First Upset Customer

[Guest evpassino]

I’ve been on Fiverr seriously for about 6 months and I have 100% satisfaction. I was shocked this morning to find a bunch of messages from a buyer who is livid about what I delivered. He’s threatening to report me to Fiverr if I don’t issue a refund.



I haven’t responded to him yet because I want to do so when I’m clear-headed and have recovered from his very unkind words, but I’m on the fence about what to do. On one hand, I could just give him the refund and let it go. On the other, I fully stand by my work. I didn’t do anything wrong, but I don’t know where Fiverr is going to land on it. Are they going to take his side as a “customer is always right” kind of thing? Or will they look at my gig, look at what I delivered, and see that I did what I said I would do?



The rational part of me knows this is mostly my pride, and it’s worth losing $8 to prevent what could be a lot of hassle. I also feel like I’d be justified in standing my ground, but at what cost? I don’t want to lose my level 2 status or have my account frozen or something.

[misscrystal]

Don’t refund. You know nothing you did was wrong.

[Anna]

I have a different opinion on this. If your customer is upset just give him a refund and move on. It’s only a $8 project is it worth the headache and the negative feedback? If your client is not happy than that is his problem, I would not risk a negative feedback which will impact your business on Fiverr. Don’t take it personally but you cannot make everybody happy, happens to everybody at some point 😉 . If the buyer was rude and you feel threaten I would still report him, better safe than sorry at least you will be first !

[fonthaunt]

As long as you stay professional and polite there shouldn’t be a risk to your account no matter what you decide. If it were me, I probably would grit my teeth and cancel, but I think you have the right to go either direction on this. If in doubt, you could open a ticket to ask advice from Customer Support but since they are sometimes bogged down you might not get a reply for a couple of days.

[david388]

I will point out this - if the Buyer has become nasty and/or abusive, then you have even less to worry about. That kind of behavior is against Fiverr’s Terms of Service, so I would expect Customer Support to definitely be on your side in that scenario.

[Guest evpassino]

Reply to @david388: He hasn’t become abusive in the sense that he’s used profanity, but he told me I was unprofessional and arrogant, and that I am “obviously not capable re-doing the work objectively”. He’s entitled to his opinion, it just hurt my feelings.

[startselect]

Refund the buyer, but also report their abuse. They might get a refund, but they will also get banned from the site for their behavior.



This is the best course of action if you want to have the full upper hand. 8 bucks are not worth the hassle of dealing with someone who is obviously ok with calling you names and will probably be willing to do far worse if you don’t refund the purchase.



Not worth your time if you ask me.



Edit: after reading that the buyer has not been using profanity, this kind of changes things. Just refund and move on. If the buyer called you arrogant, this might not be a good reason for being banned.

[Guest evpassino]

Reply to @startselect: I agree, but a person can be really demeaning without using “bad” language. It was just so out of left field. If he had complained and I had been rude, then I would get it, but this is his first response after I delivered. I don’t think it’s worth reporting, I just hate to back down when I did my job.

[Guest smmpanel]

If you refund maybe he will do the same with someone else 😦

[fonthaunt]

Reply to @evpassino: For that I would still cancel but also report the buyer to CS as @startsselect said. That is abusive with or without profanity and it sounds like the buyer is trying to emotionally manipulate you for free work. I understand how hard it is to not take it personally. They’ve probably pulled this before on others so they need to be reported. Just keep your head up and keep providing great work for the buyers that deserve it and you’ll be fine. 🙂

[sincere18]

First, don’t take any of this personally or get hurt by it. Fiverr is a big anonymous freelance site, you are bound to get the off client now and then. Or the scammer who is just trying to get work for free so they do that in order to get you to cancel.



When you say they mentioned you don’t know how to re-do the work…did they submit requests for changes and you have been going round and round with revises for them or something?



I think you should just go a mutual cancellation if you can still do that part of it, or just refund it, it is not worth it.



And just know that you are lucky that in 6 months this is your first buyer like this. It happens, you can’t take it personally, and you just have to write off the loss every now and then and move on.

[friendlywebguy]

I would offer a refund. This has happened to me before. I made my buyer a fully customized PowerPoint. I did exactly what he wanted and even gave revisions when he wasn’t happy. After 3 revisions to the PowerPoint, which was already 100% complete to high standards already, he yelled at me and requested a refund. The PowerPoint was perfect as it was, but I think the buyer just did it to get the PowerPoint free. Although I lost $25 I think it was worth hurting my reputation by receiving a negative review.

