No protection for seller from cheater buyers?

[cescamarrucci]

I’m on Fiverr since 2014 and I’m a Level 2 Seller. I’ve always worked well with this site and even if I had some problems, I’ve delivered more than 450 orders and my rate is 4.9. That missing 0.1 is the reason why I’m writing.
I had 3 horrible situations with buyers in these years and I can’t say I got any help from Fiverr.

The first time, a woman who wrote a little ebook wanted me to create a cover and a layout. Everything fantastic and a fantastic review, 5 stars.
After more than a month the buyer asked me another cover and layout to publish the same book in hardcover, and there started the disgrace. She wanted impossible things and asked me to change the job more than 10 times (13 if I’m not wrong!). A month after closing the order, she said the printer didn’t print well the book (I had warned her that the changes she wanted were absurd!) so she gave me a 1 star review. And to top it all, she started writing me 6-7 times a day asking me to do all the job again for free, and insulting me. I had to block her, but the Customer Service (always updated about the situation) didn’t say anything.

The second time was even worse, a real mock! A woman asked me to buy her book and to review it. I bought the book (very expensive) and posted the review, sending her the screenshots. I don’t know why, but Amazon didn’t publish immediately the review. Anyway, I closed the order. The day after, she rejected the order saying I didn’t post the review. I explained her that Amazon could publish reviews after a while, she just had to wait, but she wanted her money back.
I asked to the CS to intervene, but they stated that she was right, so I lost the book and the job money. After 10 days, finally, Amazon published the review, but it was too late. I sent it to the CS to let they know they didn’t trust me, and so I had worked for free, and I had to buy an expensive book I wasn’t interested in. They answered me they have to safeguard both buyers and sellers. What a pity that for the second time they chose the buyer!

The third time was yesterday. I received an extra fast request for a short translation, really simple. The buyer accepted to pay more to receive it within one hour. I delivered my job and closed the order. After 5 hours, tonight, he rejected the order saying, I quote: ‘You are a fake Italian, you translated with Google Translator. There are a lot of bad mistakes and the translated text doesn’t make sense in Italian’!
Well, as I’m a journalist, a teacher, and a professional translator, since 16 years, this is a ridiculous and insulting excuse! He rejected the job without asking any change just writing he had to pay another translator.

I answered that I couldn’t accept that excuse and that, anyway, he had to show me the other translator’s notes about my job. I explained he could have contacted me if there had been something wrong with the translation, as I had been online all time, but he refused to send me the notes, stating ‘maybe tomorrow’. Of course, the order will expire in few hours!
I contacted the CS and explained everything, asking for an internal evaluation of my job, as I’m sure this is a buyer’s excuse not to pay. They always answer they can’t do anything, that I should try to persuade him to accept the order, and things like this, totally useless. As I understood how this order will end, I expect a bad review from the buyer and I asked them not to consider it, at least to have respect of my job.

After this, I claimed there is no guarantee or protection for sellers from this kind of buyers, clearly cheaters.

On other platforms dedicated to translators (as ProZ for instance) there is a sort of safeguard from these kind of people.
Usually, when a buyer asks an extra fast translation and doesn’t mind the price, he will probably find some excuse not to pay. That’s one of the first warnings ProZ experts give to translators.
I know we must trust the buyers in Fiverr, and I’m doing it, but does Fiverr trust me as a seller as well?
When, on ProZ, something like this happened to me, 5 years ago, they sent a warning to the buyer, too, and then they banned him from their lists.
Here, there is nothing like this.

I think we (sellers) should ask a greater safeguard for us, even because all conversations/files are available to be checked and there must be someone who can check the job value, otherwise everyone could order a job, get it, and be sure he could find any ridiculous excuse not to pay it!

[misscrystal]

Hello, sorry you have had these problems!

This is a platform where buyers and sellers meet and arrange services. We are not going to get much help with situations like you have described since we are self employed. There are two sides to every story. The buyers you had might have felt they were not given good service.

I’m not saying they were right, just that it is almost impossible to say who is right in most of these situations.

