Calling Out (Potentially) Scam Buyers

[cyaxrex]

If there is one thing I hate, it’s non-smooth criminals.

Now, I get a disproportionate number if these, I know. I also know why:

• The two gigs which attract these types are priced way below their true market value
• One of these gig niches attracts a ton of what are essentially the Internet’s worst MLM scammers

As for why I don’t increase prices/change gig structures, 90% of clients are stellar and the turnover on both is more than healthy. In this case, I’m not messing with them.

Getting down to the 10% of buyers who cause problems, this is the usual pattern:

• The buyers ALWAYS order from accounts created in the same month of ordering
• Account time stamps never match actual buyer locations. In fact, they mainly match Venezuela and California
• Buyers always attempt to cancel or get far more work than has been paid for FOC
• A few buyers order on Fiverr and instantly send me a message on Linkedin (from newly created Linkedin accounts) saying, "Hey, we just ordered with you on Fiverr and it’s really not fair Fiverr should take 20% commission. Get in touch so we can organize direct payments."

Needless to say, I DO NOT communicate with anyone outside of Fiverr and so never reply to these messages.

Now, I am sick and tired of playing the same old, ‘let’s just pretend that this isn’t you again Mr. Venezuela,’ every time one of these buyers order. Ideally, I would just like to outright not accept any orders from new-to-Fiverr buyers.

Of course, I can’t do that. What I am thinking of doing though, is including the below as a delivery message:

Hi,

Thank you for your order. Please find attached your requested article/video. Also, please accept my apologies for the inconvenience. However, due to a mismatch between your displayed location and actual location in your Fiverr profile, I am afraid that I will not be able to accept any further orders from you.

Kind Regards,

Cy

Now, obviously, I would only send this message to buyers whom fit the profile which I previously outlined. The only question is, would Fiverr see this as a big NO NO? - Personally, I don’t see why since I cancel a lot of these orders as they come in. Any thoughts, though, would be greatly appreciated.

[frank_d]

If there is one thing I hate, it’s non-smooth criminals.

Now, I get a disproportionate number if these, I know. I also know why:

• The two gigs which attract these types are priced way below their true market value
• One of these gig niches attracts a ton of what are essentially the Internet’s worst MLM scammers

As for why I don’t increase prices/change gig structures, 90% of clients are stellar and the turnover on both is more than healthy. In this case, I’m not messing with them.

Getting down to the 10% of buyers who cause problems, this is the usual pattern:

• The buyers ALWAYS order from accounts created in the same month of ordering
• Account time stamps never match actual buyer locations. In fact, they mainly match Venezuela and California
• Buyers always attempt to cancel or get far more work than has been paid for FOC
• A few buyers order on Fiverr and instantly send me a message on Linkedin (from newly created Linkedin accounts) saying, "Hey, we just ordered with you on Fiverr and it’s really not fair Fiverr should take 20% commission. Get in touch so we can organize direct payments."

Needless to say, I DO NOT communicate with anyone outside of Fiverr and so never reply to these messages.

Now, I am sick and tired of playing the same old, ‘let’s just pretend that this isn’t you again Mr. Venezuela,’ every time one of these buyers order. Ideally, I would just like to outright not accept any orders from new-to-Fiverr buyers.

Of course, I can’t do that. What I am thinking of doing though, is including the below as a delivery message:

Hi,

Thank you for your order. Please find attached your requested article/video. Also, please accept my apologies for the inconvenience. However, due to a mismatch between your displayed location and actual location in your Fiverr profile, I am afraid that I will not be able to accept any further orders from you.

Kind Regards,

Cy

Now, obviously, I would only send this message to buyers whom fit the profile which I previously outlined. The only question is, would Fiverr see this as a big NO NO? - Personally, I don’t see why since I cancel a lot of these orders as they come in. Any thoughts, though, would be greatly appreciated.

The only question is, would Fiverr see this as a big NO NO?

Fiverr CS never forced me to work with anyone I didn’t want to work with.

