Suggestion For Fiverr: Let Sellers Handle Chargebacks

[ngtechandapps]

I have a suggestion for Fiverr and want to get feedback from others. Many of sellers have had to deal with the headache of a chargeback, and it seems Fiverr isn’t adequately set up to handle these disputes. However, I think they should let the sellers reply to the dispute on their own, and have the sellers reply forwarded to the payment provider. Maybe have a form to fill out and they can submit evidence. I know Shopify does this where even though the sellers don’t handle payment details, if a claim is filed, they can review it themselves and use a menu to reply and upload evidence which is then sent to Visa MasterCard PayPal, etc. This would take that off of Fiverr’s hands, and although sellers may need to research how to respond to a claim, I’m sure they would be willing to. Also, replying to chargebacks like INR or Fraud chargebacks is pretty easy. For a fraud chargeback, Fiverr could be setup to automatically send the bank what was provided in the order, as well as the buyers name/phone to prove that they made the account. Boom, no fraud, you win the chargeback. For INR, sellers could provide evidence that they delivered the order. And for other claims, sellers could respond with some form. Any advice or feedback? I already suggested this to Fiverr’s CS and they forwarded it to their products team, but I don’t think it would gain any traction unless a lot of sellers wanted this.

[misscrystal]

The buyer pays fiverr, not the individual seller. So it’s between fiverr and Paypal or fiverr and Visa, not Paypal and the seller. You can’t have sellers doing the job of dealing with Paypal. Most of the sellers here are not proficient in English or are not aware of how payments work, some are dishonest, etc. I can’t imagine having sellers arguing with Paypal from this site after seeing all the posts over the years on this forum.

The majority of sellers don’t even know what a chargeback is.

And there is such a variety of services offered that it’s really up to a fiverr staff member if the seller gets a refund. It’s not something to be directing to Paypal automatically from fiverr. I know that sellers on ebay deal directly with Paypal, or they used to. But I think fiverr needs to keep control of that aspect here. eBay has some built in safeguards that keep most sellers honest.

[ngtechandapps]

The buyer pays fiverr, not the individual seller. So it’s between fiverr and Paypal or fiverr and Visa, not Paypal and the seller. You can’t have sellers doing the job of dealing with Paypal. Most of the sellers here are not proficient in English or are not aware of how payments work, some are dishonest, etc. I can’t imagine having sellers arguing with Paypal from this site after seeing all the posts over the years on this forum.

The majority of sellers don’t even know what a chargeback is.

And there is such a variety of services offered that it’s really up to a fiverr staff member if the seller gets a refund. It’s not something to be directing to Paypal automatically from fiverr. I know that sellers on ebay deal directly with Paypal, or they used to. But I think fiverr needs to keep control of that aspect here. eBay has some built in safeguards that keep most sellers honest.

The majority of sellers don’t even know what a chargeback is.

I understand this, but I think maybe it would be a good option. Especially because even if someone doesn’t know what a chargeback is, they can look it up if they get one to reply.

First of all, I think it should depend also how you paid. If you paid w/ Apple Pay, fraud/unauthorized chargebacks shouldn’t be possible and should be easy to respond to since the only way for that charge to occur is a fingerprint/passcode on a device authorized by the bank either over the phone or in text.

You can’t have sellers doing the job of dealing with Paypal. Most of the sellers here are not proficient in English

Even if they aren’t proficient in English, responding to a chargeback can be something as simple as saying, “They authorized the charge. I have proof because they submitted their name and phone number from when they signed up to the platform. That can tie back to their username and their username ordered and communicated with me.” Also, the main language on Fiverr is English, so they should know some basic English, at least enough to respond to the claim.

some are dishonest

Some sellers are dishonest, but if the seller is dishonest then they shouldn’t be getting an unauthorized chargeback, which a lot of people report. They should be getting a “Service not as described” chargeback and they can respond with their proof that the service was described but if they don’t deliver as mentioned in their description, then the bank/cc company can reverse the charge. For the buyer, they have a lot of opportunities to rebut the decision, and the seller just provides their info. If they are a good honest seller, they submit their work that they delivered and their gig link and say they gave the work to the buyer as described.

The majority of sellers don’t even know what a chargeback is.

If they get one, I’m sure they’ll look it up to figure out what it is.

it’s really up to a fiverr staff member if the seller gets a refund

Fiverr staff members can choose what is TOS, but the staff has to follow TOS. They shouldn’t make certain decisions, especially if they don’t know about your work. If you know your work, you can’t ensure you get a refund, but you have a good chance(if you are honest and provided w/ the tools) to win.

directing to Paypal automatically from fiverr

I’m not talking about directing sellers to PayPal, I know what you mean. Thats a horrible idea, Paypal CS will be busy dealing with angry sellers calling them. I’m talking about a built in tool in Fiverr to reply based on the options and the type of dispute.

eBay has some built in safeguards that keep most sellers honest

I don’t think eBay would be a good comparison b/c their main safeguard is tracking numbers but these are digital goods, so its a different scenario. What Fiverr has is IP address records, info like that. Now obviously that can’t be handed over to the seller, but maybe they could have an option in the form that says, “include IP records” or something like that.

