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Some Buyers just want to get work done for free

alinahu

By alinahu
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alinahu Newbie

alinahu

Posted
Posted

Hello dear fellow sellers.
One of my Buyers told me that my translation would have “lots of grammar, lexical mistakes”. How could it be so if I am a native speaker of the target language and proofread the text well?
Later she ordered my gig again and you guess… The same outcome!
How would you deal with such “difficult Buyer” situations?
Thank you!

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eoinfinnegan Mentor

eoinfinnegan

Posted
Posted

It is possible to have bad grammar in your native language, many native English speakers have exceptionally bad grammar!
It is possible that they are looking to get work for free. I have had buyers like that. It is your choice but if I am sure that I have done the work correctly I will not cancel. If they leave a bad review then I respond to it politely but explaining that the buyer tried to get the work done for free. Too many sellers just cancel when a buyer asks, it is not fair and it is not how the world works. It is not surprising that some buyers try to get work done for free when so many sellers will just cancel an order. Negative reviews are not the end of the world once you have some good reviews.
It is very suspicious that they ordered again after they said you did bad work before. I would suggest that you tell them not to order from you any more.

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aimancall Newbie

aimancall

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I can tell how it is happening. There two options:

  1. Buyer is opening your text in any kind of software with spellchecker or even in the browser !BUT! he/she has different language set up so the editor is making fake impression by highlighting red up to 90% words

  2. as eoinfinnegan said - you can have bad grammar, but I bet option number 1.

Cheers

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ryancaldarone Apprentice

ryancaldarone

Posted
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This is probably a story for the “Conversations” section, but this practice has happened occasionally. Recently, I had a client order from me last week (simple $10 order). They were explicit in not wanting to share any specific or personal details… which is difficult since I was writing their professional summary, but understandable on an online platform. As usual I completed the Gig™ on time, and as it was short (300 words) I was able to proof it multiple times to make sure it was perfect. After delivery, it was rejected and a cancellation was requested from the buyer under the pretense it was filled with grammatical errors.

I let them know I’d cancel the order, but they are still free to use the content wherever they wished, and even offered to fix it for them even though the order was cancelled. Killing them with kindness. It’s obvious these types of buyers just want something for free… but at such a low price, it isn’t worth our time to worry about it. Karma came in, and later that day one of my clients marked an order as complete, gave me a great review, and even a 50% tip.

Can’t win them all, so don’t stress it.

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emmaki Grand Master

emmaki

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Posted

So you gave a bad buyer free work, further instilling his Pavlovian BS. Why didn’t you contact Customer Support? Why didn’t you say no? Why did you let him walk over you like that?

STOP GIVING WORK AWAY FOR FREE PEOPLE. IF SOMEONE IS BEING AN ASSHAT, FIGHT THEM.

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emmaki Grand Master

emmaki

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This is exactly the kind of response that makes me want to set up a buyer from hell account and document just how easy it is to build an entire website for free, by targeting"oh noes, a bad review might happen!" people. You’re already saying it straight up on the forum. I don’t even need to NLP this stuff.

By all means, give people work for free because you’re in perpetual terror of their opinion. It’s dumb. Fight it and use the resources available to you. They work.,

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ryancaldarone Apprentice

ryancaldarone

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@misscrystal @emmaki Honestly it’s not the negative feedback I care about; I only care about positive feedback and my clients. While I did take screenshots (since it takes all of 2 seconds) and document everything as a part of my normal workflow; initiating a CS report for a $5 order wasn’t worth the time investing it in a negative situation. My time is better spent (for such a small order) communicating with clients who care about and respect their brand and reputation.

I have only had to file a CS once before in a similar incident, and the process was successful. Obviously using the tools Fiverr® has given us as sellers is the only recommendation worth giving. I’ve just had nothing but an overwhelmingly positive experience here so far, and users that behave the way the @alinahu described should be reported; as attempting to order again is mildly malicious.

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bojansavikj Newbie

bojansavikj

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Few things I want to discuss with you and @emmaki that I think you are not being reasonable with and you are not taking into consideration:

  1. You are confident and I respect that. But please note that you are TRSs (with over 1-2k positive reviews) and few or even tens of 1 star reviews will not harm (at least not significantly) you or the rankings of your gigs. Think about what will 1 star review do to a Level 1 seller or Level 2 seller with 50-150 five star reviews. It will ruin him! So, please be real, reasonable and balanced when giving such strong advises as: “no reason to back down”

  2. Miss Crystal in 90% of the jobs here on Fiverr it all comes to taste, so I don’t know from what I will send them screenshots?

To put it simple if I write an article that I think is good, and the seller says it is awful intentionally (even though he thinks is good and will still use it for his own purposes) and leaves me a 1 star review to provoke me to contact him for cancellation or says “I will rate you negatively, sorry, I don’t like the article or you can re-fund me I will find other provider”, what will you write to customer support?
“He is a scammer, my article is good, he wants free work” ??

Although I love Customer Support and I truly think that they are the best ones I’ve ever experienced, I don’t think they will go on and read the article and make judgments, they will cancel the gig and refund the buyer.

  1. It is not as simple as you both put it. These things are complicated. You are confident because again I will say you are TRS, have experience on Fiverr, thousands of sales, authority, relevancy etc. But, 1 star review can kill Fiverr careers and for what? For 1 bad buyer out of 500-1000? It is not worth it.

As I said we are discussing this. So, now I would like to tell you and the readers my advice.

  • communicate with the buyer and try to come to a reasonable solution. If he/she is still negative and wants to cancel then:

a. accept the cancellation if it is a $5 or $10 work that you didn’t waste too much time on and then report the buyer (like @ryancaldarone did)

b. don’t accept cancellation, leave the review and reply to it with your reasonable explanation but only if it is a $20-25 or more order that you’ve put good amount of work on. Contact customer support to get that review removed if possible after that.

Hope this will help

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bojansavikj Newbie

bojansavikj

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Oh yeah and don’t rush it. Sometimes, some buyers are may not looking for “free work” nor are a scammy. Try to talk it through, see what did you do wrong. I had a customer last week that gave me that “I’ll give you negative feedback or cancel the job” thing. After a good communication, he actually admitted he was wrong, left me a 5 star review and re-ordered 130% bigger order then the initial one.

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