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Frustrated Seller


ninjabombseo

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Hey there folks - I am what it says…a Frustrated Seller. I woke up this morning to find that my 1 gig had been removed and that my account had been disabled. I wrote an email to Support…here it is:

Hello there. This morning my gig was removed and my account disabled and I am going to ask you to reconsider. I think that my gig must have tripped a filter because it uses the word “Review” in it, but if someone other than a COMPUTER will actually look at my gig you will see that it is a very legitimate, legal, and helpful gig and not illegal, infringing, or a misleading gig as has been stated.

IN ABSOLUTELY NO WAY do I offer to leave reviews for anyone, paid or otherwise. My gig has nothing to do with that in any way! That is immoral and illegal.

My basic gig is a workaround that Google themselves show business owners how to do to help lead their customers to their review profile. In my gig, I create a branded link with the business’ name that when it is clicked on will take the user/client/customer directly to the business’ review profile. In other words, my gig simply makes it easier for business owners to send their customers to leave a review without the customer having to go look around online for the place to do that. I offered this for $15.

My 2nd level gig package that I was offering for $50 includes the basic gig and includes a review funnel for businesses to use in their follow up process with a client. After they have done work for a client they send them a link to the branded survey funnel that I create. Customers then answer the questions in the survey and based on their responses, they either get sent to the review platform or they do not.

The 3rd level gig package that I posted was for $750 and that is a high level Reputation Management service that includes the first two and then additional work to help them build back their business’ reputation.

I CAN NOT UNDERSTAND how Fiverr feels like my gig has been something that is shady. You guys let all of these gigs stay on your service where people are actually offering to do something that is illegal and against Google’s TOS, and you penalize the guy that is trying to help business owners get reviews the right way!

In response, I got this email back:

Gabriela (Fiverr Customer Support)
Jan 11, 12:25 PM EST

Hi Greg,

Thank you for contacting us regarding your account being disabled. Please be aware that we do not allow this kind of Gigs.

Your account has been reviewed by our Trust & Safety Team, and permanently disabled. Please refer to this link, outlining our Terms of Service.

If you have funds available in your Fiverr account, please contact us 90 days after the date on which you received notification your account was disabled, and we will gladly assist you.
Gabriela | Fiverr Customer Support

Can ANYONE please explain to me how what I have done is against TOS of either Fiverr or Google? There are a ton of spammer knuckleheads on here offering gigs like, “I will write Google Local Places review” and there gigs never seem to be kicked off… I just don’t understand.

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Hey there folks - I am what it says…a Frustrated Seller. I woke up this morning to find that my 1 gig had been removed and that my account had been disabled. I wrote an email to Support…here it is:

Hello there. This morning my gig was removed and my account disabled and I am going to ask you to reconsider. I think that my gig must have tripped a filter because it uses the word “Review” in it, but if someone other than a COMPUTER will actually look at my gig you will see that it is a very legitimate, legal, and helpful gig and not illegal, infringing, or a misleading gig as has been stated.

IN ABSOLUTELY NO WAY do I offer to leave reviews for anyone, paid or otherwise. My gig has nothing to do with that in any way! That is immoral and illegal.

My basic gig is a workaround that Google themselves show business owners how to do to help lead their customers to their review profile. In my gig, I create a branded link with the business’ name that when it is clicked on will take the user/client/customer directly to the business’ review profile. In other words, my gig simply makes it easier for business owners to send their customers to leave a review without the customer having to go look around online for the place to do that. I offered this for $15.

My 2nd level gig package that I was offering for $50 includes the basic gig and includes a review funnel for businesses to use in their follow up process with a client. After they have done work for a client they send them a link to the branded survey funnel that I create. Customers then answer the questions in the survey and based on their responses, they either get sent to the review platform or they do not.

The 3rd level gig package that I posted was for $750 and that is a high level Reputation Management service that includes the first two and then additional work to help them build back their business’ reputation.

I CAN NOT UNDERSTAND how Fiverr feels like my gig has been something that is shady. You guys let all of these gigs stay on your service where people are actually offering to do something that is illegal and against Google’s TOS, and you penalize the guy that is trying to help business owners get reviews the right way!