[friendlywebguy]

Reply to @sincere18:



This is 100% true! Sadly, I have already had a few buyers like this, and I am fairly new.

[Guest evpassino]

Reply to @sincere18: That’s the frustrating part about it - he didn’t ask questions or request changes. I delivered the order a week ago, on-time, and didn’t hear back until today.



Either he just wanted to mean to someone or he wanted to get free work. For all I know he targeted me because I have a high rating and he knew I would want to keep it that way. At one point he even posed an ultimatum - refund my money or I’ll give others a “much-needed warning about you” and report you to for this “stunt” - and ended it with “your call.” I honestly feel a little blackmailed.



Ultimately I decided to refund. It’s really not worth battling it out. And from what I’ve heard from other buyers on this board, Fiverr usually takes the buyer’s side.

[Guest evpassino]

Reply to @friendlywebguy: That blows 😦

[Guest evpassino]

Reply to @smmpanel: Probably. I kinda just have to hope karma takes care of it. If he treats everyone the way he treated me, eventually it will catch up with him.

[sincere18]

Reply to @evpassino: ok, if you delivered and completed the job a week ago, did the buyer request a modification? And before the order was delivered did you do any rounds of revises before you delivered and completed the gig? What kind of gig was it? Maybe they didn’t look at it, or test it out until now or something.



But in any case, if you received an email like what you said above, I would contact Fiverr Customer support.



Tell them you delivered the order in a timely manner for your gig over a week ago, and today received all these bullying messages (see pasted in below) and am concerned about this buyer now. Can you please assist me with how to handle this.

[misscrystal]

Calling you arrogant is unprofessional of him. If you know you did the work correctly he is just trying to get a refund. I would never give in to this blackmail. I wouldn’t even respond to anyone abusive.

[Guest evpassino]

Reply to @sincere18: Nope, no requests for modification. The gig is to provide feedback for an unpublished novel. This is the 7th or 8th one I’ve done and usually what happens is I send the author/buyer my feedback on their writing, which closes out the gig. Then they’ll usually message me with questions about my feedback, ideas they have for fixing loopholes, stuff like that, and I’ll talk it out with them (no charge). Sometimes this goes on for weeks, but I don’t do it to make a living, I do it because I enjoy it.



I’ve never had someone flip out on me, which is frustrating because they’re basically paying for my opinion - whatever I say should be valid, even if they disagree. I think I told this guy something he didn’t want to hear, and now he’s mad at me…even though I really liked his story, and I told him that in the feedback.



I don’t really care about giving him his money back. If he needs that $11 so bad, then fine, but he didn’t have to be so insulting. It’s just the principle of it.

[graphics_pro360]

Oh Dang! I had such a bad experience about 2 months ago. After working for 2 weeks on a project and making over 10 modifications, this buyer came back 10 days after the work as been marked as completed and ready to be withdrawn, threatened me of VERY BAD rating and said I would be “Insane” if I think am getting her $15! 😦



After trying to make her see reason and she’s just stubborn, I gave her the $12 refund and moved on!



The experience I’ve had was that someone gave me a 3 star rating 4 months ago and my account had been on 99% ever since, even after over 400 sales of 5 stars! 😦



Just refund, report and move on with your business.

Regards,

Graphics_Pro360

[powerjinglesnl]

That is a real sad story, i am sorry for you. But on the other hand,

I agree with the others. Just do a refund and go on.

There’s much better buyers out there that does respect the work you deliver.

[luckygutsy]

I personally think it’s still worth reporting to cs so this buyer can’t scam anyone else. Sorry you had a bad experience 😦

[Guest evpassino]

Reply to @graphics_pro360: Wow, what a pain. I think the thing that surprised me the most is how hostile he got over such a small amount of money. It’s one thing to ask for a refund, it’s another to write me several nasty messages all within a few minutes of each other and attack my character. That’s when I realized the guy was unhinged and it wasn’t worth fighting over an $8 profit, especially when negative reviews are so heavily weighted.

[Guest evpassino]

Reply to @luckygutsy: I might, still on the fence about it. I did issue the refund, mainly to close out the order and prevent him from doing damage to my rating. Not sure if Fiverr will see that as some kind of admission of guilt, when really it’s just damage control.