Plagiarism

[triciak]

A buyer hired me to proofread, edit and rewrite a 7,000 word document, then reduce it to 5,000 words. The context of the rewrite was to make the document “simple and easy to read.” I delivered this to the buyer’s satisfaction, but, today, the buyer is demanding more “rewriting” so he can “avoid plagiarism.” I had no idea the words were not his to begin with and now I have a problem on my hands. He will not accept my work and is demanding I help him plagiarize whoever he stole his content from. What can I do?

[emmaki]

If you still have the original document, you could run it through a plagiarism program or five to see where it’s from (or just compare it to your work). If that shows lots of false positives and otherwise a low, low plagiarism rate, I would point this out to the buyer. If they still moan about it/and or get aggressive, take it to Customer Support.

If you can’t win that way, then I’m not sure… did you agree to a rewrite? Then CS will tell you to do the (well, more) rewriting on technicalities. If you didn’t, you can point out that you have more than met the proofreading and copyediting and the buyer is being a thieving asshat (with content, your time and more!).

Anyways, that’s what I would do.

[triciak]

Thanks for your response. I actually contacted Fiverr about this and they took care of it all within hours. They dealt with the plagiarizer, I still got paid and they closed the matter. What they did about him/her, I have no idea.

[eoinfinnegan]

Im really glad to hear Fiverr had your back on this. All too often people do the work then don’t get paid because they agree to a refund out of fear of a negative review.