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Sellers STEALING my gigs! Must- read for all sellers!


cassysailermoon

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Hello Fiverr sellers. I have just discovered that two of my gigs were STOLEN by other sellers!



I was leisurely looking on the Fiverr homepage at the “New and Noteworthy” section. After looking for only a few seconds, I was pleasantly surprised to see my gig featuring my bunnies! However, I thought it was odd that my gig was in that section because that gig isn’t new. It was then that I noticed that this gig wasn’t posted by me! It was posted by someone else! I immediately clicked on the gig to see what was going on! Sure enough, this user had stolen MY picture of MY bunnies! He also copied MY gig title, and MY gig description verbatim!! I was sooo angry!



I immediately contacted customer support. They were so helpful. I got a reply in only 5 minutes! The girl that was helping me, Jenny, said that she would get this taken care of right away. I then proceeded to send the gig-thief a not-so-nice message! 😛



If all this wasn’t bad enough, right after I thought was done with this whole ordeal, I went back to the “New and Noteworthy” section. I didn’t have to look for more than a second, and I saw another of my gigs! It was my gig featuring my dog-- And you guessed it! The gig wasn’t posted by me!



I went through the same process of contacting CS (very helpful again), and sending a strongly worded message to the seller.



I’m posting this discussion to let other sellers know that their gigs may be being stolen. Watch out for that! Copy your gig titles and paste them into the search bar every once in a while to make sure that your gigs aren’t being stolen by other users! Or, if you have the time and patience, watch the “New and Noteworthy” section for a few minutes.



This stealing really upset me, so I want to make sure that it doesn’t happen to anyone else. If, by the way, you are considering buying either of these gigs “5 HD pics of your message with my adorable bunnies” or “5 HD pictures/ photos of your message with my adorable puppy dog”, please make sure that you’re buying them from CASSYSAILERMOON. Anyone else who offers these gigs have stolen them from me.



I would tell you guys the user names of the thieves, but that’s not allowed. However, note that both gig-thieves joined only a few hours ago, and the gig they stole from me was their only gig. They also had no feedback, sales, or profile picture. I’m guessing that it is the same person using different accounts to scam people.



Thanks for reading and good luck selling, Cassy 🙂

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There are plenty of members from Warrior forum and Blackhatworld Forum advocating this to make quick money. So they opnely tell other members to steal the gig of other succecssful fiverr members to start their own gigs. What is bad about this is - they steal info, gig delivery information (like spreadsheet etc), give negative rating to your gig so that their gig stands in the search.



The most famous method for them to take down competition is giving negative rating by opening fake profile. This is one more reason why you should have a buyers requirement, so that they don’t order gig, cancel it and run away with blind excuse which even customer support can’t help you with.



I hate such people who do business the wrong way. 😦

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I believe, legally speaking (but not a lawyer), your content is covered under US Copyright laws instantly when you create it. The criminal act isn’t one of stealing as it is one of Copyright infringement and Pirating. Suffice it to say you could pursue this, however since we are trusting the Fiverr platform to protect against such things, the failure and subsequent risk falls with Fiverr.



The solution would be for the Fiverr platform to prohibit verbatim titles and text. Photos are slightly more difficult, but doable.



Policing such a virtual society and evosystem is difficult, however offering a method for tagging pirates and infringements would help. Once an account received X number or community pirate tags for infringement, the account is locked and all associated GIGs are hidden from view. Refunds issued or GIGs offered to those who reported the pirate for fulfillment.



Other than that, a possible financial consequence night be that the pirate account is charged $50 for each infringement to reinstate the account, the money being distributed to each community member involved in the sudo virtual class-action suit (as it were).



Hopefully Fiverr will do some or all of these.



Thank you for sharing your experience.


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It’s happened to me a time or two. The first time upset me a lot. Then, I kind of got used to it. I always dealt with it through CS. But it’s not something new. First time was over a year and a half ago for me.



The first time, the guy denied that he stole my gig. At first, telling me and trying to tell CS that I stole his gig. But, the moron didn’t realize that it wasn’t to hard to look up when the gig was created. Then, he tried to say my video was created using copywritten footage. I countered back that my daughter was in my video. So… nice try. (My video’s not that good, been meaning to make a new one LOL).



Anyhow. What made me mad was the guy using my daughter in his video that was actually mind. What a moron.



It doesn’t really affect you, except for it being really irritating. Or does it? What I noticed, all that time ago was that this guy got a few sales from my repeat clients. They thought it was me! LOL. But again, this was way before the changeover to V2. So I can’t see that happening now.



Some people. Just so damn lazy.

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It has happened to me twice. CS usually removes the offender within hours of notification. There does not appear to be any way of stopping it from happening we can only react once it has happened.



I have noticed that some copy just enough to slip by the casual observer. I generally don’t worry that much about it. I just report the more obvious ones otherwise you will drive yourself crazy checking up on everyone else.

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I had someone do that, which was funny because I was wondering where they’d get the materials to make the item I was offering if they actually got an order. I was almost tempted to order from them for a laugh, but I didn’t want to waste the money and they’d probably default anyway. Anyway, CS took care of it immediately.

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  • 3 weeks later...

There is a huge difference between copying the business style or the business model and the things that belongs to person. Just because people are protecting about their content, doesn’t mean they are money hungry. Calling others money hungry is very obnoxious adamant attitude.

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Reply to @cassysailermoon: Cassey, these forums are internet marketing forum. Lot of dirty tricks regarding business are shared there. One trick that was shared regularly over there is stealing the business model of others and then also about how to get the other sellers out of business with negative rating. Hate such type of the people coming over there.

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