This is not ok

[eduardujeniuc]

Alright alright alright, So 2 days ago I changed alot at my profile and started taking offers. 2 guys hired me. 1 for translation and 1 for a video.
I made the translation, got the money, and is alright for both
But the video guy was suspicious, he told me to make a video “Idea is A man is Running on the Road and police is behind him and then one helicopter is coming and a man gone with the helicopter” So this is what he wanted me to do. I did a 3 minutes video with that short idea, And made a tiny story from nothing. And now, when i told him is over. He sent me a offer to pay him 30$ for giving him the video. I explained him that he has to accept my custom offer of 10$ that is 3 times lower then he wanted to give me, and he said that if i dont give video now he asks someone else. I told him again, You have to pay me and then i give video, thats how it works. But now he doesent respond. He might have scammed me and made me make a video for nothing, I staid 5 hours to film and edit that video. And now he just said i have to give the video for free. What can i do?

[emmaki]

Don’t work for free.

You can’t do anything. It seems to me you spend more time moaning than learning more practical aspects of freelancing, such as rule #1: don’t work for free.

I can only imagine what the video looks like.

[eduardujeniuc]

but let’s say he pays me before i give him the video. and then he doesent want the video anymore, will fiverr give back his money?

[jameskanata]

You state," thats how it works," But, well, that’s not how it works.

I was a Buyer for sometime before I recently became a Seller. You are dealing with the fundamentals of how Fiverr works in terms of money going from the Buyer to the Seller. You must understand that you should not do anything for a Buyer unless they have actually paid for it first. emmaki is correct. If you do the work first without the Buyer making a purchase, then you are working for free and taking the risk that they Buyer will not pay.

The fundamental Fiverr concept you need to understand is that the Buyer does not pay you. He or she pays Fiverr. Fiverr then puts the money into escrow, which is a silly English word that means Fiverr holds on to the money. When you are finished the work that the Buyer has ordered, and you have delivered it, then Fiverr takes the Buyer’s money that they have, and they pass it onto you, minus their fee.

In this way, the Buyer actually pays for the work ahead of time before you do any work. This is what protects you from Buyers not paying for work you do. If you don’t do the work, Fiverr takes the money they have, and they give it back to the Buyer.

That’s how it works.

Yes, there are variations and complications that sometimes (!) come up in the process, such as mutual cancellations.

I hope others will post helpful information on such scenarios in reply to your post. (That should start an avalanche).

There is a language barrier at play in your post, but my interpretation is that you did indeed do the work before the Buyer paid for it. Unfortunately, the Buyer does not have to pay if that is the case. Yes, I understand what you mean when you say in your post’s title that, “This is not ok,” but, well it is. You took a risk and it did not work out.

IF, HOWEVER, your Buyer placed a Custom Order for you for $10 (or was that $30?), and you did the work, and delivered it, then contact Customer Service using the request type of Trust and Safety. Best to first go to the Customer Support Page via the hyperlink at the bottom of most pages, and on the right, click on Trust and Safety, and read the Policies and Violations first. You’ll also want to give the Terms of Service a THOROUGH read.

Let’s be clear that agreeing to do some work via agreement by Messages going back and forth is NOT a Custom Order. Perhaps this is where things went wrong. What do you mean by, “He sent me a offer to pay him 30$”? Was it a Custom Offer as opposed to a message? Did you accept it?

In response to your second post “but let’s say he pays me before i give him the video. and then he doesent want the video anymore, will fiverr give back his money?” the answer is 99% no, Fiverr will not give him his money back, provided he does not have a problem with what you have sent him. Even if he does, deal with Trust and Safety. There are variations on this scenario too. Again, please, please read the Terms of Service.

Your original post is a little confusing because of the language barrier. For more precise responses from people, especially if you decide to deal with Trust and Safety, give this post a reply and let people know EXACTLY whether:

A) You did the work BEFORE any payment was made, OR,
B) Payment was made first, and THEN you did the work, OR,
C) You and he came to an agreement by messaging one another with NO Custom Order being placed, but you did the work anyway.

Your original post is not clear.