The main issue I think this system would cause is privacy, so Fiverr would have to develop it in a way that’s still confidential. Those are my arguments. 🙂 TBH if sellers actually want to discuss a topic, they kind of need to have little debates to address things, so I get your point that you are making, but I have lots of responses to little issues. For the most part, Fiverr’s product team would develop it, but IDK if other people even want this system. And even if they do, what is the likelihood of CS to implement it anyways.

Maybe another option is for Fiverr to notify sellers when there’s a chargeback and allow them to submit their argument, and CS would use that info to reply to the chargeback. Obviously they can’t investigate each individual order, but if they gave buyers the chance to provide info they think is important/helpful for their case and CS used that, I think the rate of winning chargebacks would go way up.

[misscrystal]

The majority of sellers don’t even know what a chargeback is.

I understand this, but I think maybe it would be a good option. Especially because even if someone doesn’t know what a chargeback is, they can look it up if they get one to reply.

First of all, I think it should depend also how you paid. If you paid w/ Apple Pay, fraud/unauthorized chargebacks shouldn’t be possible and should be easy to respond to since the only way for that charge to occur is a fingerprint/passcode on a device authorized by the bank either over the phone or in text.

You can’t have sellers doing the job of dealing with Paypal. Most of the sellers here are not proficient in English

Even if they aren’t proficient in English, responding to a chargeback can be something as simple as saying, “They authorized the charge. I have proof because they submitted their name and phone number from when they signed up to the platform. That can tie back to their username and their username ordered and communicated with me.” Also, the main language on Fiverr is English, so they should know some basic English, at least enough to respond to the claim.

some are dishonest

Some sellers are dishonest, but if the seller is dishonest then they shouldn’t be getting an unauthorized chargeback, which a lot of people report. They should be getting a “Service not as described” chargeback and they can respond with their proof that the service was described but if they don’t deliver as mentioned in their description, then the bank/cc company can reverse the charge. For the buyer, they have a lot of opportunities to rebut the decision, and the seller just provides their info. If they are a good honest seller, they submit their work that they delivered and their gig link and say they gave the work to the buyer as described.

The majority of sellers don’t even know what a chargeback is.

If they get one, I’m sure they’ll look it up to figure out what it is.

it’s really up to a fiverr staff member if the seller gets a refund

Fiverr staff members can choose what is TOS, but the staff has to follow TOS. They shouldn’t make certain decisions, especially if they don’t know about your work. If you know your work, you can’t ensure you get a refund, but you have a good chance(if you are honest and provided w/ the tools) to win.

directing to Paypal automatically from fiverr

I’m not talking about directing sellers to PayPal, I know what you mean. Thats a horrible idea, Paypal CS will be busy dealing with angry sellers calling them. I’m talking about a built in tool in Fiverr to reply based on the options and the type of dispute.

eBay has some built in safeguards that keep most sellers honest

I don’t think eBay would be a good comparison b/c their main safeguard is tracking numbers but these are digital goods, so its a different scenario. What Fiverr has is IP address records, info like that. Now obviously that can’t be handed over to the seller, but maybe they could have an option in the form that says, “include IP records” or something like that.

The main issue I think this system would cause is privacy, so Fiverr would have to develop it in a way that’s still confidential. Those are my arguments. 🙂 TBH if sellers actually want to discuss a topic, they kind of need to have little debates to address things, so I get your point that you are making, but I have lots of responses to little issues. For the most part, Fiverr’s product team would develop it, but IDK if other people even want this system. And even if they do, what is the likelihood of CS to implement it anyways.

Maybe another option is for Fiverr to notify sellers when there’s a chargeback and allow them to submit their argument, and CS would use that info to reply to the chargeback. Obviously they can’t investigate each individual order, but if they gave buyers the chance to provide info they think is important/helpful for their case and CS used that, I think the rate of winning chargebacks would go way up.

Well it won’t happen. Fiverr has reasons it wants to keep sellers from handling it. Most of the chargebacks may be warranted. Fiverr probably wants to take a look at what happened first to see if a seller is breaking rules somehow.

You would have sellers lying to Paypal saying they delivered as promised when they didn’t do anything at all or deliver anything.