In response, I got this email back:

Gabriela (Fiverr Customer Support)

Jan 11, 12:25 PM EST

Hi Greg,

Thank you for contacting us regarding your account being disabled. Please be aware that we do not allow this kind of Gigs.

Your account has been reviewed by our Trust & Safety Team, and permanently disabled. Please refer to this link, outlining our Terms of Service.

If you have funds available in your Fiverr account, please contact us 90 days after the date on which you received notification your account was disabled, and we will gladly assist you.

Gabriela | Fiverr Customer Support

Can ANYONE please explain to me how what I have done is against TOS of either Fiverr or Google? There are a ton of spammer knuckleheads on here offering gigs like, “I will write Google Local Places review” and there gigs never seem to be kicked off… I just don’t understand.

I’m sorry this happened to you. I wish I knew the intricacies of google’s rules, and how this is handled on fiverr.

I am guessing it must have sounded to fiverr like it was some sort of review manipulation on google. The exact details of whether or not google allows the specific things you were offering I can’t address. It must be that fiverr decided it was too close to what google does not allow.

This in particular sounds like a way to make sure only those who are likely to leave a good review are shown how to do it:

Customers then answer the questions in the survey and based on their responses, they either get sent to the review platform or they do not.

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I’m sorry this happened to you. I wish I knew the intricacies of google’s rules, and how this is handled on fiverr.

I am guessing it must have sounded to fiverr like it was some sort of review manipulation on google. The exact details of whether or not google allows the specific things you were offering I can’t address. It must be that fiverr decided it was too close to what google does not allow.

This in particular sounds like a way to make sure only those who are likely to leave a good review are shown how to do it:

Customers then answer the questions in the survey and based on their responses, they either get sent to the review platform or they do not.

Thank you for your response @misscrystal - Yes, that is the point of a customer survey funnel. This is an extension of reputation management. Think about it in terms of yourself as a consumer. If you hire a plumber and get bad service you have all the rights in the world to go online, find their business profile and leave them a bad review. If the plumber contacts you as an automated follow up service and you fill out his short survey giving him a very bad rating, then it notifies the plumber that you were not happy with his services and he can then follow up with you personally and rectify the problem. At the end of that survey, based on your response, the form did not send you to his review profile as that would be CRAZY. However, he has not stopped you in any way from going online and writing a negative review.

Let’s just say you had a positive experience when you hired the plumber. Same survey came. You rated his service highly. Now the survey funnels you to his review profile where you can choose to leave a review. The thing about getting reviews is that people typically don’t go leave them when they are happy. They leave reviews when they are upset. So, the old adage “Work smarter, not harder” comes in to play. I created a system that allows business owners to drive those happy customers on to their review profile.

Google has no policies about reputation management. Google has policies against paying people to write reviews, which unfortunately Fiverr seems to support and cater to.

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Thank you for your response @misscrystal - Yes, that is the point of a customer survey funnel. This is an extension of reputation management. Think about it in terms of yourself as a consumer. If you hire a plumber and get bad service you have all the rights in the world to go online, find their business profile and leave them a bad review. If the plumber contacts you as an automated follow up service and you fill out his short survey giving him a very bad rating, then it notifies the plumber that you were not happy with his services and he can then follow up with you personally and rectify the problem. At the end of that survey, based on your response, the form did not send you to his review profile as that would be CRAZY. However, he has not stopped you in any way from going online and writing a negative review.

Let’s just say you had a positive experience when you hired the plumber. Same survey came. You rated his service highly. Now the survey funnels you to his review profile where you can choose to leave a review. The thing about getting reviews is that people typically don’t go leave them when they are happy. They leave reviews when they are upset. So, the old adage “Work smarter, not harder” comes in to play. I created a system that allows business owners to drive those happy customers on to their review profile.

Google has no policies about reputation management. Google has policies against paying people to write reviews, which unfortunately Fiverr seems to support and cater to.

Yes, that is the point of a customer survey funnel. This is an extension of reputation management.

