Fraudulent Seller: "Traffic Reseller Website"

[Guest socrates303]

I’ve used Fiverr extensively and for the most part, I’m not only satisfied but on several occasions delighted by what I get here. People write their gigs to sound appealing and though no one can guarantee results with certain types of gigs…like traffic getting you sales, or backlinks getting you pagerank, there is a good faith effort and a reasonable hope in getting that when a gig can realistically claim it can.

Then there is the type of seller here who underestimates the time it takes to do a job properly (which is a type of coercion to get you to mark something as complete as “it will hurt their rankings” if late, who overestimates the value of his offerings, and uses both tactics to get their sale listed as complete by lying about modifications and guarantees of satisfaction.

“Buyer beware” is the slogan for Fiverr, or it should be.

One seller here, is guilty of so much horsesh*t lies and fraud I have never I seen so much of ever and to the extent that the lies reach in his gig ad are jaw-dropping. He didn’t complete his work but claims to have created an automated functional website when one never materialized, requests and inquiries for completion, as “cheating” or “drama” to get a refund. Pretends to offer satisfaction…and has lied about that, infringed copyrights, harassed me, and is utterly incapable of doing the job he was paid to do. It is astonishing.

It is not just poor quality work, it is literally zero quality and zero return on investment.

This guy sells stuff you can download free on Warrior Forum or Black Hat World, it is thinly veiled, and sold at an enormous markup and he cannot even complete the job. He cannot even articulate what a finished job would be after he’s manipulated you into marking the order complete and leaving feedback.

It’s been two months and I’ve not received anything of value. In fact, if I use what he put on my domain, I may face copyright infringement and civil and criminal penalties.

Be wary of people who sell websites…if you want that, go to flippa, or hire someone who has a bona fide record and proof of sales on Flippa. Do not expect everyone who has multiple gigs that are tangentially related to web design as having development skills. Make sure they have live samples to their credit.
If you are considering hiring someone for such a purchase. Make sure they have published sites with proof of original work accompanying it. And never mark any web development gig (or any gig) as complete until it is tested, functional, and checked for copyright infringement. If it is late because the gig time was underestimated or they are “really busy” just cancel it because Fiverr will do what they can to help, but won’t actually do anything.

All Fiverr can do is rescind positive feedback for fraudulent sales. None of this is mentioned…except in the Terms & Conditions which no one reads, or remembers even if it was read. For the most part, this is because most people do not shamelessly defraud buyers. They are still saying they are investigating this matter.

In the message thread between me and this seller (what else is there to investigate?), this seller who poses as a woman, has admitted using a pirated theme, threatened to hack my domain (again), uses content and images that is copyrighted and not to him. He has no qualms about committing information theft and copyright infringement. He has claimed that such things like “licensed themes” and “images” would cost too much ignoring the fact that if you are creative and can actually develop free themes, it shouldn’t cost anything but time which is where the value from all of these gigs originates. And furthermore that what I should’ve paid is worth $500 (five times what I paid for junk that is illegal to use).

He’s also flat-out admitted to uploading unsafe files and cracks which set of malware alerts that are directly linked to him into my c-panel, put his own email address into the payment system plugin, and claims it is I who is trying to “cheat” him by asking him to complete the work he never did (he calls this “drama”) and which he claimed was backed with a guarantee of satisfaction (and sales!)…for what is nothing more than a facade of an index page that was never internally linked to anything.

Fiverr cannot help you and to protect yourself from fraud you will have to utilize a chargeback through PayPal or your credit card company. This however, will put a hold on your account with Fiverr because consumer protection for you here exists only in the form of YOU watching your own ass. Well then, so be it.

Even if from a LEVEL 2 seller, all the claims are misleading or outright fraud.

I’ve bought what was supposed to be hand researched keyword analysis here before form another high level seller but the output as I went through it was from a software program I already owned and even lower in quality than what I’d done myself. The point is, the gig you buy may have nothing to do with how that seller achieved that status.

If you’re entertaining the idea of purchasing a “traffic reseller site” I’ll be happy to tell you his moniker and all the associated proof that he is a total charlatan.

[emmaki]

All a load of hearsay without proof, though I can believe you came across this guy. Why didn’t you just report him to Customer Support ASAP instead of going all PI on them?

[misscrystal]

How can you check if you see some sample websites that the seller is actually the one who made them?

Putting his own email address into the payment system–as if you wouldn’t notice. Is he hosting this site for you?

Anyone selling a “traffic reseller site” most likely is not someone who would be too trustworthy. I can’t say I’m surprised you had this experience based on that.

[eoinfinnegan]

I’m pretty sure that “Buyer Beware” or “Caveat Emptor” is a fairly common term when it comes to anywhere there is something being bought and sold. 🙂

The selling of template websites such as affiliate and reseller sites is something that is bound to have some poor quality people. It is also something I do on a site I have so I can say with certainty that it also has some nice people doing it too. Kinda like EVERY other business type there is out there.

I sell traffic reseller sites along with a trusted traffic reseller’s details and various other similar things so I know what I am talking about here.
However, you seem to also have a good understanding of how all of these things work including web design etc. Why then did you buy from someone else? I suspect what may have happened here is that you tried to cut your costs by going to a cheaper option and simply got burned.
You should take it as a lesson learned, not moan about “the bad guy who took your money”. You will find that type of person on flippa and any other site you care to mention. The simple answer is to not complete a sale until you have got what you want. This is the internet, there are some people who are dishonest here… SHOCKER!

[therealsiri]

Sorry to hear about it, but the only way to get this sorted out with that seller is to report him to Fiverr customer support.