[shifan]

I would love to see Fiverr block access to the order files in case it was a chargeback or cancellation. It’s really unfair we the buyer get the work done for free and we get all the punishment. We loose the money, wast time, enery and to make things worse our profile get affected, we loose 10% of the usual impressions. At least if can block access for the to download the file that would be a some kind relief.

I have seen some buyer cancelling orders after completion. It is very hard to find out the same buyers use the delivered files stealing our valuable resources. This won’t be a perfect solution but it will help if Fiverr can block access to the order page and prevent any further downloads of the files we sent them. Just had an unfortunate cancellation, that will effect my profile. Thank you

[ngtechandapps]

Well it won’t happen. Fiverr has reasons it wants to keep sellers from handling it. Most of the chargebacks may be warranted. Fiverr probably wants to take a look at what happened first to see if a seller is breaking rules somehow.

You would have sellers lying to Paypal saying they delivered as promised when they didn’t do anything at all or deliver anything.

You have a pretty good point.

[victorialyons1]

Well it won’t happen. Fiverr has reasons it wants to keep sellers from handling it. Most of the chargebacks may be warranted. Fiverr probably wants to take a look at what happened first to see if a seller is breaking rules somehow.

You would have sellers lying to Paypal saying they delivered as promised when they didn’t do anything at all or deliver anything.

I agree that sellers shouldn’t handle chargebacks, but a quick look around at other forums shows that Fiverr don’t tend to dispute chargebacks even if they aren’t right.

I’ve just had a cancellation from 3 months ago, the order went through and was completed fine then with no complaints. Only now, 3 months later (coincidently, right before Christmas) has the order been cancelled.

The buyer has blocked me so obviously knows what they’ve done. I’ve raised a complaint with Fiverr as I obviously did deliver and it was fine back then. What are the chances that I’ll get the money back?

If chargebacks are to be dealt with by Fiverr, should they not go directly to fiverr to dispute with the sellers and buyers, rather than just removing money directly from our Fiverr accounts with no explanation?

[donnovan86]

I agree that sellers shouldn’t handle chargebacks, but a quick look around at other forums shows that Fiverr don’t tend to dispute chargebacks even if they aren’t right.

I’ve just had a cancellation from 3 months ago, the order went through and was completed fine then with no complaints. Only now, 3 months later (coincidently, right before Christmas) has the order been cancelled.

The buyer has blocked me so obviously knows what they’ve done. I’ve raised a complaint with Fiverr as I obviously did deliver and it was fine back then. What are the chances that I’ll get the money back?

If chargebacks are to be dealt with by Fiverr, should they not go directly to fiverr to dispute with the sellers and buyers, rather than just removing money directly from our Fiverr accounts with no explanation?

There are PayPal disputes or credit card disputes. Fiverr automatically removes the person in question from the platform if there are chargebacks. So… check and see if they are still on Fiverr.

If they still are on Fiverr, then most likely customer support was contacted and they ruled in your buyer’s favor.

[victorialyons1]

There are PayPal disputes or credit card disputes. Fiverr automatically removes the person in question from the platform if there are chargebacks. So… check and see if they are still on Fiverr.

If they still are on Fiverr, then most likely customer support was contacted and they ruled in your buyer’s favor.

Thanks for the help. I just tried to check, but it takes me back to the buyer homepage when I click his name, but that might be because he’s blocked me? As it’s displaying the message that I can no longer contact the buyer… is that what it does if they’ve been removed?

[donnovan86]

Thanks for the help. I just tried to check, but it takes me back to the buyer homepage when I click his name, but that might be because he’s blocked me? As it’s displaying the message that I can no longer contact the buyer… is that what it does if they’ve been removed?

Try to visit their page in a browser where you are not logged in.

So if you’re using Google Chrome, try Microsoft Edge or Firefox. Don’t login to Fiverr there, just copy the buyer page link to another browser and you will see the result. If they are still active and the page loads, then the buyer blocked you.

If it says that the user is not available, then he is banned. Check that and then you can share your results here.

[victorialyons1]

Try to visit their page in a browser where you are not logged in.

So if you’re using Google Chrome, try Microsoft Edge or Firefox. Don’t login to Fiverr there, just copy the buyer page link to another browser and you will see the result. If they are still active and the page loads, then the buyer blocked you.

If it says that the user is not available, then he is banned. Check that and then you can share your results here.

I’ve searched on a different browser for the username and it says that it can’t be found.

I also checked my own username to see if it was working and it found mine fine. Does this mean he’s been removed then?

[donnovan86]

I’ve searched on a different browser for the username and it says that it can’t be found.

I also checked my own username to see if it was working and it found mine fine. Does this mean he’s been removed then?

Yes, if it says that he’s not available, then clearly he did a chargeback and Fiverr automatically removed his account.