I understand why you do it. Calling it “reputation management” sounds like a red flag that what you are doing is a banable service. If fiverr, or google, wants to find those who are skirting their rules, all they have to do is see the term “reputation management”.

As far as reviews go, the only reviews they want are ones that come organically and are not manipulated in ANY WAY, which includes what you call a “review funnel” or “survey funnel”.

You won’t win by trying to find an angle to get only good reviews.

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Yes, that is the point of a customer survey funnel. This is an extension of reputation management.

I understand why you do it. Calling it “reputation management” sounds like a red flag that what you are doing is a banable service. If fiverr, or google, wants to find those who are skirting their rules, all they have to do is see the term “reputation management”.

As far as reviews go, the only reviews they want are ones that come organically and are not manipulated in ANY WAY, which includes what you call a “review funnel” or “survey funnel”.

You won’t win by trying to find an angle to get only good reviews.

I’m going to disagree. This is where it is important to know what you’re talking about. As I mentioned in my reply to Fiverr Support, Google themselves instruct business owners how to do this. I add a couple of steps so that the link is branded. Here is Google’s instructions entitled, Create a link for customers to write reviews. Also, Google states this:

Keep in mind that it’s against the Google My Business review policy to solicit reviews from customers by offering incentives or setting up review stations at your place of business. Reviews that violate the policy may be removed.

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I’m going to disagree. This is where it is important to know what you’re talking about. As I mentioned in my reply to Fiverr Support, Google themselves instruct business owners how to do this. I add a couple of steps so that the link is branded. Here is Google’s instructions entitled, Create a link for customers to write reviews. Also, Google states this:

Keep in mind that it’s against the Google My Business review policy to solicit reviews from customers by offering incentives or setting up review stations at your place of business. Reviews that violate the policy may be removed.

I understand fully what you’re describing as I used to offer it as a service to local businesses.

All your doing is giving the consumer an easy way to find where to leave a review, whether positive or negative, with no incentive either way?

Possibly better to describe it as a ‘review funnel’ rather than ‘reputation management’?

Totally within Google’s rules and very useful for both the consumer and the business.

Have another go at speaking to CS - maybe include a graphic of the funnel if you can?

Good luck! ☀️

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I understand fully what you’re describing as I used to offer it as a service to local businesses.

All your doing is giving the consumer an easy way to find where to leave a review, whether positive or negative, with no incentive either way?

Possibly better to describe it as a ‘review funnel’ rather than ‘reputation management’?

Totally within Google’s rules and very useful for both the consumer and the business.

Have another go at speaking to CS - maybe include a graphic of the funnel if you can?

Good luck! ☀️

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I’m going to disagree. This is where it is important to know what you’re talking about. As I mentioned in my reply to Fiverr Support, Google themselves instruct business owners how to do this. I add a couple of steps so that the link is branded. Here is Google’s instructions entitled, Create a link for customers to write reviews. Also, Google states this:

Keep in mind that it’s against the Google My Business review policy to solicit reviews from customers by offering incentives or setting up review stations at your place of business. Reviews that violate the policy may be removed.

Keep in mind that it’s against the Google My Business review policy to solicit reviews from customers by offering incentives or setting up review stations at your place of business. Reviews that violate the policy may be removed.

But that’s what you did. You offered a survey that only funneled those who were happy to the review page, so that is an angle they do not allow.

Fiverr does not want to take a chance by risking the wrath of google.

You can see they don’t want any review manipulation and you also know you were doing exactly that in your own way.

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Keep in mind that it’s against the Google My Business review policy to solicit reviews from customers by offering incentives or setting up review stations at your place of business. Reviews that violate the policy may be removed.

But that’s what you did. You offered a survey that only funneled those who were happy to the review page, so that is an angle they do not allow.

Fiverr does not want to take a chance by risking the wrath of google.

You can see they don’t want any review manipulation and you also know you were doing exactly that in your own way.

