Escalating case with Fiverr support

[paintings]

I am a level 2 seller, always trying to keep my level up by providing on time, quickly answering messages etc. I just had a $5 buyer (and I don’t even do $5 gigs but I forgot to change that price which I did later) for a simple band logo design. It was obvious from the conversation that the buyer is a kid. I knew that was dangerous but I didn’t want to have a cancellation, so I took it. His “mexican rock” band hysteria wanted me to rip off BonJovi’s logo. I have done the logo quickly, but as a musician I knew they won’t get away with such a rippoff so I did two more original logos for him. Don’t ask why, I felt like helping those kids. He came back with a revision request (sticking to BonJovi logo). I did the change and re-delivered. Instead of accepting, he now wanted another revision, so I explained that there is only 1 revision included with a basic gig. He them left me a 1 star rating, said he didn’t get what he wanted and now my score fell below the point to keep my level 2 status. I contacted support asking to remove his rating and Fiverr came back saying that they can’t do anything to protect serious, good earning sellers from angry children who want way too much for nothing (well not in those words, but basically). I am interested in escalating this to fiverr’s management if that is possible. All creative portals I am on have those instances in place and I can contact management if needed. Do you know of any ways of contacting someone above the basic support team? I really work hard to keep my levels and I don’t like the idea of not being protected against someone who leaves a 1 star rating on a perfectly over-delivered gig, while my $300-$500 buyers all leave 5-star reviews. Shouldn’t those count more? I understand “a buyer is a buyer” policy but this is clearly a bad situation where Fiverr should step in. Or maybe I’m wrong for looking i to it, and I should accept that I may get demoted to a level 1 seller status because of one buyer who did not get everything he ever wanted for $5…any suggestions?

[uxreview]

You have to use line breaks if you wish others to read it 😉

[eoinfinnegan]

The bottom line is that orders are not “weighted” so every review counts the same. I don’t like that fact but it is the way it is and we have to live with it.

It’s worth remembering too that while a $5 order might be nothing more than an inconvenience to you, it could be a month’s savings for a kid’s band and so their expectations may have been unrealistic. As you noted, you had mistakenly left the price too low - always have your prices set where it reflects the work involved and is worth your time/expertise.

For this review, use your review of the buyer to explain (professionally!) what happened. You do have almost 4 weeks to get orders which counterract the effect of that review though

[paintings]

True. It just doesn’t seem fair that Fiverr has all the strict rules that sellers have to follow, percentages of delivery, ratings, immediate replies, etc. They are fast in punishing sellers if they don’t quickly reply even to spam messages, offers and stuff non related to their items. (official response: reporting a spam message is considered a reply) but still - you can lose your hard earned % points just by not answering some spammer (which happens a lot) writing from a fake, temporary profile. How is that fair? And then, Fiverr doesn’t have any proper mechanisms in place to protect sellers in such obvious cases, like when a buyer acts spoiled and entitled to get everything for nothing (I think everyone has met some of those). Fiverr shouldn’t just paste a paragraph from their policy, but personally investigate and judge based on all the facts about the case (isn’t that how they make their living too?) Yes, their support team is quick to reply, but my general impression is that someone from Fiverr wrote a holly word, their policies and rules for their support team, which acts just like a crew hired to copy/paste general rules to everyone (remember Dell support teams from the 2000’s and “is your computer plugged in” kinda questions?) Fiverr is making a lot from sellers and they will still be fine if they lose a great seller or two or twenty. They really don’t have ANY real intention to really help you, or to even understand the issue you may have.

[serdarsahin]

True. It just doesn’t seem fair that Fiverr has all the strict rules that sellers have to follow, percentages of delivery, ratings, immediate replies, etc. They are fast in punishing sellers if they don’t quickly reply even to spam messages, offers and stuff non related to their items. (official response: reporting a spam message is considered a reply) but still - you can lose your hard earned % points just by not answering some spammer (which happens a lot) writing from a fake, temporary profile. How is that fair? And then, Fiverr doesn’t have any proper mechanisms in place to protect sellers in such obvious cases, like when a buyer acts spoiled and entitled to get everything for nothing (I think everyone has met some of those). Fiverr shouldn’t just paste a paragraph from their policy, but personally investigate and judge based on all the facts about the case (isn’t that how they make their living too?) Yes, their support team is quick to reply, but my general impression is that someone from Fiverr wrote a holly word, their policies and rules for their support team, which acts just like a crew hired to copy/paste general rules to everyone (remember Dell support teams from the 2000’s and “is your computer plugged in” kinda questions?) Fiverr is making a lot from sellers and they will still be fine if they lose a great seller or two or twenty. They really don’t have ANY real intention to really help you, or to even understand the issue you may have.

Fiverr will learn what “Icarus” meaning

I also lost 2 level just for a Russian Spam message.

Fiverr is not the only place, that you can get good earnings.

[paintings]

Oh I know, I’m on all and every large marketplace and a service oriented site. But I spent a lot of time building my profile here, and now I get really serious people with money wanting only the best service they can get and it would be a great addition for my other profiles on other sites - if only Fiverr wouldn’t be so ignorant when it comes to protecting sellers. Don’t get me wrong, Envato (where I have an Elite status since 2012) is so much worst - they literally don’t give a flying cow about you staying or leaving. I’ve made them a brand new Bentley by now with my 500+ great selling items, but they still act as if I’m a 10 year old kid submitting an item for the 1st time ever. Also they are full of prejudice, every “reviewer” has a different personal taste that they infuse in every decision etc. I’ve noticed that a few reviewers don’t know basic things about pixels, resolution, print, web, rgb, etc. Their management does reply but they also never help with anything. So yes, it can be worse than this, but still. I think that corporations generally don’t care if they lose a big chunk of money if someone leaves, because they make incredibly much.

[paintings]

UPDATE: After attempting to fix this thing myself and offering to do one more change in exchange for removal of my negative rating, FIVERR came back with a warning saying one more VIOLATION(?!??!) and they will demote my current rating. So not only that they are USELESS in helping sellers solve issues down the road (when it’s a clear case), but now they are PUNISHING me for trying to solve it myself?!? WOW. I know I will rethink my dedication to this and other marketplaces, and probably choose to give more time to someone who appreciates my hard work and the money I bring them. I am beyond angry at Fiverr at this moment. I also got 4 different support people copy/paste same/similar reply to my attempts to reach someone in management. They are not even sending me those “review us” requests, knowing that my review won’t be positive, for sure.

[mariokluser]

What @uxreview was saying is “Hit that effing Enter-key once in a while, otherwise you just have a wall of characters that nobody is going to read”.

He is right btw.