Curious if anyone has received a message similar to this?

[loganstover]

Need some help from the experienced members on a message I received. Seemed to set off flags with me. Curious on your thoughts. Thanks in advance!

Hi Logan, good day! We are a translation/transcription company in China trying to currently help our clients produce their own company videos for the international market hence we are looking for people with a North American accent. We only need you to read a document we give you, so no editing is really needed. Our budget is $3 per 100 words. Would you be interested to join our team? If you are, please send me an e-mail at ***** at ***** dot com.

Thanks and looking forward to hear from you!

[trooviez9]

When a buyer shares with you their email address you should report them to customer support as it violates Fiverr TOS.

[misscrystal]

First off, they can’t pay less than $5 on fiverr. That rate seems too low. Not sure why they think that would tempt you to want to do anything with them.

Second they don’t need to have you contact them by email and are violating terms of service by sending the email address.

Third, when it goes into detail like that about being in China blah blah it sounds fake.

This has scam written all over it.

[miiila]

Hi Logan, first of all, like others already said, don´t give them your e-mail, that can cost you your account, have a look at Fiverr´s ToS really really soon if you didn´t read them yet.

Personally, I think anything below $5 per your smallest unit makes no sense; it depends on where you live, obviously, but for many of us, $5 will barely cover the time needed to (talk to a buyer) download, open and look at a file, do a small order, save and send it; Fiverr seems to think the same since it´s the minimum you can set as a price in gigs and custom offers as well.

Of course, you could tell them you´d be happy to work with them within the ToS (all communication within Fiverr) and for (insert your normal gig price per 100 words) and see what they say, they may be prepared to haggle and have started with a low-ball offer to see if anyone bites right away. To me, it sounds like trouble now and trouble down the road and a lot of wasted time anyhow, and if it already set off flags with you, probably better trust that feeling.

[loganstover]

Hi Logan, first of all, like others already said, don´t give them your e-mail, that can cost you your account, have a look at Fiverr´s ToS really really soon if you didn´t read them yet.

Personally, I think anything below $5 per your smallest unit makes no sense; it depends on where you live, obviously, but for many of us, $5 will barely cover the time needed to (talk to a buyer) download, open and look at a file, do a small order, save and send it; Fiverr seems to think the same since it´s the minimum you can set as a price in gigs and custom offers as well.

Of course, you could tell them you´d be happy to work with them within the ToS (all communication within Fiverr) and for (insert your normal gig price per 100 words) and see what they say, they may be prepared to haggle and have started with a low-ball offer to see if anyone bites right away. To me, it sounds like trouble now and trouble down the road and a lot of wasted time anyhow, and if it already set off flags with you, probably better trust that feeling.

Thank you all for the responses. Confirmed my gut feeling. I responded to them with a kindly worded message letting them know that I am happy to work with them on a project that is submitted through my gig page.

[logo_design66]

Thank you all for the responses. Confirmed my gut feeling. I responded to them with a kindly worded message letting them know that I am happy to work with them on a project that is submitted through my gig page.

I my opinion this is not good thing, he break fiverr role, he pay less $5 and most of important for you don’t reply this type of messages just complain fiver support, for better future work, if you don’t want trouble

[loganstover]

Hi Logan, first of all, like others already said, don´t give them your e-mail, that can cost you your account, have a look at Fiverr´s ToS really really soon if you didn´t read them yet.

Personally, I think anything below $5 per your smallest unit makes no sense; it depends on where you live, obviously, but for many of us, $5 will barely cover the time needed to (talk to a buyer) download, open and look at a file, do a small order, save and send it; Fiverr seems to think the same since it´s the minimum you can set as a price in gigs and custom offers as well.

Of course, you could tell them you´d be happy to work with them within the ToS (all communication within Fiverr) and for (insert your normal gig price per 100 words) and see what they say, they may be prepared to haggle and have started with a low-ball offer to see if anyone bites right away. To me, it sounds like trouble now and trouble down the road and a lot of wasted time anyhow, and if it already set off flags with you, probably better trust that feeling.

@trooviez9 @miiila @misscrystal Update on this issue. I contacted customer support (first time reaching out to them) when I first received this message and included a screenshot. I was sure it was against the TOS and I came here to post on the forum as well. I wanted to cover all my bases before sending any response. I am new and did not want to mess up and just message back a generic “Thank you, please see my gig page for any orders” message. Again, trying to follow the TOS.