Again, disagreed. I neither create an avenue for them to offer incentives for reviews nor encourage them to set up review stations at their business. There is no incentivizing… THIS IS CRAZY - HAHAHA

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Again, disagreed. I neither create an avenue for them to offer incentives for reviews nor encourage them to set up review stations at their business. There is no incentivizing… THIS IS CRAZY - HAHAHA

I knew in advance you would argue with me and I’m not interested in doing that.

Why even set up this thread? You know you are right and fiverr is wrong already.

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Again, disagreed. I neither create an avenue for them to offer incentives for reviews nor encourage them to set up review stations at their business. There is no incentivizing… THIS IS CRAZY - HAHAHA

Also that is bull about Fiverr not wanting to risk wrath. There are dozens of gigs on Fiverr right now of people offering to write reviews for local businesses on Google. They are there today and will be there tomorrow.

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I knew in advance you would argue with me and I’m not interested in doing that.

Why even set up this thread? You know you are right and fiverr is wrong already.

Why even set up this thread? You know you are right and fiverr is wrong already.

Because I am looking for input from those who have been down this road before.

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Also that is bull about Fiverr not wanting to risk wrath. There are dozens of gigs on Fiverr right now of people offering to write reviews for local businesses on Google. They are there today and will be there tomorrow.

You really don’t want any explanations. You want to argue you are right and fiverr is wrong. Good luck. Many who offer so called “reputation management” come to this forum doing the same thing, complaining about the same things.

If you want to see those who have been down this road before there are many posts about this same thing. Maybe you can use the search feature to see the other posts like yours.

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You really don’t want any explanations. You want to argue you are right and fiverr is wrong. Good luck. Many who offer so called “reputation management” come to this forum doing the same thing, complaining about the same things.

If you want to see those who have been down this road before there are many posts about this same thing. Maybe you can use the search feature to see the other posts like yours.

You are providing explanations, but it does not seem that you care whether or not you have your facts straight. I can simply bend over and take your responses without responding to the errors, or I can provide you with more factual data and corrections to your assumptions so that you can give me a more educated response. 🙂

Thank you for the time you’ve put in to this by the way

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You are providing explanations, but it does not seem that you care whether or not you have your facts straight. I can simply bend over and take your responses without responding to the errors, or I can provide you with more factual data and corrections to your assumptions so that you can give me a more educated response. 🙂

Thank you for the time you’ve put in to this by the way

I don’t have any interest in arguing with you, sorry. I knew you would do this.

Here, these are all the new sellers coming along who want to do what you did. Notice none have been here long:

https://www.fiverr.com/search/gigs?utf8=✓&source=top-bar&locale=en&search_in=everywhere&query=reputation+management

Since I also knew that you would never take my suggestion to do a simple search for all the other posts about this subject from unhappy people who got banned for this I did it for you, if you care to look at it:

https://forum.fiverr.com/search?q=reputation%20management

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Here are all of the people actually breaking the TOS - Selling Google Reviews - oh look there are a bunch of Level 1 and Level 2 sellers in the dozens of people offering this gig. https://www.fiverr.com/search/gigs?acmpl=1&utf8=✓&source=top-bar&locale=en&search_in=everywhere&query=google+reviews&search-autocomplete-available=false&search-autocomplete-type=gigs-lookup&search-autocomplete-position=undefined

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Here are all of the people actually breaking the TOS - Selling Google Reviews - oh look there are a bunch of Level 1 and Level 2 sellers in the dozens of people offering this gig. https://www.fiverr.com/search/gigs?acmpl=1&utf8=✓&source=top-bar&locale=en&search_in=everywhere&query=google+reviews&search-autocomplete-available=false&search-autocomplete-type=gigs-lookup&search-autocomplete-position=undefined

Those are all new sellers. Honestly, what’s the point of arguing with me?

Your gig was banned. Those will be too.

You are beating a dead horse.

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You are providing explanations, but it does not seem that you care whether or not you have your facts straight. I can simply bend over and take your responses without responding to the errors, or I can provide you with more factual data and corrections to your assumptions so that you can give me a more educated response. 🙂

Thank you for the time you’ve put in to this by the way

Google says (in Maps User Contributed Content Policy Help) “contributions…should accurately represent the location in question”, and in “spam and fake content” it says “…should not be posted just to manipulate a place’s ratings”.