In the first situation you describe, you were in violation of Amazon’s terms of service by being paid to write a review. You are lucky fiverr didn’t ban your account as they are doing for others who do this.

[cescamarrucci]

Dear misscrystal,
your answer just confirms what I was saying.
Your answers are usually like this one, but at the end, at least in my cases, you didn’t help me at all.

Please note I’d like to discuss about major protection for sellers, not to be warned about past jobs, that in your opinion were wrong, just because I wrote about it.

I think it’s better to find a way to solve things, talking about them, not to ignore problems or warn people who’s trying to highlight a serious seller issue.

Anyway, thank you for your consideration.

[cescamarrucci]

I must add that the CS has just showed more willingness, writing: ‘Your comments have been noted with our Product Developers. We appreciate the input’.
I hope this could be a good start to enhance the seller safeguard of Fiverr, too.

[misscrystal]

I must add that the CS has just showed more willingness, writing: ‘Your comments have been noted with our Product Developers. We appreciate the input’.

I hope this could be a good start to enhance the seller safeguard of Fiverr, too.

Fiverr does not allow gigs where you are paid to write a review for Amazon.

I must add that the CS has just showed more willingness, writing: ‘Your comments have been noted with our Product Developers. We appreciate the input’.

What are they forwarding to product developers? The fact that you had problems with buyers? Sorry, I don’t understand.

You only have 3 bad reviews and a lot of very good ones. The last bad one was two months ago. This is not the profile of someone who routinely is abused and taken advantage of by buyers.

[jawed88099]

Be aware carefull and all the best for the future…

[miiila]

Just want to add that most of the time, forum regulars “warn” people because many come here and aren’t even aware they violate/d one or some of Fiverr’s TOS, and volunteer their time to “warn” in the often vain hope of helping someone and so that the next thing they read from them won’t be “I was banned without a reason”.
Such warnings can save people from losing their account and sometimes their livelihood with it.
✌️

[minahmmas]

I read the whole post and what I want to say you that there is such buyers who aren’t really interested to pay for their job. Yes, they want their job to be done FREELY! I do agree with you that Fiverr authority should take some steps to stop the activities of such kind of BUYERS. The wearer best knows where the shoe pinches. I have also experienced the same situation once.

By the way, Good luck for the next time.
Regards,
Minthal Ahmed Masum

[cescamarrucci]

Fiverr does not allow gigs where you are paid to write a review for Amazon.

I must add that the CS has just showed more willingness, writing: ‘Your comments have been noted with our Product Developers. We appreciate the input’.

What are they forwarding to product developers? The fact that you had problems with buyers? Sorry, I don’t understand.

You only have 3 bad reviews and a lot of very good ones. The last bad one was two months ago. This is not the profile of someone who routinely is abused and taken advantage of by buyers.

CS quote is about my suggestion to create a sort of safeguard for sellers on the model of the ProZ one.

About my work on Fiverr, you’re right, I wrote I’ve always worked well here and results demonstrate this, I clearly wrote that my post is about the 3 negative reviews and what got next. I’ve never said I was abused by someone.

I really don’t understand why I wrote one thing aiming to start a discussion on a topic I find important, and instead you are pointing on other things.

Should I have been abused to rise a discussion on an issue?

I still have to read an opinion: pro or con.

Maybe this topic is interesting only for me. 😦

[cescamarrucci]

I read the whole post and what I want to say you that there is such buyers who aren’t really interested to pay for their job. Yes, they want their job to be done FREELY! I do agree with you that Fiverr authority should take some steps to stop the activities of such kind of BUYERS. The wearer best knows where the shoe pinches. I have also experienced the same situation once.

By the way, Good luck for the next time.

Regards,

Minthal Ahmed Masum

Thank you! At least someone who understood what I was talking about!

[misscrystal]

CS quote is about my suggestion to create a sort of safeguard for sellers on the model of the ProZ one.

About my work on Fiverr, you’re right, I wrote I’ve always worked well here and results demonstrate this, I clearly wrote that my post is about the 3 negative reviews and what got next. I’ve never said I was abused by someone.

