Fiverr Community Forum

Is it ethical to deliver a blank gig?

Your Fiverr Experience The Ranting Pot
#1

Customer order 50 articles. Said, day after day, he would be submitting the information I needed. Got to today (the day it was due) and he sent me 50 titles, expecting completion within 24 hours.

So, I delivered the gig ‘blank’ and asked him to reject because I knew, at that point, he would no longer be able to cancel for late delivery. I informed him that delivery time frames start at the submission of all of the information.

(he requested the modification as requested)

So, are customer support going to come down on me hard for this?

#2

This was from the customer that I mentioned the other day who wanted a MASSIVE discount.

#3

I don’t know about ethics, but I do know that empty deliveries are against ToS. If the unreasonable customer decides to report you, Support might side with him and not with you.

When customers don’t send me information, I wait for 24 hours, and then request cancellation and tell them to feel free to re-order the gig once they have all the necessary info.

#4

I already told customer support about it and why I have done it. I know it is against ToS. However, I delivered, with the express intent of asking the client to reject the delivery. I never claimed I was delivering content, I just done it to protect myself (clients not reading my gig information or submitting information late has put my cancellation rate at 45% for this month, I am not going to bow to clients any longer)

Since that time, the customer has received 10/50 of the articles. Now he is requesting cancellation for ‘late delivery’ which is, quite frankly, ridiculous, considering he has some of the content.

Gah. Clients.

#5

I hope that Customer Support doesn’t let the client cancel, then.

#6

They didn’t. They got back to me and they didn’t even care I marked it as complete as it was for my own protection.

#7

You should have cancelled the order way before this.

First of all 50 articles is a lot. You should have sent him 10 custom orders of 5 articles each, all with extended deadlines.

Never accept a job to write 50 articles and then wait this long for the needed information.
Obviously you can’t do it. You could have handled it differently.

#8

I’m really feeling for you, Ryan. I’ve had a bad cancellation run this month, (none of which have been my fault). I really think Fiverr needs to stop cancellations actually counting against sellers when we instigate them due to buyers not supplying the information we need to do their order.

#9

My cancellation rate is drastically high for this month after I changed the ‘terms’ of my gig. (45% cancellation rate, I think), and the fewer cancellations I have, the better. If I sent him 10 custom orders and he submitted the information late, I would have had 10 orders that ‘went late’ rather than just one, counting against me even further (and 10 feedbacks if I messed up)

#10

Ironically ill keep you in mind for work Ryan. At least I can tell your a real individual working on this stuff.

#11

Yes you did have a problem. I agree that fiverr should not make cancellations count against us when it’s not our fault.

#12

Why don’t they make the order start at our own timing, letting us control when it starts?

#13

No idea. It is irritating. You can’t do anything with custom orders either. The second it is paid for, the timer starts. The new customer support team don’t help.

“But the customer submitted the information after the deadline ran out”

“not his fault. it is still your responsibility to deliver on time”

“but he submitted information after the gig went late”

“again, sellers responsibility to deliver the gig before it goes late”

#14

Have you tried increasing the delivery time on your gigs? It wouldn’t help with buyers waiting for the last day to send you the information, but it might help with the cancellations for being late. Or would drastically reduce the number of the orders?

#15

It would drastically reduce orders.

Late delivery cancellations are, mainly, down to one of two things:

  1. People not submitting the information on time.
  2. People ordering the wrong gig or not reading the instructions.

I can mutually cancel the order, however, despite what customer support says, it still does count against you.

The other day I deliver a $5.00 gig no less than 17 times over 3 days and the newbies in customer support have no idea how to help sellers any more. They are nothing but parrots (thankfully that client has not complained since)

#16

That’s stupid, I’ve had this happen on more than one occasion, where they simply order the gig without sending me ANYTHING to do, no file, no instructions, nada. So how on earth can CS say it’s your fault when it’s clearly the buyers??? :frowning:

#17

Agree 100% It makes no sense business wise to blame the seller for the buyer’s incompetence, I mean you wouldn’t blame a mechanic if a customer failed to deliver their car on time for a service now would you? That’s completely the customers FAULT, so why on earth should this be any different, makes no logical sense, Fiverr are bonkers if they think it does? :frowning:

#18

I had to mainly because of the time zone difference and because I work full time, however I charge the extra $5 for 1 day deliveries now, so if they really want the gig and have heard about my rep for doing good work, then they won’t mind! :slight_smile:

#19

“2. People ordering the wrong gig or not reading the instructions.”

This is the main one for me, esp the latter half, a lot of buyers simply don’t or more importantly won’t read my instructions! I believe a lot of them think they’re smart and try to play the oh I didn’t see them or think that if they simply order the gig that I’ll do it, WRONG! I specifically state that if they don’t read my instructions and send me a msg first, I won’t do the gig, because I’m sick to death of incompetent buyers blindly ordering gigs, when I have others with priority or simply don’t have the time or can’t do what they ask of me ( I get some weird requests that even God himself couldn’t perform!) which is why I stress to send me a msg first so I can set it up for them in my own time! :slight_smile:

#20

BTW I’ve sent a blank msg only once and that’s because a customer accidentally hit the mod button, they knew and told me so I sent that so the gig could be completed correctly but I’ve been tempted when I’ve had the clowns that constantly hit it on purpose, I usually just force them to cancel, as I have my own ways to deal with them… :stuck_out_tongue: