Posting a gig offering skype consultation - Why so hard?

#1

So , here goes a thread pertaining to “How to offer skype consultations with your gig”.

This is my experience thus far and I’ll update it if the thread gains any traction.
I hope it helps save some of you some time and headache as it’s been a 3 week process for me personally and several days of ticket sending/answering through fiverr’s support team.

Here is what I know about offering a skype consultation.

  1. So far , one staff member approved my gig here after it was rejected for modification …

https://www.fiverr.com/videostore/create-a-video-commercial-for-your-company

The error was :

“You may not refer users to sites other than Fiverr.com.
The Fiverr marketplace is aimed at connecting buyers and sellers using our platform and not for advertising external services. All communications, ordering, delivery, and payments must be completed exclusively within Fiverr.”

via a support ticket (Ticket #1)

Note - It does not have skype in the TITLE of the gig description. It merely offers it as an extra to clients who need to talk about larget projects more directly.

-------Skip ahead-----

2 weeks later that same gig was taken down. Again for the same reason… The error was:
“You may not refer users to sites other than Fiverr.com.
The Fiverr marketplace is aimed at connecting buyers and sellers using our platform and not for advertising external services. All communications, ordering, delivery, and payments must be completed exclusively within Fiverr.”

This was probably due to me linking a dropbox link in my gig description to show buyers more videos I’ve done for past clients… And another dropbox link that went straight to a simple text document containing no contact information… It was just a text document displaying my Re-do Policy as it was too large to type in the 1200 character limit they give us for the gig description (I know awful…)

So … when I got that message , I replied to them via a followup ticket (pointing to the original ticket where my gig was approved) to clarify what was wrong and to tell them that I had gigs with those exact links in them for over 2 years now. I did not get any response to that other than …“You cant link to outside sources in your gig description”…

  • Ok so right there I must have gotten away with something for years that saved my clients time , made my business more efficient and kept me from cancelling lots of orders due to buyers making ordering mistakes and not reading my gig properly. But now I can’t do that anymore… so moving on … /rant

So in ticket #2 I told them how upset I was about the gig sitting in the system for 2 weeks while I brought OUTSIDE buyers TO Fiverr to purchase my gig…was not getting any views and it was possibly because it took all that time to get rejected again for sharing my work portfolio… In ticket #2 I asked them to re-instate the gig for a 2nd time and they did…

But seeing as how I didnt know why it was rejected … I asked more about the skype stuff…

One member of staff said this:

“Hi there, Please note that you will not be able to add a “Skype” related gig where you exchange Skype info without you having the word Skype in your gig’s title. I hope this clears up the confusion.”

The other staff member who approved my gig listed at the top said this about having skype in the gig somewhere:

“While direct communication through Skype is not something we allow in general, there are cases where this is allowed and all you need is to mention that in your Gig description and, once the Gig is approved, you’ll be able to share such information with your buyers.”

Is it just me or am I getting conflicting answers on a subject that has held my gig in limbo while I’ve been bringing outside traffic to fiverr? I had buyers unable to order my gig because it was down …

I hope this helps anyone going through the trouble of creating gigs that offer skype consultation.

As it stands now , I’m going with what the 2nd member of staff said … and that member also approved my gig the first go round in ticket #1…

(By the way , to add more frustration here - that first staff member told me it was okay to add skype in the DESCRIPTION of my gig in ticket #1 as long as i submit a ticket to have it approved by staff… where the 2nd staff member in ticket #2 (a followup ticket to ticket #1) told me that I needed to add it in my TITLE …

(((I dont want it in my title … it messed up SEO for my gigs and I dont want to offer skype primarily in my gig description… its for serious buyers placing serious orders … I dont want to market myself to skype conversations for $5-$20 order)))

Whats upsetting is that I’m not sure they read ticket #1 if they followed up with that advice in ticket #2 … maybe it was an honest typo? … but they certainly messed up giving me some advice on it here and when I know the final answer I’ll come post back…

It’s been 3 weeks and I havent gotten 1 message on my gig listed above… regardless of the fact it has $160 sitting on it. Not sure why I should send any more clients to the gig from off the site … its seems that the site is not allowing my gig to show up due to the scrupulous events that I described here.

