospital and then just for them, and yes, on just two specialities I was able to afford to do that. Back then, even with just those two, by Friday there would be 150 jobs waiting. I typed full-time for them for several years and then they contacted me and asked if I would do proof reading - but they said you need at least five specialities so they added the other three. I didn't ask them. Then I had to type them for months before I even started checking.

I get that you're all pissed off because I'm self-sufficient with my earnings, but you know what? I'm not going to apologise for being good at what I do.

Has anyone had their account frozen due to allegedly over refreshing the task page or again allegedly using some form of software to do so. I had a call on Thursday accusing me of this from she who must be obeyed. That is why I asked if anyone uses their phone to look at tasks as I do. I have sent an email asking how many times a minute it is acceptable to refresh a page but really...........I am trying to stay calm

Hello I am Victoria. It was interesting to read your post. I too have felt that some comments on here were getting a little heated and have been a little dismayed about this. I think we are all frustrated with the Dict8 attitude generally but things should not become personal and levelled against other transcribers. I too have worked for Dict8 for many years through the ups and downs and accept that perhaps the good days are over, for now at least. I personally do not begrudge anyone making a decent living and good luck to anyone who does. I also find some of the criticism against a certain person getting really unpleasant and starting to get very personal.

I have decided not to make any further comments on this thread. I will continue to read the posts, but for now find things a little too heated and in the current environment not at all helpful. In the past my frustrations have been with the "system" but never personal.

I didn't realise we were only supposed to refresh so much either? How long has your account been frozen for? @deewu

@Chrissols it has been frozen for two hours. James actually called me and we had quite a long chat. I am still a little unclear as to exactly how many times a minute is acceptable it is so subjective and difficult to count. I think I had allegedly refreshed 500 times in 15 minutes, so obviously not that many times. He was concerned it would cause RSI! I think it is a bit late for that. It has been highlighted because I guess so many other people are constantly refreshing with very little work available and it is causing some sort of problem for them and some have been using automatic refreshing software.

@deewu I have never even heard of automatic refreshing software.

My account was disabled on Thursday, I e-mailed to ask if there was a problem and I just got an e-mail back say "I need to speak to you, I am on a call I will phone back", I then had to wait a good hour before I emailed again to ask if any news, because I was seriously worried I had done something wrong. I eventually got a call and like above, was told I had been refreshing to quickly, impossibly quickly (I was told 300 times a minute) and that this was a security and hacking risk, and I needed to check that I had not downloaded automatic refresh software. I was told that if it happened again, then this week I would be disabled for two hours, and then if it happened again my account would be closed because I would be too much of a security risk. I really asked for some help, and perhaps once back on the system they could let me know if this was still happening, but I was told they could not do this, and it was just up to me to sort the problem out. Having worked for DICT8 for at least 11 years, I was really upset by the attitude on the phone, but this being my main income, I feel I have no choice but to swallow hard and take it. I am now paranoid about losing my account, but what can I do? Sad times.

@IamVictoria, why do you think my post was about you ?

I think we are all good at what we do otherwise DICT8 would not allow us on their system. We all have high typing speeds and years of experience I'm sure, although some of us do not feel the need to highlight it every five minutes though.