I noticed that my Completion rate dropped from 100% to 90% because I had failed to respond to the message in the 24 hour period. After getting help from the forum (no response yet from CS) I responded with what I was told to by veteran sellers. I received a response from CS and was told “Thanks for the notification” to which I responded if my completion rate would be adjusted back. They responded that my “Completion rate is accurate, and will not be changed”.

On one hand I get it, I did not respond to a message in the 24 hour period. On the other hand, I feel like I tried to do the right thing before responding to a scam message and shouldn’t be penalized for it. O’ well. You live and you learn. Gotta keep thinking positive.

Thanks to all your help on this topic and all the others! (Sorry for the long post)

[miiila]

@trooviez9 @miiila @misscrystal Update on this issue. I contacted customer support (first time reaching out to them) when I first received this message and included a screenshot. I was sure it was against the TOS and I came here to post on the forum as well. I wanted to cover all my bases before sending any response. I am new and did not want to mess up and just message back a generic “Thank you, please see my gig page for any orders” message. Again, trying to follow the TOS.

I noticed that my Completion rate dropped from 100% to 90% because I had failed to respond to the message in the 24 hour period. After getting help from the forum (no response yet from CS) I responded with what I was told to by veteran sellers. I received a response from CS and was told “Thanks for the notification” to which I responded if my completion rate would be adjusted back. They responded that my “Completion rate is accurate, and will not be changed”.

On one hand I get it, I did not respond to a message in the 24 hour period. On the other hand, I feel like I tried to do the right thing before responding to a scam message and shouldn’t be penalized for it. O’ well. You live and you learn. Gotta keep thinking positive.

Thanks to all your help on this topic and all the others! (Sorry for the long post)

Have a look at this (and ideally, the other topics in the Seller Help Center as well, as some may help you avoiding similar pitfalls):

https://sellers.fiverr.com/en/article/response-time-rate-faq

[loganstover]

Have a look at this (and ideally, the other topics in the Seller Help Center as well, as some may help you avoiding similar pitfalls):

https://sellers.fiverr.com/en/article/response-time-rate-faq

@miiila Exactly, and thanks for the link. I confused the report button with the ‘fill out and send an actual report to CS’ option. #newb My submission was received after 24 hours and counted against me.

Here is the interesting part. On the page you provided, and others regarding response time, it lists this explanation:

“Spam and Solicitations: You do not have to reply to spam and solicitations in your inbox. Reporting the message as spam will count as your response to those messages.”

I was told by CS that because my reporting of the message was after 24 hours, it would still count against me as a non-response. However, I haven’t been able to find anywhere where it lists that you have 24 hours to report a spam message or it will count against you. Other than the CS response that is.

Who knows, maybe I missed it somewhere? I think it would be great info to add to that page that you still have to report in 24 hours. No big deal. Just found this interesting 😊

[miiila]

@miiila Exactly, and thanks for the link. I confused the report button with the ‘fill out and send an actual report to CS’ option. #newb My submission was received after 24 hours and counted against me.

Here is the interesting part. On the page you provided, and others regarding response time, it lists this explanation:

“Spam and Solicitations: You do not have to reply to spam and solicitations in your inbox. Reporting the message as spam will count as your response to those messages.”

I was told by CS that because my reporting of the message was after 24 hours, it would still count against me as a non-response. However, I haven’t been able to find anywhere where it lists that you have 24 hours to report a spam message or it will count against you. Other than the CS response that is.

Who knows, maybe I missed it somewhere? I think it would be great info to add to that page that you still have to report in 24 hours. No big deal. Just found this interesting 😊

Yeah, well, I guess it just falls under that you need to reply to messages generally within 24 hours. Spammy and soliciting messages to the system still are messages.

Another thing, by the way, is that for some people, the spam messages that arrive in our inbox already as “pre-spam-reported” by Fiverr, let our rates drop; never mind which reactive approach I took (not doing anything - makes sense as the messages already have the report button highlighted when I see them; un-reporting+replying+re-reporting; un-reporting and replying), it all led to the same result, my rate taking a hit. You learn to avoid some and live with some of the issues and bugs. 😉

The real problem now is that from Jan 15, the rates play a role in your “evaluation” and you can get levelled down if one of them drops below 90%, so it´s worth keeping an eye on them and avoiding the things you can avoid, because some will hit you without your being able to do anything to prevent it, like cancellations because buyers ordered accidentally etc.