Fiverr Community Forum

Unreasonable cancellations will cost me thousands

Your Fiverr Experience The Ranting Pot
#1

It has happened again. Dropped from level two to level zero over two periods. Last time it happened, it took about 8 months of huge effort and the support of my old customers to come right. I have done nearly 800 gigs in over 50 countries and I have a high proportion of 5’s. I am nearly hitting the $20,000 level. My last buyer comment was ‘A rare person who has the intelligence to be able to think as if the business was his own and deliver work of high quality. Very well done’.

So I have to reduce the number of gigs from 30 to 7. My buyer offers are also now limited. I rely on many gigs and a few buyers in each gig category. I respond to many buyer offers and I have a system to make it both professional and easy. I have responded to over 2000 offers. Works for me and my buyers.

What is most annoying is that none of my recent cancellations are justifiable from my perspective. I worked hard in each case and gave my full professional service. One was from a guy buying his second gig - and I suspect he was very young. In other cases, the people cancelled and clearly they did not have the ability to convey what they wanted done.

I think that buyers think that cancelling merely costs me time and money related to that gig, but ‘no’ it costs me reputation and status - and consequently lots of money beyond their gig…

I would really like to drop all my other activities (on line and off line) and concentrate on Fiverr. But because I am vulnerable to the actions of silly unprofessional buyers, this is not a viable option. This current action will cost me thousands.

I do hope that Fiverr would realize that having good sellers is a pre-requisite to getting buyers - and that Fiverr would do more to protect those sellers who have established themselves.

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#2
#3

Yes, that might stop some of them. You would get the order defined before you agree to it. I would prefer that cancellations do not affect your status. you are already penalised, because you have done the work., they have it, and you are not going to get paid. maybe your status advises how many cancellations that you have so if you have too many people will not select you.

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#4

So you delivered work and your buyers didn’t like it and you had to cancel?

Then here is the question: in which cases it would be sellers fault and sellers ratio SHOULD affect statstistics?

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#5

mariashtelle1 - my understanding is that I fulfilled my part of the contract - they cancelled without reason. There is nothing I can do about it.

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#6

That’s not the question I asked :wink:

I am curious to hear your opinion on what will be legitimate cancellation then? In which cases cancellations should affect sellers stats?

For now what I read on the forum is that sellers complaining about any cancellations and all of them are unfair and bla bla bla.
But then the question is arising so what is a “fair cancellation”?
None of the cancellations are fair if it already came to a cancellation situation on your order but we do need to define which ones will affect stats and which ones wouldn’t.

In my opinion cancellations SHOULD NOT affect if the order was placed mistakenly, if order was placed for a cheaper gig option and requirements are not covered int that package, if there is no requirements provided and couple of other situations.

However if you did deliver your order and could not manage to come to agreement with your client then in this situation for me it is fair to say that it’s on you to take a hit. Like in any other offline or online business if client is unhappy.
Of restraint has a client who didn’t like the food, it’s still on restaurant and it’s the restaurant who will get a bad review even if they prepared food as they usually do and up to their quality but unfortunately not to the quality that client expected.

It is part of you responsibility as a business to resolve such situations.

2 Likes
#7

If the buyer so chooses, there is no mechanism for discussing or solving the situation. The buyer gets their money back. Apart from the fact that the buyer may have lost some time, there is no downside for them. In fact if a buyer cancelled a lot, I would have no way of knowing this. And when they cancel with me, I do not know if they have cancelled a lot in the past.

Yes, I have had gigs cancelled with no reason given - or no real reason at least.

I have had gigs cancelled where I was not given the chance of putting it right.

I have had gigs cancelled before I even saw the gig was there.

I have had people order two gigs when they only meant to order only one.

I am happy to take a hit for a cancellation. I spent time and I getting nothing for it. That is a significant hit. That is business.

But if you get several cancellations, you lose your time, you get bumped down the system, you can have less gigs, you get less buyer requests (and they can be the ones you do not particularly want). It takes months to get back to where you were. So a few cancellations of a few cheap gigs can cost thousands of dollars.

In your restaurant example, the restaurant does not have to limit their menu. They do not have to close down half their tables. They lose their money and have a bad report. That is it.

Kerry

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#8

One of My Client Placed Two order instead of one mistakenly and I have to cancel one after which My Ranking drop drastically. There must a system to justify cancellation without reason. But Unfortunately fiverr don’t give Damn about seller they only care about buyers

#9

To be fair neither can buyers. That’s why I believe cancellations (%) should be made public. As a buyer I would give preference to a seller that has a higher order completion rate, and as a seller I’d likely pass a buyer with a high cancellation rate.

