NEVER Trust the flag

[dougm1966]

I’m not sure exactly how the flags work to identify where the seller is from but I’ve just discovered that a US flag doesn’t always mean they are from the US. Case in point:



I’ve sent a request to a seller to fix something on my website. After seeing the IP address from where they’ve logged in from it shows an IP address from Jakarta, Indonesia whilst the flag being flown from their profile is a US flag.

[zeus777]

Hi there sir,



I guess I would be a bit concerned too if the person was not from an English speaking country since I will be worried about having communication problems ( and I have had TONS of them!), but it would be unfair just to avoid them for that reason.



From my experience, I believe the gig description is the best way to check.

The person maybe from Indonesia, Russia, or any other parts of the world, but if the gig description had proper grammar, it won’t be a problem in most cases.

Another thing you can do is just send them a message, asking for a quote, and see how they

respond.



I myself am from Japan, would you avoid me too??? 😃

[ozzieuk]

This is a common problem, sellers will mask their location with a proxy server to appear to come from one of the G8 Nations as they’re more trusted. My advice would be to head to customer support and give them the heads up !

[ozzieuk]

 

 

zeus777 said: I myself am from Japan, would you avoid me too???

 

Nah, You're awesome !

[nickih]

Note that, in some cases, this may also be due to some kind of Fiverr glitch. I’ve noticed that in many of my private messages, the flag shown next to my profile image is an orange and blue flag (not sure which country it belongs to), although the American flag is correctly displayed on my gig page and profile.



I think my case is a technical glitch, but like @zeus777 said, if you’re unsure about a seller’s communication ability, it’s best to send them a message and initiate contact before ordering.

[armer]

It’s always recommended to start a discussion with the seller before ordering.

[cheezees]

I don’t think the the communication ability is what’s in question here. It was the fact that the flag seemed inconsistent with the IP address.

[nickih]

I really don’t think Fiverr has any kind of mechanism to ensure that the flag reflects the user’s actual country. I think that when I signed up for Fiverr, the sign-up process simply asked me to select a country. I guess I could have chosen any country if I wanted. If the IP address and flag don’t match up, perhaps the user simply chose any country they wanted.

[nickih]

Reply to @kjblynx: In that case, maybe I’m wrong about it. I signed up about a year ago and thought I remembered selecting a country, but it’s been so long ago that I could be remembering the process of a completely different site.

[anarchofighter]

armer said: It's always recommended to start a discussion with the seller before ordering.

 

LOL what HORRIBLE advice :) And from a Level 2 seller at that... :)

 

I suggest you order from me FIRST and if I turn out to be an incoherent speaker of your native tongue request cancellation :) BUT, please please...order first LOL

 

[danielzo]

Well, I am pretty sure that it has something to do with the IP used by the user when creating the account or logging in.



Anyways, I’ve had buyers and sellers speak great English regardless of the location they had displayed on the profile. I try not to judge them based on this criterion. Instead, I kind of do when it comes down to requests and communication issues.



Nevertheless, we are all humans and when ordering a gig, communication is a must. It manages to tell a lot about the buyer/seller you are contacting.

[focus1]

This is a problem I’m currently experiencing. The seller has a US. flag, but his integrity level displays something else. I’m getting fed up with the lack of dishonesty, and integrity on fiverr! I’m ready to say forget dealing with the site. Not to mention, the support is crappy, It’s been over two days since I contacted them about the seller not wanting to refund after I told him his handwritten signature design wouldn’t work for a logo, and it was not exactly what I was thinking. I even paid the highest price to have it done to ensure I received quality work.

[belgianwriter]

nickih said: Note that, in some cases, this may also be due to some kind of Fiverr glitch. I've noticed that in many of my private messages, the flag shown next to my profile image is an orange and blue flag (not sure which country it belongs to), although the American flag is correctly displayed on my gig page and profile.

 

Well, I experienced the same a few days ago. My buyer clearly was from the UK, and I am from Belgium, and next to the buyer's name, a Belgian flag was being displayed. Next to my name, a Romanian flag was being displayed. And I am in Belgium! And on all other days, the Belgian flag is always displayed next to my name.

 

 

[dougm1966]

I am not sure how the flag is issued to the buyer or seller. It’s beyond me. When it comes to trust, that’s what I want. Trust.



My experience has been that I’ve chosen a seller from the US or the UK because to be honest, no, I do not trust many sellers from 3rd world countries when it comes to giving them access to my websites. You NEVER know if that person is going to insert some hidden piece of code to collect all your user data including credit cards and/or personal information. That doesn’t mean I don’t trust ‘all’ of them as I use a lot of them for services but only those with the highest of ratings.



It was brought to my attention when I thought I was hiring a seller from the US. Had 8 gigs posted, all 100% ratings but not so many. Maybe a total of 30-35 spread throughout their different gigs.