Um, yeah. Don’t work for free, and if you do and don’t get paid - yes - that’s not a nice feeling, but unfortunately it is OK.

Lordy, that’s a long post. Someone pay me $5.

[emmaki]

Well, James, you took a risk… (regarding the $5 payment for your post!)

I understood that the $30 was the buyer asking for $30 to accept it, rather than pay for it, with some nasty implications. That said, Eduard, you face some rather more significant problems now that your nice writer buyer only gave you a 4.5 star review.

I’d start again with permission from Customer Support. But BEFORE I did that, I’d read a lot more and learn more about how it all works. And please–only ENG–>RO translation work. Trust me on that.

[fonthaunt]

Probably, because if your gig description isn’t clear, he can claim you didn’t deliver what your description says. You need to go back to the Fiverr Academy, read a lot more threads (without adding to them for a while) and go through the Support Team Knowledgebase. Then, start over with your profile, tagline and gigs.

Think like a businessman, not a High School student. Even your profile picture says “I don’t really care.”

This random start without understanding is going to end you worse than when you started. That’s real advice.

[fonthaunt]

That was a super long post, and from me, that’s saying something since I’m currently the Queen of long posts. Are you trying to steal my title? Also, how did you get all this info being new? Fess up, if you are a long-time buyer/forum-reader your account is new so… New account after problems? I promise you, with your ability to help on this forum I’m not going to give you a hard time. I will give you advice in case you have more than one account, since you really need to close any extras so you can stick around and do more of this forum stuff. I might not pay for $5 for the post (although maybe for some real proofreading which I hate!) but I am very curious as to how you learned this much.

My only thoughts would be: Trust & Safety in Customer Support is usually for reporting gigs that violate the Terms of Service or bad accounts. Even so, if someone chose a slightly off-dropdown their ticket will still get routed OK. I thought escrow was more of a French word, stolen by the English. The English, particular the British people like @emmaki are very good at word theft. Americans just invent their own words, like ya’ll. However, I could be easily disputed on the etymology of escrow since I didn’t bother to look it up and just wanted to point out all of the reasons your post is only a $4.67 post, not a $5 post. 😉

(I hope you have a sense of humor. Feel free to yell @emmaki if not, because it’s probably her fault.)

[fonthaunt]

@eduardujeniuc Although I spent some time giving @jameskanata a hard time for fun, he actually gave you quite a few useful pieces of information. You may be confusing different things, which he hinted at.

There are Custom Quotes and Custom Offers and Custom Orders. It can be confusing because Fiverr uses the terms in strange ways. If you gave your buyer a Custom Quote - that is something he would have needed to pay and accept. If the other person sent you a Custom Offer for $30, either you were confused or you were both confused and that would mean you would have accepted and he would eventually end up with the money. On your gig page, there is a spot that says people can sent you a Custom Order. That means they are offering to pay for for doing something that they will describe to you.

It would be nice if these were all named better. In all of those cases, the person who does the paying part pays Fiverr, as @jameskanata said. Fiverr pays the person who gets the funds 14 days after the order is complete. I’m really wondering what came of this thing with you. Come back and speak up, now that half the forum knows who you are.

[eduardujeniuc]

'Thanks, I will try and change my profile

[eduardujeniuc]

Alright so let me clear this. He began like this. Sent me a message telling me. "make me video with guy…"
I said, Alright. first i give you the offer you accept and we start.
He said ok.
I sent him the offer, after 10 minutes he tells me, Make the video now or i send to someone else to make it. (he is really bad at english, i just translate as i could what he said)
I said, that i’m working on it. Being the first time to get paid i was really not wanting to loose my first oportunity to work here.
So i started making the video.
Than i said to him. If you want the video accept my offer.
And guess what he does? Starts Yelling(caps lock) saying that i have to send him the video now or he goes to someone else. I said FIRST ACCEPT THE OFFER.
He then did this. Sent me an offer with 30$. So he thought that i have to make the video. give it to him and them pay him 30$ for making the video FOR HIM.
Like, What the actual F$%# !!!
So i don;t say that he deserves punishment or anything like this. I understand there is nothing i can do to him. But the idea is that i was really excited to make my first work, because after the first time you get more work.(thats what everyone told me)
But yeah. Sorry for loosing your time 😦

[emmaki]

Dude, he made you work for free. That’s not work, that’s exploitation. It’s not your first time to get paid, it’s not your first opportunity to work here. It’s just an a*****e who wants to scam you.

