Seller cancels=Buyer pays Processing Fee?

[happyspace]

After 2 satisfactory years on Fiverr as a Seller & a Buyer, I’ve just had my first disturbing experience as a Buyer!
I supposed that would happen eventually, but I decided to share my story with you on the Forum, so that we all, both buyers and sellers, are aware.

When a Seller asks for mutual cancellation, the Buyer pays the Processing Fee. Shouldn’t it be the other way round?

The story: I ordered a composer’s gig + 2 extras of $20 each = $45 for 2 minutes of music. With the $2.5 Processing Fee by Fiverr, the order made a total of $47.5.

The seller seemed reliable:

• Level 2
• 5 stars overall
• awesome reviews by 40 satisfied previous buyers
• amazing soundcloud samples

I communicated with him prior to ordering, describing exactly my wishes. Although my request was simple, I asked if that would be possible for him to do; his answer was yes, of course!

But…a couple of hours before the deadline he asks for mutual cancellation with a quite unbelievable reason (not able to upload due to a bug on Fiverr). I mentioned that Fiverr upload limit is 150MB and proposed he could use a server and send me a link still upon the deadline. He ignored my 5 polite messages during the next hour although his status showed ‘online’.

What to do? If I declined the cancellation request, the order would be marked as ‘late’ and I knew that would hurt his reputation that had been 100% by now. Or that he would go on requesting a cancellation forever and we would play hide and seek 😃

Since the musician is just 18 years old and very talented at least by the samples I listened to plus his 40 awesome reviews, I just let it go and 2 days later I accepted the mutual cancellation. That would be OK since I had not a deadline to use this music.

But what about the $2.5 Processing Fee I was charged and I am still charged according to my balance sheet? I had no idea that would happen as this was my first time a seller asks for cancellation.

Why should I (the buyer) who was somehow “cheated” pay the Processing Fee? Since it was he (the seller) who asked for the cancellation.

I believe that sellers should be charged the Processing Fees in the case it is their fault.

What do you think? Has anybody experienced the same issue and managed to save the processing fee in the end? I am very interested to know. And thank you in advance for any input 🙂

P.S. I need to clarify that I am not against the processing fees generally; I understand that Fiverr needs to have that, otherwise this wouldn’t exist.

P.S 2: To avoid any misunderstandings, I have posted this issue on the ‘Tips for Buyers’ section as I am talking about buyers who payed with PayPal (or other means). And/or for buyers who are also sellers but do not have enough credit in their Fiverr balance at the moment they make the purchase! 🙂

[willpower_hk]

When you use the $45 credits now stored in your account for the next order, no processing fee will be charged.



In fact if your seller balance is more than $45, the order should be charged from your credits instead of using PayPal, and no processing fee will be charged. But as you mentioned, I bet you probably have lower than $45 in your seller balance when you purchase that gig.

[the_dynamo]

I happen to have $45 in my account, not from selling gigs. I cant find any way to cash it out. Please can someone help me cash out. Thanks

[happyspace]

Reply to @the_dynamo: kjblynx is right. Right now, this is my issue too as currently I don’t have time to search thoroughly on Fiverr for how to make the best out the $45 that are in my balance after the unprofessional behavior of the last seller I ordered from. But I am sure that one can find a lot gigs to order that their value is at least 10 times bigger than $5!

[thecreativeguys]

Reply to @the_dynamo: I just saw another person asking just this, supposedly you should contact fiverr support.

[thecreativeguys]

I purchased $35 worth of gigs as a custom order from a seller who said they can deliver what I needed. I used funds from outside of fiverr. I was charged $1.50 processing fee. The order was cancelled. I ended up losing the money. That does not make any sense.



What fiverr should write is “$1.50” complimentary fee.



Why should you get charged if the order is cancelled?



Anyone agree with this?

[happyspace]

Reply to @willpower_hk: Thank you for your input! At the time of my purchace my seller balance was not enough to cover the whole order, so I had to use PayPal.

[happyspace]

Reply to @bachas85: Thank you bachas85. The information about the UP TO is good to know!



The thing is that the $2.5 from the cancelled order by my buyer is now probably lost. I am aware that $2.5 is not worth to make a fuss here on this forum 🙂 But I wrote this post because I think that it is unfair for the buyer to be charged with the processing fees after the seller has asked for cancellation (because the seller has been unprofessional).



And what if the cancelled order was not $45 but $450? I have seen that many buyers on Fiverr are ‘buyers only’ and most pay through Paypal.

[happyspace]

Reply to @thecreativeguys: Although I am mostly a seller on Fiverr, so this is not really on the favor of sellers… as a buyer, I think that whenever a seller has been unprofessional AND with the CONDITION that the seller was the one who asked for mutual cancellation after having agreed through messages with the buyer about what will be delivered prior to ordering (that can be proved by screeshots)… only then, I think that the seller should be automatically charged with the processing fees. As a kind of “I am sorry”.

[thecreativeguys]

Reply to @happyspace: But why should there be a fee at all if the actual order is not there anymore?



The fee is to start an “order” or to purchase services?

[sincere18]

Reply to @happyspace: But it’s the same thing whether it’s $45 or $450. When you have a gig cancelled you don’t ever get a refund back to your original payment source, you only get it returned to you in the form of Fiverr credits.



So when you buy your next gigs with your Fiverr credits there is no fee. So I am not sure why you think it is still unfair, because you will not be charged a fee going forward with the credits you now have.

