Hi all - I am seeking some insights. I am fairly new to Fiverr, and though I have not had a lot of interested buyers. I have been receiving messages from people requesting to be “friends” rather than using Fiverr to seek services. Has anyone experienced this as well? Is it ok to block these people?
Am feeling a little bit sketchy about using this platform…
I joined Fiverr a few months ago, I like participate regularly in forums, but I have not experienced this (?).
Hmm, no, that hasn’t been my experience. After I had 100 reviews I started to get some messages from people asking for suggestions, but not friendship.
Report any messages like this. I used to get messages like this in the early days and I still get them from people on other platforms. You are basically being targeted by ‘social hackers.’ These are people who attempt to gain your trust before directing you to a phishing site or requesting personal ID details.
I have had inbox chats with quite a few Fiverr sellers. However, these are all people whom I have got to know here on the forum first.
If you do not know the person sending you a message and they simply want to be ‘friends,’ reply with a simple message stating that Fiverr is not an IM platform and you can only accept messages from prosoective buyers. Then report/block the person messaging.
Thanks so much for taking the time to answer this question. I really appreciate it, this is so so super helpful!!
I know a couple of young women who use Fiverr. They say they’ve received weird messages, mainly from guys looking for a little female attention. They and the scammers have very inappropriate agendas!
Cyaxrex’s advice sounds good. It’ll work on anybody you don’t want to chat to.
It’s not just women who get them.
It’s been about 20 years since another dude told me I’m cute. lol
I suspect they are bot accounts.
I usually respond asking if there is a specific project they wish to discuss. Never hear back.
It’s been about 20 years since another dude told me I’m cute. lol
I suspect they are bot accounts.
You’re a better man than me. My ego wouldn’t let me believe it was anything other than a totally infatuated admirer, haha.
@anna_liu They target newer sellers for who knows what. Just report them and forget them. This is a great platform for sellers. Have no fear about using it. I’ve been here for six happy years.
It’s totally OK to block anyone who spams you in any kind of way, be it requests to be friends, asking for ‘help’ (unless for help they want to place an order for for something your gigs offer, obviously), share your buyers/orders with them (yes, it happens), or want to scam you (that’s usually pretty obvious right from the start but Cy may still be right with the social engineering) or communicating inappropriately (harasses you, threatens you, gets explicit, etc.).
If someone is new and just politely messages to ask for ‘help’ (as in "can you give me some tips, can you tell me how xy works here,…) and you feel generous, you could also just tell them that it’s not allowed to message people without intending to actually place an order and that they may get even banned for it if someone reported them and redirect them to the forum (I have saved a “quick response” for that) but even for that, you’re well in your rights reporting them, it’s their responsibility as new users to inform themselves about what is acceptable and what not when they start using a platform, and not yours to teach them.
If the messages about being friends and the profiles they come from look very suspiciously alike, I’d probably take screenshots and directly report them to CS via the ticket system, so they can look into it. If it’s just separate users, they might get away with a warning but if it’s a person with multiple accounts they will (and should) get banned.
Like Cy, I have had a few conversations with other sellers but only if I knew them from the forum before, and only before this new forum with the pm option was installed.
I dunno sir, you look pretty attractive to me, you have lovely eyes 
I swear I’m not hitting on you.
Jokes aside, I haven’t gotten messages like that.
Sheesh, I feel so left out!
Hi!
I usually block those people and then report them to Fiverr
Yeah I joined yesterday and people keep sending me messages like " Hi, how are you" like what do you want. It’s kind of weird this is not a dating site