I really don’t understand why I wrote one thing aiming to start a discussion on a topic I find important, and instead you are pointing on other things.

Should I have been abused to rise a discussion on an issue?

I still have to read an opinion: pro or con.

Maybe this topic is interesting only for me. 😦

You will find there are sometimes people with their own opinions who want to state them on the forum. It’s the chance you take when you start a topic.

I really don’t understand why I wrote one thing aiming to start a discussion on a topic I find important, and instead you are pointing on other things.

Should I have been abused to rise a discussion on an issue?

Aren’t you grateful that someone pointed out that you violated terms of service of Amazon and are lucky you didn’t get banned by fiverr for it?

If I didn’t say it someone else would have.

It’s up to each person what they say on the forum.

[cescamarrucci]

Just want to add that most of the time, forum regulars “warn” people because many come here and aren’t even aware they violate/d one or some of Fiverr’s TOS, and volunteer their time to “warn” in the often vain hope of helping someone and so that the next thing they read from them won’t be “I was banned without a reason”.

Such warnings can save people from losing their account and sometimes their livelihood with it.

✌️

Thank you for this, I appreciate the help, but I’d like to focus on the discussion topic.

I didn’t want that in this way discussion will start to be about something else.

[misscrystal]

Thank you for this, I appreciate the help, but I’d like to focus on the discussion topic.

I didn’t want that in this way discussion will start to be about something else.

For the situations you mentioned, someone would have to painstakingly go through the whole translation you did who understands both languages well to decide who was right, you or the buyer. Are you saying you want this service on fiverr?

The same with the book formatting where the buyer didn’t like it. Do you want a fiverr staff member to go through the work you did and make an informed decision on who is right and who is wrong?

Do you think this will happen, that fiverr will begin to do this in all cases like this? With so many sellers, this probably won’t happen.

[necropsie]

For the situations you mentioned, someone would have to painstakingly go through the whole translation you did who understands both languages well to decide who was right, you or the buyer. Are you saying you want this service on fiverr?

The same with the book formatting where the buyer didn’t like it. Do you want a fiverr staff member to go through the work you did and make an informed decision on who is right and who is wrong?

Do you think this will happen, that fiverr will begin to do this in all cases like this? With so many sellers, this probably won’t happen.

I am not sure why you are this aggresive. The problem is simple, yet, instead of suggesting a solution, you are attacking the user for some reason. Here is the problem:

As a seller, even if you complete the order perfectly, the buyer can still cancel it. In this case, you are not getting paid, you work for free, and there is nothing Fiverr customer support can do.

The next question should be, what is the purpose of Fiverr then? If this is just a platform which only allows buyers and sellers to communicate, why are we giving 20% of our income to them?

It is normal to expect a solution to this problem. We should talk about the solution, not accuse each other. Here is a simple idea: If a buyer cancels at least 70% of his orders, ban him/her from Fiverr.

The thing is, I am not sure anymore if its worth it. Maybe it is time to find a new platform which can protect its sellers too, not only buyers.

[misscrystal]

I am not sure why you are this aggresive. The problem is simple, yet, instead of suggesting a solution, you are attacking the user for some reason. Here is the problem:

As a seller, even if you complete the order perfectly, the buyer can still cancel it. In this case, you are not getting paid, you work for free, and there is nothing Fiverr customer support can do.

The next question should be, what is the purpose of Fiverr then? If this is just a platform which only allows buyers and sellers to communicate, why are we giving 20% of our income to them?

It is normal to expect a solution to this problem. We should talk about the solution, not accuse each other. Here is a simple idea: If a buyer cancels at least 70% of his orders, ban him/her from Fiverr.

The thing is, I am not sure anymore if its worth it. Maybe it is time to find a new platform which can protect its sellers too, not only buyers.

The thing is, I am not sure anymore if its worth it. Maybe it is time to find a new platform which can protect its sellers too, not only buyers.

Then I wish you good luck.

The fact is that some buyers genuinely feel they did not like what they got and there is not anything anyone can do to change that.