Take from this what you will… it may be better to only get ONE skype gig up on your account and just simply link THAT GIG on the rest of your accounts that you want to offer skype support on. I’ve asked this as one of my last questions for them in ticket #2 and I hope they give me a straight answer.

-Cheers

[self promotion removed - disallowed except in My Fiverr Gigs]

#2

lol self promotion. How about “forum signature removed”

#3

You do not need Skype to talk about target projects more directly. There is a messaging system that you can do that on.

Here are the only links to outside sites you can have in your gig or profile:




soundcloud.com

tumblr.com


youtube.com

Note: If you use a URL, which is not in the
above list, it will be removed from your profile.
If used in your Gig, it will be denied.
Repetitive violations may cause an account
to be restricted.

#4

Sometimes what is removed isn’t a signature. There are all kinds of things people add that are considered advertising or self-promotion. What is removed or noted depends on what it is and what admin makes the decision. When a public note like that is added it sometimes helps others not to make a similar mistake.

#5

One other thing to keep in mind is that it is a lot better (and probably easier) to get approval for a Skype-related gig if you approach CS before creating the gig instead of trying to correct ToS violations later. You can sometimes get a CS rep to approve particular wording as well and that way if you run into a problem later you can send a screen shot of the approval to get reinstated faster.

#6

Very valuable information here.
Thanks!

  • In my experience , speaking with clients on more complex videos generally means higher $$ and a much easier , faster , and efficient workflow. It gets all those ideas and stuff fine tuned in days less time. Thus is why I felt it important to get my gig approved for skype conversations.
#7

You are correct in this. I immediately posted a ticket after creating my skype video consultation gig and it was approved that day.

And it seems they will sometimes (30%) approve specific wording on the gig description. Unfortunately I had several staff members reply to the ticket and 1 our of the 4 or so had no problem with it after he took a look at what I wanted to do originally. The others had trouble following what I was trying to do … perhaps because it was a “follow-up” ticket scenario… I dont know … But in the end the best advice I gave myself was to create a skype gig specifically and get it approved by staff right away… And just link that skype gig in all my other video gigs that I plan to make…

Seems to work better and is more easily digestible when explained to staff.

#8

Yestreday I contacted CS to request advice for a new gig release for psychic readings through skype. All they told me is that
1.I must mention skype both in the title and gig description
2.I must not share contact info in title or gig description
3.I must submit a ticket for review of the gig as soon as it is released

I asked should I need to add a disclaimer in my gig’s order requirements but didn’t get a reply on that, I assume if the gig is approved a disclaimer would be up to the seller’s discretion.

#9

Thats pretty much it in a nutshell. Just send a ticket as soon as you post any skype repated gig following those 3 guidelines and thats how you do it.

#10

I Kinda got confused trying to read all that but this is what I think I understood; please correct me if I’m wrong:

If I mention in my description that my service will be provided over Skype it should be allowed as long as I raise a ticket with CS as soon as I’ve published it?

Following on from this I wondered if any of you could tell me the best way of scheduling said Skype appointments with buyers? I was thinking of using a link to a calendar sharing site but I’m not sure this would be allowed now? Any advice greatly appreciated as I’m completely new (signed up an hour ago!)

#11

“If I mention in my description that my service will be provided over Skype it should be allowed as long as I raise a ticket with CS as soon as I’ve published it?”

  • I tried this and got the run around. One rep told me it would be fine an they approved it … another said that the word SKYPE had to be in your gig title.

So ultimately it depends on who you talk to. But what I’ve done is just made one gig a primary SKYPE ONLY gig… And linked that skype gig to any of my other services where I may need to offer a skype consultation for (which is every video service we offer) …

As long as you:

  1. Make the gig and Send a ticket to support telling them why you may need to use skype to offer a service with that gig…
  2. Include skype in the gig title for that gig
  3. Make sure to include your skype info in the buyer’s requirements or ask the buyer for that info in the buyer’s requirements box…

You should be good to go.

Attempting to offer skype contact via ONLY mentioning it within the gig description was the whole problem I had in the first place… One rep said it’s fine after they approved it … … another rep stood firm in his belief that it was not fine… And told me ANY gig requiring skype should follow the above 3 rules.

I just chose the path of least resistance. - Make a skype only gig … following those rules … put a link to that gig in your other gigs and you’ll be fine.