I believe that would also reduce the amount of sellers cancelling not to get a bad review, which would also mean buyers that use review as a leverage would have a harder time trying to get work for free.

3 Likes
#10

Out of curiosity, did you initiate the cancellations, or the buyer? Which cancel choice did they use?

https://sellers.fiverr.com/en/article/cancellations-and-how-to-avoid-them

>The Buyer Ordered By Mistake Or Ordered Twice.
In this case, it’s the buyer responsibility to cancel the order. However, if the buyer does not cancel the order, we recommend using the Resolution Center to initiate cancellation.

I do agree that these ones should not affect the seller.

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#11

They initiated the cancellations. I never agreed with their reason, but I did agree to cancel.

#12

You know, tbh, that’s the aspect I have never been able to wrap my head around ever since the statistics started. I can never understand how sellers get penalized and take the hit when it’s an obvious case of ‘I sell oranges but the buyer wants apples’. I’ve had to cancel a fair amount of orders because buyers would fail to see that I’m a copywriter and not a designer. So many have asked me to design logos when I have clearly specified that I do NOT provide graphic design services. Quite frustrating. I’ve spoken to CS so many times regarding this as well. Half the time I get a generic reply detailing their sincere apologies regarding their inability to circumvent the algorithm (the apology is an apology in itself). There should definitely be instances where some kinds of cancellations should not affect the seller statistics.

#13

You can reject cancellations. If your delivered work reflects the quality of your gig samples, the buyer isn’t entitled to a cancellation.

If you’re getting this many cancellations then I’d try and reevaluate how you’re delivering or adjust your gigs so that people know exactly what to expect.

Reject cancellations if they’re unfair. Take the mediocre/bad review.

Also, CS will cancel for y’all if the buyer is at fault. I feel like I have said this so many times. If the buyer ordered by mistake - contact CS. If the buyer ordered a logo and you don’t sell logos - contact CS. Yes the wait time is long, but if you’re about to be demoted because you already have so many cancellations, it is definitely worth waiting.

5 Likes
#14

Whoa, STOP offering free unlimited revisions!!! Immediately! Like, yesterday!

You have hundreds of 5-star reviews. WHY are you still offering unlimited revisions?

I was wondering why you get so many cancellations. Well no wonder! The client expects absolute guaranteed perfection and if you don’t meet all of their demands, then they didn’t get what they asked for.

I promise you, you are attracting the wrong kinds of buyers with unlimited revisions. If you want to be flexible with revisions, offer 5! That is LOADS! Unlimited is totally unnecessary and will continue to attract cancel-grabby buyers.

10 Likes
#15

Even though I do offer unlimited revisions, nobody ever asks for more than 2! And people who ask for revisions usually do not cancel. They and I are working together to get it right. Often because their original request was not quite perfect or they thought of something else. I think such revisions are just ‘business’ and I do not have a problem with honest revisions. Kerry

#16

Sometimes, I wake up and see notification from my fiverr app that somebody place an offer while I was sleeping. Usually, I have never spoke with the person and it ruins my day.

One week ago, I get an order from this guy from a 800$ order and he is like " I need this and this and this" I was like wait, put another 0 to that order because this is not a work for 800$ and I made him cancel the order. It ruined my score of course, and I make that clear to him.
If I could I would send him an invoice with the monetary loss that I have due to his actions, I would have done it.

So unprofessional …

#18

Exactly, something similar happendd to me around this time last year, it took 2-3 months of responding requests, offering discounted services, and touching base with previous clients offering steep discounts to get stats back up.

Of course, right about the time everything was coming back (around Feb/March) - the COVID stuff hit and the country shutdown and suddenly, my clients couldn’t afford to outsource content.

Work is just now starting to pick up again, about 5 months later. This week alone I had two people ask to cancel within hours of placing the order, now my cancellation rate is around 85%.

#19

Your complaint is that these cancellations will cost you thousands, yet you don’t want to remove the thing that is most likely to make them happen…

The characters who pull these stunts prey on people who offer this, plus you have zero protection contractually if you offer it. And no true professional would take someone seriously if they offer unlimited revisions because they’ll wonder why it would take you many times to.get it right.

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#20

I think that is a professional duty to offer many revisions. So I do. But I repeat that those who ask for revisions do not cancel - we are just two people trying to get it right.

#21

It isn’t a professional duty to offer a lot of revisions. It makes me sad that you’ve been conditioned to think that way.

2 Likes