However, every time I opened a ticket to have them force-cancel an order I had proof that the buyer was unreasonable, abusive, disrespectful or a straight up d-bag.

They told me time and time again that no one is forcing me to work with anyone I don’t want to be working with.

But if there’s no obvious reason why you don’t want to work with someone, and they report you to CS (let’s say they feel offended by your message) you may get into trouble as they can claim you are discriminating against buyers with no solid proof of misconduct.

[cyaxrex]

The only question is, would Fiverr see this as a big NO NO?

Fiverr CS never forced me to work with anyone I didn’t want to work with.

However, every time I opened a ticket to have them force-cancel an order I had proof that the buyer was unreasonable, abusive, disrespectful or a straight up d-bag.

They told me time and time again that no one is forcing me to work with anyone I don’t want to be working with.

But if there’s no obvious reason why you don’t want to work with someone, and they report you to CS (let’s say they feel offended by your message) you may get into trouble as they can claim you are discriminating against buyers with no solid proof of misconduct.

Fiverr CS never forced me to work with anyone I didn’t want to work with.

However, every time I opened a ticket to have them force-cancel an order I had proof that the buyer was unreasonable, abusive, disrespectful or a straight up d-bag.

Yes, the problem is, problems start after delivery. It is not, therefore a question of, being forced to work with someone. The work has already been completed BUT I have to rest uneasily with the fact that lots of red flags indicate that a chargeback may see me working free of charge.

But if there’s no obvious reason why you don’t want to work with someone, and they report you to CS (let’s say they feel offended by your message) you may get into trouble as they can claim you are discriminating against buyers with no solid proof of misconduct.

The thing here is that as seller, I can have my account closed for disguising my real location. I don’t even understand how so many buyers can be allowed to use Fiverr, when their locations clearly don’t match their real IP locations. - To me, this is enough reason for me not to want to do business with someone.

[frank_d]

Fiverr CS never forced me to work with anyone I didn’t want to work with.

However, every time I opened a ticket to have them force-cancel an order I had proof that the buyer was unreasonable, abusive, disrespectful or a straight up d-bag.

Yes, the problem is, problems start after delivery. It is not, therefore a question of, being forced to work with someone. The work has already been completed BUT I have to rest uneasily with the fact that lots of red flags indicate that a chargeback may see me working free of charge.

But if there’s no obvious reason why you don’t want to work with someone, and they report you to CS (let’s say they feel offended by your message) you may get into trouble as they can claim you are discriminating against buyers with no solid proof of misconduct.

The thing here is that as seller, I can have my account closed for disguising my real location. I don’t even understand how so many buyers can be allowed to use Fiverr, when their locations clearly don’t match their real IP locations. - To me, this is enough reason for me not to want to do business with someone.

I’m with you on this one.

And yes every time I had to contact CA to cancel was after I delivered.

You see after all these years on the platform I’ve become really efficient at spotting red flags.

I try to make it clear to the prospect that they shouldn’t purchase from me, and I sometimes go the extra mile and refer them to a competitor.

1/10 the buyer chooses to ignore my refusal to take on their project and order anyway.

In which case I try to make it work for my ratings and account’s standing sake.

Now as to why Fiverr uses double standards the answer is to literally follow the money.

Buyers who mask their location bring their $$$ to the platform so Fiverr chooses to look the other way.

[cyaxrex]

I’m with you on this one.

And yes every time I had to contact CA to cancel was after I delivered.

You see after all these years on the platform I’ve become really efficient at spotting red flags.

I try to make it clear to the prospect that they shouldn’t purchase from me, and I sometimes go the extra mile and refer them to a competitor.

1/10 the buyer chooses to ignore my refusal to take on their project and order anyway.

In which case I try to make it work for my ratings and account’s standing sake.

Now as to why Fiverr uses double standards the answer is to literally follow the money.

Buyers who mask their location bring their $$$ to the platform so Fiverr chooses to look the other way.

You see after all these years on the platform I’ve become really efficient at spotting red flags.

I try to make it clear to the prospect that they shouldn’t purchase from me, and I sometimes go the extra mile and refer them to a competitor.

