Help with potential fraud case

[okdude]

I just started on Fiverr. Two sales so far, so … yay!!

Got my third one this week, and it was to read someone’s story. As an author myself, this is very close to home, so I set it up to read and review this person’s work. They sent me the Amazon link, and it turned out to be a series of pictures (no text at all!! Not a single word.) that this guy had snarfed from the internet, flickr, etc.Only about 30 pictures that he then started the series over, for 10 full runs, making a “book” of 300+ pages.

I quickly got the impression that he wanted me to “review” it so that he could get the download credit on Kindle Unlimited.

I could not, in all honesty leave a review. Nor could I continue to the 5 other “works” he had posted.

1. How can I handle that here? Is there any recourse aside from canceling the transaction?
2. Does canceling hurt my ranking or stats? He was dishonest with me – wanting me to review his writing, for which there was none – not the other way around.

In the end, I did try to turn over those links to Amazon as they are a clear violation of their publication policies. (Side rant: do you know how hard it is to turn that kind of work in as fraudulent?! I spoke with three different Amazon reps who just about laughed at me. I finally spoke with a rep who would at least LOOK at the book. They didn’t even want the remaining links I had for the other “works” this guy had under other names.)

The guy just made my skin crawl, and I don’t really know what recourse I have here.

[misscrystal]

Just cancel it and move on. Amazon is such a huge company that you won’t find anyone to take any interest in it and wasted your time there.

You will get all kinds of flakes sometimes so give them as little time and thought as necessary and get rid of them quickly.

Of course there is no recourse but to cancel this. I’m sure you realize you can’t salvage this, or report it where anyone cares, and it’s just one more strange person you need to get rid of and forget.

[fonthaunt]

I used to have a gig to critique Kindle Unlimited books and I was stunned at how many people were doing things like you describe. I had one buyer who ordered for 5 titles and they were all literally gibberish. It wasn’t from a lorem ipsum generator, but she must have had something similar to produce stuff that would pass plagiarism checks. She clearly wanted me to scroll through these titles to the end so she would get the credit.

I cancelled her order, reported her to Customer Support on Fiverr and I did just file a ticket with Amazon as well. Amazon send me a $5 credit for digital content and I’m not sure what that was supposed to do, unless they figured they should reimburse me from some fraction of my KU fee that month. I checked her books two months later and they were still there. Later on she replaced them with edited versions that were just horribly written but “real” content, so I don’t know if Amazon made her do that or if she did it to avoid having the books removed.

The part that amazed me was that when I submitted my own Kindle short, they seemed to check it pretty thoroughly even though it was 100% real writing. I hope they will eventually crack down more on that stuff, but I guess it’s kind of like Fiverr gigs - when there are so many, there is only so much they can do at one time. Anyway, my gig for KU reading was OK for a while but eventually 3 out of 4 orders were fakes like that. I ended up pausing the gig and probably will eventually delete it. I don’t know of any recourse you can take except the two I did, report to Fiverr CS and to Amazon. Even if nothing happens to the buyer, at least you tried. I don’t know if your gigs can survive since you will probably get plenty more of those orders. Best of luck!

Edited for a big OOPS! I just now looked at your actual gigs and I wanted to let you know this before you get into trouble - you can’t offer honest reviews. I used to offer that too in my very first days but I didn’t know that it’s against the Amazon ToS and therefore it’s also against Fiverr ToS. Amazon sued a whole group of Fiverr sellers over that, so you probably need to rethink your gigs quick before you lose your account.

[okdude]

I used to have a gig to critique Kindle Unlimited books and I was stunned at how many people were doing things like you describe. I had one buyer who ordered for 5 titles and they were all literally gibberish. It wasn’t from a lorem ipsum generator, but she must have had something similar to produce stuff that would pass plagiarism checks. She clearly wanted me to scroll through these titles to the end so she would get the credit.

I cancelled her order, reported her to Customer Support on Fiverr and I did just file a ticket with Amazon as well. Amazon send me a $5 credit for digital content and I’m not sure what that was supposed to do, unless they figured they should reimburse me from some fraction of my KU fee that month. I checked her books two months later and they were still there. Later on she replaced them with edited versions that were just horribly written but “real” content, so I don’t know if Amazon made her do that or if she did it to avoid having the books removed.

The part that amazed me was that when I submitted my own Kindle short, they seemed to check it pretty thoroughly even though it was 100% real writing. I hope they will eventually crack down more on that stuff, but I guess it’s kind of like Fiverr gigs - when there are so many, there is only so much they can do at one time. Anyway, my gig for KU reading was OK for a while but eventually 3 out of 4 orders were fakes like that. I ended up pausing the gig and probably will eventually delete it. I don’t know of any recourse you can take except the two I did, report to Fiverr CS and to Amazon. Even if nothing happens to the buyer, at least you tried. I don’t know if your gigs can survive since you will probably get plenty more of those orders. Best of luck!

Edited for a big OOPS! I just now looked at your actual gigs and I wanted to let you know this before you get into trouble - you can’t offer honest reviews. I used to offer that too in my very first days but I didn’t know that it’s against the Amazon ToS and therefore it’s also against Fiverr ToS. Amazon sued a whole group of Fiverr sellers over that, so you probably need to rethink your gigs quick before you lose your account.

I wasn’t aware of that either. That’s good to know. Thank you.