. Here is a simple idea: If a buyer cancels at least 70% of his orders, ban him/her from Fiverr.

Fiverr already does this.

[miiila]

Thank you for this, I appreciate the help, but I’d like to focus on the discussion topic.

I didn’t want that in this way discussion will start to be about something else.

All right.

To the quote from CS to your suggestion, that’s exactly, word for word, what we all hear when we contact them about a bug or with a suggestion, so don’t get up your hopes too much and keep using proZ and wherever that’s better organised in your opinion too, but I think it’s a good thing to fight for what one thinks is right.

I’ve tried with a few things myself, posted in the site suggestions on the forum as well as wrote to CS, and not just once, and received the same reply and nothing changed, but yeah, I keep hoping, just not too much. 😉

Regarding another of your points in your post, I agree that it would be great to have a system where Fiverr would have enough qualified staff to control all deliveries whenever arguments about such things as translation or other ‘factual gigs’ happen.

I’m a translator myself, so I understand well what you’re talking about and I know a few platforms that have such systems, only, as you brought up proZ, those cater for certain lines of work only, and are smaller, that’s a bit different.

I’m on Fiverr because for me, the advantages/my liking of Fiverr outweigh the advantages of those platforms, but YMMV, of course.

Keep it up, though. If we don’t play, we can’t win. 🍀

[necropsie]

The thing is, I am not sure anymore if its worth it. Maybe it is time to find a new platform which can protect its sellers too, not only buyers.

Then I wish you good luck.

The fact is that some buyers genuinely feel they did not like what they got and there is not anything anyone can do to change that.

. Here is a simple idea: If a buyer cancels at least 70% of his orders, ban him/her from Fiverr.

Fiverr already does this.

Then I wish you good luck.

Ok.

I have seen this kind of behaviour many times before, and it never ends well. Some day, too many users may decide to try their luck elsewhere. Basically, you are saying “here is the door, don’t let it hit you”.

Fiverr already does this.

Great! I didn’t know this. Can we try to find new suggestions then, instead of showing ourselves the door?

edit: What is the real rate then, anybody knows? I am curious. How many orders need to get cancelled before you are banned?

[misscrystal]

Then I wish you good luck.

Ok.

I have seen this kind of behaviour many times before, and it never ends well. Some day, too many users may decide to try their luck elsewhere. Basically, you are saying “here is the door, don’t let it hit you”.

Fiverr already does this.

Great! I didn’t know this. Can we try to find new suggestions then, instead of showing ourselves the door?

edit: What is the real rate then, anybody knows? I am curious. How many orders need to get cancelled before you are banned?

I have seen this kind of behaviour many times before, and it never ends well. Some day, too many users may decide to try their luck elsewhere. Basically, you are saying “here is the door, don’t let it hit you”.

necropsie:

The thing is, I am not sure anymore if its worth it. Maybe it is time to find a new platform which can protect its sellers too, not only buyers.

I am sure fiverr has enough users to lose a few without filing for bankruptcy. When someone says they are leaving because they are so unhappy with fiverr then are we supposed to beg them to stay or what?

[cescamarrucci]

For the situations you mentioned, someone would have to painstakingly go through the whole translation you did who understands both languages well to decide who was right, you or the buyer. Are you saying you want this service on fiverr?

The same with the book formatting where the buyer didn’t like it. Do you want a fiverr staff member to go through the work you did and make an informed decision on who is right and who is wrong?

Do you think this will happen, that fiverr will begin to do this in all cases like this? With so many sellers, this probably won’t happen.

The cases are different, misscrystal. In the translation case, as the buyer stated my job was totally inadeguate and that I’m not Italian, too, well, I think this is really serious and I think that someone should be able to manage this kind of accuses. If you build a platform and you are paid to provide a service, you must be prepared to this kind of situations, too, otherwise in short you’ll be full of cheaters (Tripadvisor is an example) and your neme will be spoiled.