Yes, this is why I turn away over 90% of people who message me. The thing is, I can not stop people ordering directly.

In the case of a present order, a buyer (who accidentally let slip that they were a problem buyer from a while ago) ordered $200 of work directly. I cancelled this citing the fact that I do not accept large orders without prior discussion and yes, I know who you are and will not be working with you again.

Anyway, this same buyer (using a new account) ordered $60 worth of work yesterday (without prior discussion) which I have just delivered. I know it is the same buyer due to the type of work requested, the time on the profile always matching California rather than Germany, (where they say they are located) and by the fact that they even end messages with the same user name.

As for why I don’t want to work with this person. they started hitting me with several high-value orders last year. That was fine until they stopped and started sending me messages saying they no longer needed any of the work (weeks after delivery & all of which is still published on their site). - "How do we go about finding a solution?"

I stated that I do not issue refunds and that in the event of reversed payment, I have a 100% success rate in having pages where my work is published de-listed from Google. I then refered them to Fiverr’s TOS and directed them to contact CS if they have a problem.

Almost immediately, new accounts then started ordering from me. After delivery of work, I then used online plagiarism checker tools to find where my content was being used and sure enough, it was the same site which I had been working for previously.

In short, I just can’t be done with this stress. I do not work for free. At present, though, it’s a choice between canceling all these orders as they come in and get demoted, or do the work and regret it.

That said, I am now thinking of just starting to deliver really really atrocious articles which no one could possibly want to pay for. - That could stop them ordering…

[miiila]

One thing, though, don’t rely on the time shown - the displayed time is buggy as hell currently for me. All my clients, also a seller I bought from recently, have my time showing in their messages instead of theirs as it used to be. Talking of people I know are in China, Venezuela, Ukraine, wherever. It’s a bit improbable that they all suddenly moved to somewhere in my timezone. Plus, my own timezone (=the timezone all of my buyers suddenly seem to be in) is off by an hour, once again, too.

[mariokluser]

If there is one thing I hate, it’s non-smooth criminals.

Now, I get a disproportionate number if these, I know. I also know why:

• The two gigs which attract these types are priced way below their true market value
• One of these gig niches attracts a ton of what are essentially the Internet’s worst MLM scammers

As for why I don’t increase prices/change gig structures, 90% of clients are stellar and the turnover on both is more than healthy. In this case, I’m not messing with them.

Getting down to the 10% of buyers who cause problems, this is the usual pattern:

• The buyers ALWAYS order from accounts created in the same month of ordering
• Account time stamps never match actual buyer locations. In fact, they mainly match Venezuela and California
• Buyers always attempt to cancel or get far more work than has been paid for FOC
• A few buyers order on Fiverr and instantly send me a message on Linkedin (from newly created Linkedin accounts) saying, "Hey, we just ordered with you on Fiverr and it’s really not fair Fiverr should take 20% commission. Get in touch so we can organize direct payments."

Needless to say, I DO NOT communicate with anyone outside of Fiverr and so never reply to these messages.

Now, I am sick and tired of playing the same old, ‘let’s just pretend that this isn’t you again Mr. Venezuela,’ every time one of these buyers order. Ideally, I would just like to outright not accept any orders from new-to-Fiverr buyers.

Of course, I can’t do that. What I am thinking of doing though, is including the below as a delivery message:

Hi,

Thank you for your order. Please find attached your requested article/video. Also, please accept my apologies for the inconvenience. However, due to a mismatch between your displayed location and actual location in your Fiverr profile, I am afraid that I will not be able to accept any further orders from you.

Kind Regards,

Cy

Now, obviously, I would only send this message to buyers whom fit the profile which I previously outlined. The only question is, would Fiverr see this as a big NO NO? - Personally, I don’t see why since I cancel a lot of these orders as they come in. Any thoughts, though, would be greatly appreciated.

The only question is, would Fiverr see this as a big NO NO?

In very rare cases I told buyers that I wouldn’t work for them in 100 years. Never heard anything about it.

Nobody can force you to work for anybody.