Fraudulent Offers From out of the Country

[Guest rickjayglen]

Hello everyone!

My name is Rick, and though I’ve had a Fiverr account for a while now, I’m fairly new to using it and just updated my profile to offer services.UNFORTUNATELY, I’ve had my notifications and emails bombarded with offers to get paid $100 per month for helping someone open an account both on Fiverr and Upwork.

As a freelancer, it’s difficult enough to put time and energy into your services, reaching out to the right people, and standing out amongst the hundreds (if not thousands) of other freelancers trying to get jobs and grow their business.

First, I should say that anyone who offers you money for a fraudulent account should be reported immediately. They usually ask you to contact them on ■■■■■, Discord, or another messaging app. Then they give you the pathetic offer of $100 a month to commit a crime!

MAKE NO MISTAKE! As freelancers, we use our SSN to file and pay taxes. This is required by law and by the Term and Conditions of these platforms. Offering to open an account with your SSN and tax information is not just illegal, but 150% dangerous for your IRS quarterly report and filing.

I have had over 10 people contact me with the same proposal and I’m honestly quite sick of it!

I’m asking Fiverr to please change the sign-up requirements to prevent people who are not legal freelancers to sign-up. OR, at least find a way to legally work with other countries and their tax codes, so that we can actually focus on getting work and being legit, instead of swimming through a bunch of illegal proposals for opening an account for someone else.

My job as a freelancer is to focus on providing the best services I can to clients who are willing to partner and work with me. Not to spend all day explaining legalities to con-men who are asking people to break the law, just so that they can compete for the same market.

Whatever the solution, it needs to change. I don’t want to stop my work and rush to my computer just to see the 20th person asking me to talk with them on ■■■■■. I’ve had enough! If there are profile or email settings that can prevent me from getting an overwhelming number of emails from people looking to take advantage, then please someone tell me how to set stricter settings for my inbox, but enough is enough already.

I’m here to work doing what I love and cooperating with real clients. I have no interest in being Fiverr’s security screener.

Thanks and best of luck to all you freelancers,
Rick

[humanissocial]

It doesn’t sound like the people who are contacting you are Fiverr sellers, though, so I don’t see how Fiverr could screen people in the way that you mention. They can only ban someone who is scamming/spamming or breaking the ToS in some other way.

[maitasun]

Hello everyone!

My name is Rick, and though I’ve had a Fiverr account for a while now, I’m fairly new to using it and just updated my profile to offer services.UNFORTUNATELY, I’ve had my notifications and emails bombarded with offers to get paid $100 per month for helping someone open an account both on Fiverr and Upwork.

As a freelancer, it’s difficult enough to put time and energy into your services, reaching out to the right people, and standing out amongst the hundreds (if not thousands) of other freelancers trying to get jobs and grow their business.

First, I should say that anyone who offers you money for a fraudulent account should be reported immediately. They usually ask you to contact them on ■■■■■, Discord, or another messaging app. Then they give you the pathetic offer of $100 a month to commit a crime!

MAKE NO MISTAKE! As freelancers, we use our SSN to file and pay taxes. This is required by law and by the Term and Conditions of these platforms. Offering to open an account with your SSN and tax information is not just illegal, but 150% dangerous for your IRS quarterly report and filing.

I have had over 10 people contact me with the same proposal and I’m honestly quite sick of it!

I’m asking Fiverr to please change the sign-up requirements to prevent people who are not legal freelancers to sign-up. OR, at least find a way to legally work with other countries and their tax codes, so that we can actually focus on getting work and being legit, instead of swimming through a bunch of illegal proposals for opening an account for someone else.

My job as a freelancer is to focus on providing the best services I can to clients who are willing to partner and work with me. Not to spend all day explaining legalities to con-men who are asking people to break the law, just so that they can compete for the same market.

Whatever the solution, it needs to change. I don’t want to stop my work and rush to my computer just to see the 20th person asking me to talk with them on ■■■■■. I’ve had enough! If there are profile or email settings that can prevent me from getting an overwhelming number of emails from people looking to take advantage, then please someone tell me how to set stricter settings for my inbox, but enough is enough already.

I’m here to work doing what I love and cooperating with real clients. I have no interest in being Fiverr’s security screener.

Thanks and best of luck to all you freelancers,

Rick

My job as a freelancer is to focus on providing the best services I can to clients who are willing to partner and work with me. Not to spend all day explaining legalities to con-men who are asking people to break the law, just so that they can compete for the same market.

Hi @rickjayglen,

You don’t need to waste your time explaining anything to anyone. You just need to reply a simple “No” or “Reported” to prevent your Response Rate from dropping, and immediately after, report the user(s) via the Inbox and block. That’s all you need to do.

By the way, welcome to the forum!

[Guest rickjayglen]

My job as a freelancer is to focus on providing the best services I can to clients who are willing to partner and work with me. Not to spend all day explaining legalities to con-men who are asking people to break the law, just so that they can compete for the same market.

Hi @rickjayglen,

You don’t need to waste your time explaining anything to anyone. You just need to reply a simple “No” or “Reported” to prevent your Response Rate from dropping, and immediately after, report the user(s) via the Inbox and block. That’s all you need to do.

By the way, welcome to the forum!

Thanks. I’m just irritated that my inbox is being filled with this nonsense.

[Guest rickjayglen]

It doesn’t sound like the people who are contacting you are Fiverr sellers, though, so I don’t see how Fiverr could screen people in the way that you mention. They can only ban someone who is scamming/spamming or breaking the ToS in some other way.

they are breaking ToS by suggesting sK.ype, and asking others to break federal law

[misscrystal]

Hello, you will be getting messages as a new seller from people like this. It’s an inconvenience which will correct itself as time goes on as a seller. I hope you can develop the patience and thick skin you will need as a freelancer here because there are all kinds you will come across. This will ease up as time goes by and you are no longer seen as new.

We all are responsible for protecting our SS numbers on the internet and hopefully we all know not hand them out easily to anonymous people who send us a message.

[humanissocial]

they are breaking ToS by suggesting sK.ype, and asking others to break federal law

I know they are. That doesn’t change the fact that you can’t screen them, which was my whole point. Screening means to identify and stop something before it happens. You’ve presented no suggestion about how Fiverr could stop a scam before it happens. There’s no way to identify that before it happens, let alone prevent it.

The only screening they could do is if these people were Fiverr Sellers and their gigs were also fraudulent. Then they could be banned before even being able to send a message. But you don’t need to be a Fiverr Seller to message someone and most Fiverr Sellers who message people those scams aren’t advertising them in Gigs. Most people who send those scams aren’t Fiverr Sellers, anyway.

So what you’re proposing can’t prevent anything. Fiverr would have to be psychic to do that.