The second case is different. There, the buyer became a stalker and posted a bad review. In the discussion, Fiverr could read all my warnings about the changes she wanted, and she copied me even a message where another seller refused to change again the job as her requests were absurd. But, you know, even in that case it was my fault. They knew I’d done my job, and that the problem was the buyer, but they didn’t cancel the bad review, and at the end I had to block her.

So, I don’t say they should have a professional for every kind of gig, but at least a team to solve general issues, like this, and not always in favour of the buyer.

[misscrystal]

The cases are different, misscrystal. In the translation case, as the buyer stated my job was totally inadeguate and that I’m not Italian, too, well, I think this is really serious and I think that someone should be able to manage this kind of accuses. If you build a platform and you are paid to provide a service, you must be prepared to this kind of situations, too, otherwise in short you’ll be full of cheaters (Tripadvisor is an example) and your neme will be spoiled.

The second case is different. There, the buyer became a stalker and posted a bad review. In the discussion, Fiverr could read all my warnings about the changes she wanted, and she copied me even a message where another seller refused to change again the job as her requests were absurd. But, you know, even in that case it was my fault. They knew I’d done my job, and that the problem was the buyer, but they didn’t cancel the bad review, and at the end I had to block her.

So, I don’t say they should have a professional for every kind of gig, but at least a team to solve general issues, like this, and not always in favour of the buyer.

I’ve had two bad reviews too from seriously unfair lying buyers and there was nothing to be done about it but I moved on. If you have enough good reviews it won’t hurt your sales or affect your reputation at all.

This happens sometimes and it’s not reasonable to expect, with the millions of transactions on this site, to expect a staff member to devote what might be an hour of time or even more to each individual dispute. It’s simply not possible on a site this big with this many transactions.

Usually it’s a matter of personal opinion also if what they got was what was reasonable or not. Two different people could have two completely different opinions.

[uk1000]

I delivered my job and closed the order. After 5 hours, tonight, he rejected the order saying, I quote: ‘You are a fake Italian, you translated with Google Translator. There are a lot of bad mistakes and the translated text doesn’t make sense in Italian’!

Well, as I’m a journalist, a teacher, and a professional translator, since 16 years, this is a ridiculous and insulting excuse! He rejected the job without asking any change just writing he had to pay another translator.

If you wanted you could have rejected the cancellation, showing the part of the Fiverr Terms of Service that say :

Orders are not eligible to be cancelled based on the quality of service/materials delivered by the seller if the service was rendered as described in the Gig page. Buyers may rate their experience with the seller on the order page, including the overall level of service quality received.

Though doing so could have meant a bad review and affected stats (though cancelations would also affect stats).

There is also the option of showing him/Fiverr support the text as it would have been translated by Google Translate to show/prove that yours was different.

[misscrystal]

I delivered my job and closed the order. After 5 hours, tonight, he rejected the order saying, I quote: ‘You are a fake Italian, you translated with Google Translator. There are a lot of bad mistakes and the translated text doesn’t make sense in Italian’!

Well, as I’m a journalist, a teacher, and a professional translator, since 16 years, this is a ridiculous and insulting excuse! He rejected the job without asking any change just writing he had to pay another translator.

If you wanted you could have rejected the cancellation, showing the part of the Fiverr Terms of Service that say :

Orders are not eligible to be cancelled based on the quality of service/materials delivered by the seller if the service was rendered as described in the Gig page. Buyers may rate their experience with the seller on the order page, including the overall level of service quality received.

Though doing so could have meant a bad review and affected stats (though cancelations would also affect stats).

There is also the option of showing him/Fiverr support the text as it would have been translated by Google Translate to show/prove that yours was different.

That is a great answer. You can always communicate in a way to show your professionalism and reject a cancellation. It might result in a bad review but still good communication goes a long way.

[cescamarrucci]

Yes, uk1000, I rejected the cancellation, but Fiverr CS warned me not to force closing orders without attachements, even if I didn’t know what to send. Now, they’re examining the buyer’s behaviour and they said that if he won’t provide a valid reason to cancel the order, they won’t accept the cancellation. Now, the question is: what is a valid reason?