It was an 8 day turn around on a landing page. Zero communication until day 10 when I was begging for some information. I had waited 10 days and didn’t want to lose more time as I really needed to get this done. Then when I did get ‘landing page’ it was total crap. Not one word of instruction was followed. Not one of my images was used. Not one word of what I wanted. It was a joke and I was pissed. I started wondering if this person could actually speak English so I installed a plugin on my site showing me ip addresses of login’s and low and behold the person was from Indonesia. I never let the seller know I knew they weren’t from the US and continued to try and get my project complete. There was a period of time where we were actually communicating every 30min to an hour. I got 4 samples and all them were just plain crap and never once did they do what I asked. I even went so far as to take one of there samples, make a screen shot of exactly what I wanted where. This person just did what they wanted. IT DROVE ME MAD! Wasted 2 weeks and still got no results. It was so bad that the seller wanted to cancel and I said NO WAY! He got the comment he deserved.



Now I’ve got another issue with a seller. Yesterday morning made a tutorial video on what exactly was wrong with my site. Got a reply, THANKS THAT WAS SO HELPFUL AND I’M SURE I CAN FIX IT! That was at 7am yesterday, the due date. It’s not 2pm in the afternoon the next day, past the due date and still not fixed. Got a message at 12:30am, “Sorry, I had problems, now I work”. What does that mean? He’s ‘AT’ his job? He’s working on my situation?(obviously not, it’s still not fixed. Do I cancel and let the seller off the hook for being a ‘bad’ seller or do I pay $5 to warn others of this crap?



Up until 3 weeks ago I’ve been a very active user of Fiverr services but I’m seriously changing the way I think about the sellers here. There has to be a more honest way to keep them honest.

[lillymae]

It’s fairly easy these days to use a proxy server that lets users display an alternate IP address from a different location. I just logged on to a random one and Google thought I was Canadian… I wish!



It’s a bit difficult to prevent this. I actually have a hard time blaming some of these individuals given the favoritism towards certain flags. It you’re really worried about differences in time zone or issues getting lost in translation for a Gig, I would go ahead and contact the individual first and gauge his or her response prior to ordering. It’s one extra step but will save a lot of hassle for the both of you!



Good luck~

[thepromogirl]

Totally agree, and it happens constantly.



While I don’t think it’s very honest, it also makes me worry about the character of the user that’s. It becomes a huge turn off for me as a seller because if you’re lying about what country you’re actually in - trying to “trick the system” so to speak it makes me wonder what type of buyer you’d be if we worked together. Make it very concerning and rather risky to even consider working with someone, you know?

[lmnk12]

It’s ridiculously easy to fake a U.S. flag. All it takes is to register to fiverr from one of those common proxy websites and you’re good to go. The flag doesn’t change after registration.

The only way to solve this is to make the flag dynamic; if the account in question logs into a different country, the flag should change.

[starla13]

While I do agree that it’s completely unfair to avoid a buyer because they’re not from the United States… if a customer is purchasing a service and wants the service to come from the United States that’s what they should get, as they are paying money for it…



I can see a point in this, as people in the United States tend to want their services from the United States, as time zones are much less harsh (better communication than waiting 12 hours for a reply), etc.

[starla13]

I guess what I’m trying to say is: though it is unfair to avoid sellers from other countries, it’s kind of wrong to lie about what country you’re from.

[anacristina89]

Somebody asked me to create a fiverr account for him.He was from Srilanka, I don`t know that person.

I asked him why would do this? He said he wanted my location flag. Than I politely refused to do this.



So it is true…this heappends a lot…

[ankitsureka]

I have purchased about 15 gigs at fiverr. Most of the times its been creative content/video/ logo/ php coding etc. I am surprised that most of the guys are from non developed nations. I have not had a bad experience yet. I think possibly a 5$ isnt an incentive enough for a freelancer in a developed nation. I think buyers wud have to shell out a lot more money if they were to hire a US company for there logo! you get what you pay, so there should not be any inhibitions in taking the service from sellers in Sri Lanka, Indonesia, Philipines etc. They may be really good! unless you are looking for voice/video where the accent may play a role. I got a fantastic php developer from India who does coding like a fish swims in water!

[remlond]

People who lie about their location should be blocked.

[pathmila]

Flag doesnt matter…What really matters is the talent of our worker…If you think that he is capable of doing what you want Dont think twice. Just hit the order button or start discussing about your work… :)]

[danish82]

Reply to @nickih: You are not wrong! anyone on fiverr has to select a country, when signing up. By the way, I think not only people from a particular country are talented, I myself am from India, so will a buyer not choose me because I am not from US, but I have Indian Flag next to my profile.

[hedwigstudio]

I’m from Indonesia. I think that’s why I got few sales recently. Because I’m from Indonesia 😦