Surely sending all the customers who have already rated a business highly (in a survey) to enter a review but none of the customers who rated it low to enter a review is manipulating the reviews? ie. for reviews to be unbiased, both those who liked the service and those who didn’t should be able to enter reviews.

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Google says (in Maps User Contributed Content Policy Help) “contributions…should accurately represent the location in question”, and in “spam and fake content” it says “…should not be posted just to manipulate a place’s ratings”.

Surely sending all the customers who have already rated a business highly (in a survey) to enter a review but none of the customers who rated it low to enter a review is manipulating the reviews? ie. for reviews to be unbiased, both those who liked the service and those who didn’t should be able to enter reviews.

The OP can’t accept that dog won’t hunt.

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Google says (in Maps User Contributed Content Policy Help) “contributions…should accurately represent the location in question”, and in “spam and fake content” it says “…should not be posted just to manipulate a place’s ratings”.

Surely sending all the customers who have already rated a business highly (in a survey) to enter a review but none of the customers who rated it low to enter a review is manipulating the reviews? ie. for reviews to be unbiased, both those who liked the service and those who didn’t should be able to enter reviews.

EVERYONE IS ABLE TO GO AND LEAVE A REVIEW. NO MATTER HOW THEY FEEL ABOUT THE BUSINESS.

How is that so hard to understand?

If you are a business owner, it is not your responsibility to ENCOURAGE people that don’t like your business to go and leave a review. That is the customers responsibility to choose to do that.

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EVERYONE IS ABLE TO GO AND LEAVE A REVIEW. NO MATTER HOW THEY FEEL ABOUT THE BUSINESS.

How is that so hard to understand?

If you are a business owner, it is not your responsibility to ENCOURAGE people that don’t like your business to go and leave a review. That is the customers responsibility to choose to do that.

Tell Google and Fiverr that then.

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Thank you for your response @misscrystal - Yes, that is the point of a customer survey funnel. This is an extension of reputation management. Think about it in terms of yourself as a consumer. If you hire a plumber and get bad service you have all the rights in the world to go online, find their business profile and leave them a bad review. If the plumber contacts you as an automated follow up service and you fill out his short survey giving him a very bad rating, then it notifies the plumber that you were not happy with his services and he can then follow up with you personally and rectify the problem. At the end of that survey, based on your response, the form did not send you to his review profile as that would be CRAZY. However, he has not stopped you in any way from going online and writing a negative review.

Let’s just say you had a positive experience when you hired the plumber. Same survey came. You rated his service highly. Now the survey funnels you to his review profile where you can choose to leave a review. The thing about getting reviews is that people typically don’t go leave them when they are happy. They leave reviews when they are upset. So, the old adage “Work smarter, not harder” comes in to play. I created a system that allows business owners to drive those happy customers on to their review profile.

Google has no policies about reputation management. Google has policies against paying people to write reviews, which unfortunately Fiverr seems to support and cater to.

If I understand correctly your system follows this flow:

  • The seller sends a satisfaction survey to the buyer.
  • If the buyer answers with a positive feedback, is forwarded to Google My Business to possibly leave a positive review.
  • If the buyer answers with a negative feedback is not forwarded to Google My Business.
  • If the buyer wants to leave a negative review on Google is left on his own.

It’s a system that selects the reviews.

It could be defined a review station, that is something against the Google My Business review policy.

Not sure.

Simple solution: ask to Google.

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EVERYONE IS ABLE TO GO AND LEAVE A REVIEW. NO MATTER HOW THEY FEEL ABOUT THE BUSINESS.

How is that so hard to understand?

If you are a business owner, it is not your responsibility to ENCOURAGE people that don’t like your business to go and leave a review. That is the customers responsibility to choose to do that.

If you own a plumbing service…get done with the job…and the customer says, “That was awesome!” Is it wrong if you send them a link to write a review?

If you own a plumbing service…get done with the job…and the customer says, “You did an awful job!” Is it wrong if you don’t send them a link to write a review?

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