You’re absolutely right about bad reviews written for ‘revenge’, That’s the reason why I asked Fiverr not to allow a bad review from him.

Your suggestion of a comparison between my translation and a GT one is good. I’ll try if they agree to examine it.

[miiila]

Yes, uk1000, I rejected the cancellation, but Fiverr CS warned me not to force closing orders without attachements, even if I didn’t know what to send. Now, they’re examining the buyer’s behaviour and they said that if he won’t provide a valid reason to cancel the order, they won’t accept the cancellation. Now, the question is: what is a valid reason?

You’re absolutely right about bad reviews written for ‘revenge’, That’s the reason why I asked Fiverr not to allow a bad review from him.

Your suggestion of a comparison between my translation and a GT one is good. I’ll try if they agree to examine it.

I would say, by default, actual mistakes/bad work are a valid reason, something like taste is not; it´s written somewhere too - it would be much too easy to abuse sellers who do gigs like drawings etc. else.

Of course, depending on the individual case, something subjective like “taste” may have been part of the deal, let´s say someone asks the seller if they think they are able to translate their novel from the POV of a person who is a teenager in the year 2018 and the seller says yes but what the buyer gets then sounds like the POV of a teenager from 1789 😁 … but I think it gets too specific now. 😉

If someone can point to several things that don´t make sense and/or have the typical Google Translator mistakes, or the kind of mistake no native speaker would make, that probably constitutes a valid reason.

Unless those things don´t make sense in the source file either, but usually, you´d notice those things as a translator and point them out to and talk about them with the buyer if you can´t easily guess what the text actually is supposed to say versus what it says.

I´ve had people send me files to finish/correct that some “translator” worked on already, or “translators” asking me per inbox to tell them how good on a scale from 1-10 a translation was… I´ve seen quite a few of the “fake” kind of translations you sometimes can see people complaining about in reviews - if they go find a native speaker of the language in question who is at least somewhat educated, it should be easy for them to tell a “fake” translation from a “real” one (even if the real one might have a couple mistakes or typos), so, when you know you did a good job and that person is just trying to get out of paying for it by bluffing, I´d not worry and calmly stand my ground.

[eoinfinnegan]

3 issues like that out of 450 orders? I wish I had your problems…

First issue - a difficult buyer who didnt know what they were doing. Once someone starts being as unreasonable as that, just send them a “go away” (in nice words) message and after that, then block them.

The second one was your fault. You delivered before the review was published so how could you expect the buyer to be happy? (I presume this was back when review gigs were allowed?). As you said, the review was published 10 days later - that’s when you should have delivered the order, when it was actually done. Amazon delaying its publication is nothing to do with the buyer - you need to manage those things if you rely on a third party.

The third one. This kind of complaint from some buyers is a pretty standard thing. If you are sure the work is good then you need to explain and prove your position to the buyer. Running to CS every time you get an issue like that is a waste of your and their time.
CS are there to look after their buyers and sellers - they are not there to be YOUR customer service rep to your clients - you need to do that yourself. If you cannot deal with such basic customer follow-up issues then perhaps you should consider only working for agencies - the type that can take on all these issues for you and charge you 50-70% for the privilege.

CS can’t tell or decide whether your translation is done well or not - they would need specific staff to cover every single category, language etc. Instead, they state that quality of the deliverable is not a valid reason for cancellation - This empowers you to deal with the client yourself which is what you must do.
Many buyers of translation services do try different methods to test the quality of the translation as they don’t understand the language themselves. Instead of being reactive in your way of dealing with this, why not be proactive instead? When you translate, do you include “translator’s notes” to explain your choice of certain words or phrases? Every text can be translated slightly differently so point out why you chose to say “The tall man sat down” instead of “The tall man took his seat” by adding a comment to the text.

This approach will help to convince a lot of buyers that you actually did the work properly. It won’t help in all situations of course but in those situations just suck it up. As I said in the beginning, 3 issues, one of which was clearly your fault, in 3 years is pretty much the Nirvana of freelancing careers - count yourself lucky!