[happyspace]

Reply to @sincere18: Yes of course 🙂 But I am talking about the first processing fee, when I ordered this gig and the seller cancelled it because he saw he would not make it before the deadline. That first fee of $2.50 is lost. Because I ordered $45, was charged $47.50 (because I payed with PayPal) and now the credits available on Fiverr for my next purchase are $45 and not $47.50

[sincere18]

Reply to @happyspace: yes, but it equals out…if your credits are $45 instead of $47.50, the next time you go to order a gig for $45 you pay no processing fee. So you aren’t loosing anything. The fee is always going to be there if you pay with paypal/credit cards, the fees are not charged if you pay with Fiverr credits. So when you go to buy the gig the next time around you will save because you will not be charged that $2.50. So you will not need $47.50 to purchase the next gig, you will only need the $45.



I am guessing the issue may be for you because you are both a buyer and a seller you probably often use money from with your Fiverr account and aren’t use to paying fees in general, right?

[sincere18]

Reply to @thecreativeguys: If the order gets canceled and you now have credits you will not need to pay the fee when you make your next gig purchase to use those credits.

[fonthaunt]

Reply to @happyspace: So, since you can’t typically get that $45 back to PayPal and you will eventually have to spend the $45 on Fiverr (whether the whole thing or $5 at a time) then what difference does it make about the processing fee? If you had it back, it would just sit in your Fiverr account doing nothing until you buy gigs.



I admit, I’m against the processing fee in the first place, but if we are stuck with it I don’t understand why it matters that you don’t get it back. You’ll get the value of the fee when you buy gigs.

[happyspace]

Reply to @sincere18: Yes, but you lose the first fee 🙂 As it is not any more available in your balance.

[happyspace]

Reply to @fonthaunt: I don’t mind ordering gigs on Fiverr in the future. I am just saying that since it is the fault of the seller who cancelled because he was not able to deliver, why should I lose the processing fees? I wouldn’t mind if that sum would be in my account for me to use in future orders. Even best, in this case I would find it fair if the seller was charged instead of me 🙂 And of course in my case I lost only $2.5 and OK, what to do? … But in the case a buyer makes a huge order? For example for an order of $450 the buyer would lose fees of $25. I believe that this buyer would not be so happy.

[fonthaunt]

Reply to @happyspace: You seem to misunderstand. You do not “lose the processing fees” at all. Any gigs you purchase from within your Fiverr balance won’t have processing fees attached to them. This is true whether it comes from refunds or earnings on Fiverr. I just bought $25 worth of gigs and didn’t spend any processing fees because my Fiverr account had enough to cover the gigs.



You didn’t lose anything and neither would a buyer who spend $450. That buyer could spend $450 on other gigs on Fiverr and they wouldn’t spend processing fees at ALL unless they ordered gigs worth $451. When you exceed the amount in your Fiverr account, you start paying processing fees again. Do you see?

[fonthaunt]

Reply to @happyspace: No, you don’t lose the first fee. Period. It is not in your balance because it doesn’t need to be. If you have a $5 balance and you buy a $5 gig, no processing fee is taken - ever. If you have a $1000 Fiverr balance you buy a $5 gig or up to a $1000 gig - no processing fee is charged to you - ever. Processing fees are only charged when you pay with PayPal or a credit card or any method other than your Fiverr credit. Do you see? The processing fee is never lost if you spend your money on Fiverr.

[happyspace]

Reply to @fonthaunt: Hey, thank you for your input and you are right in the case of sellers who have Fiverr credit. But maybe you haven’t read this thread till the end 🙂 I am talking about buyers who have payed with PayPal AND/OR for buyers who are also sellers but don’t have enough credit currently in their Fiverr balance at the moment they make the purchase! 🙂 This was my case as I had recently withdrawn my credits. I will add this to the first post so that there is no misunderstading. Thanks again 🙂

[fonthaunt]

Reply to @happyspace: You are welcome and I do understand better what you mean. You are right that it is unfortunate that if any buyer (whether just a buyer or also a seller) has Fiverr credit and it isn’t enough for the gig they want so it has to go through PayPal and yes, pay a fee.



The good news that I wanted all buyers to be aware of is that the original processing fee still isn’t ever technically lost, though. As long as they buy a gig that does match their credited amount, no fee will be charged. Perhaps at some point Fiverr will make a way for people to add funds to their Fiverr accounts to help the balances. Thanks for clarifying what you meant, though. Hopefully we are on the same page now. 😉

[senghonggoh]

I had excatly the same experience. Communicated with seller in detail before ordering, then just hours before the deadline, sellers cancelled the order without any reasonable reasons. Fiverr will not return the processing fee. They should charge the fee to the seller, not buyer. I met 2 sellers who did that. Fiverr is protecting the sellers, and they dont care about buyers. It is a rip-off.

[babibalubi]

No!

[catwriter]

Why do you keep digging up old threads to complain about the same thing in all of them?

[emmaki]

Because it’s fun!

Incidentally, I find it wierd when people get so uptight about the processing fee. It’s nothing to do with the seller. It’s to cover PayPal’s fees as well as administrative costs. We could all argue about how Fiverr isn’t using the funds from the fees appropriately (as a buyer or a seller), but ultimately… it’s in the TOS and you get the money back in credit so calling it a ‘rip-off’ in elderly threads is a bit dramatic and silly, especially when the thread has already explained why it is as it is.