Anyway, don’t make that mistake again.

[eduardujeniuc]

But I didn’t know that, I was scared that i would loose my
"first opportunity" But I don’t know what to say. I really thought i was going to make some money 😦 that’s why it’s sad

[newsmike]

I think the best advice you will ever get is “Don’t work for free.”

As a voiceover seller, we get asked to record sample scripts all the time. If they like the sample, then they promise to hire you for the entire job. Problem is that often after you record their sample, they are gone forever, as the sample was the entire job and you have been scammed.

That’s why when asked for a sample, we send a file containing part of a previous job we did, or just redirect them to the gig page to listen to the demo.

[eoinfinnegan]

Hey Eduard, you have had a bad experience. It’s a pity because you seem like a decent kid. Put it behind you and learn the lesson. If someone does not place an order then you do no work. I remember being a new seller and getting excited every time I got a message, thinking I was getting an order. Unfortunately there are many buyers who will seek out new sellers for this reason - new sellers are desperate for orders and are more likely to do more and not always know how things work.
If a buyer is unreasonable, just respond with an “I’m not available” or “I cannot begin working on that until the order is placed”.
Don’t be too disheartened, we all make mistakes and we all have to learn from them. Stick with it, try to be a little selective with your buyers and make offers in buyer requests. You will get there if you stick to it.
Good luck!

[brejay]

Getting your first gig is really exciting. I’m sorry it had to coincide with some jerk scammer like that. I think everyone here has dealt with scammers and many of us have lost money or at least lost time dealing with them. I know I made similar mistakes, like writing 2,000 word articles with research for $5 and my client taking credit for them when they were published. Ouch. Not cool, but sadly legal.

Don’t get discouraged. Just be on your guard. The whole world is full of crazies like that. But there are a lot of great clients out there, too.

[psychicbunny]

Yes I agree with emmaki!

[jameskanata]

Lordy, I thought this thread would have come to an end by now.

Hi fonthaunt - Noticed your post(s). My thanks for your kind words. My eyes are sleepy and the battery low, so I shall answer many questions in a day or two.

ps - Saw your extra pointers to Eduard in another post. You are generous. Yes, glad to see that at least the pic has changed. Ask him for $5.

[eduardujeniuc]

I can’t be selective when i only got 1 order till now:))

[eoinfinnegan]

You always have to be selective - otherwise you end up doing work for free! It is worth doing a lot for $5 and a good review, it is not worth doing work for nothing!

[jameskanata]

Replying to my own reply - awkward.

I don’t mind someone else being the Queen of Long Posts. I will be happy so long as I am eventually King.

Any credible knowledge I’ve put on display comes from being a Buyer for about a year. I had excellent experiences with many a Seller.

I also had two very nasty ones that occurred at the same time involving multiple TOS violations with 2 Sellers. Thus started an influx of learning at my end when I reported them to Customer Support. (The inclusion of Trust and Safety within Customer Support is duly noted). I partly lived and breathed TOS and Trust and Safety policies for about two weeks at that time, so I believe those experiences are my primary sources of knowledge.

(“MODS!!! We have a Seller, who once was a Buyer, who reported two Sellers to Customer Support!!!” Yup, you’re darn right I did, and proud of it too).

I did have a previous account I used for Buying, but wanted a new one as a Seller, so that my “Member since . . .” date would be more recent; (all approved by CS; no account problems).

I definitely need to go around the block many a time first before I shall even be able to spell moderater.

The Brits and language . . . um, yes, I have noticed some of them here spelling certain words without a “u.” It just doesn’t take much labour to include a “u” especially if one focuses on it for a fortnight. My theory on “escrow” is that some Anglophone wrote the French down phonetically and it stuck.

Many thanks for the interest, and I hope I can make a positive contribution to the community.

Cheers