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What Is Wrong With Fiverr?


seoarticlesprof

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What an odd title for a write-up, you’d say. But I’d like you to ask yourself this question too: Is anything wrong with Fiverr and the way it handles cases that involve sellers?

Fiverr has provided a platform for many writers, talented individuals and skilled professionals to show-case their skill and talent but can they actually claim to have a perfect system of operation? Has the organization proven, through its current modus-operandi, that they have the capacity to grow and maintain a larger customer base?

I do not intend to use this to paint a bad image of Fiverr; i strongly believe everyone should get better when their weaknesses are brought in to the open. I am sure my friend is not the only seller with the problems i am about to point out.

I was stirred to write this because of a discussion i had with a couple of friends. A friend of mine who is also a seller on Fiverr had a fatal experience with a buyer which i have tried to narrate in few words:

"The buyer offered him a job to write 12 articles in three days (Personally i wouldn’t give you that kind of turn-around time even if you offered me $100). He accepted the offer and as you would have imagined, he failed to present an outstanding job. The buyer accused my friend of forgery and impersonation, he didn’t even give him the opportunity to correct the mistakes on the articles before he started cursing him with words like ‘you piss of shit, f**k you’, ‘they ought to ban you’ etc.

He eventually reported him to Fiverr admin.

Fiverr withdrew the contract from my friend thirty minutes later."

While i was with him, he kept repeating the same words: what is wrong with those people? What the hell is wrong with them? He was really devastated by the experience.

In my opinion, a reasonable buyer ought to know that you can’t write 12 perfect articles in three days, even if you are a wizard, you will still have to correct one or two things after three days of relentless writing.

But we are not all reasonable personalities (no offense intended), we are all business men trying to make a living. In our bid to survive, we can be a bit unreasonable every now and then, so it all boils down to caution.

Are you like my friend? Have you ever been insulted on Fiverr before, your work trashed and you’ve been made to feel like you are useless after spending tons of hours on a write-up of $5?

You are not alone my friend.

As regarding the story i narrated above, it is expected that when a writer writes, he shouldn’t write under duress. I will never accept that kind of contract but the experience i narrated above begs the following questions.

What package does Fiverr have to protect its sellers from scam buyers like this, is there any special protective package for sellers like they have for buyers?

I was surprised to hear that the money was just withdrawn from his account. He couldn’t defend himself, he couldn’t get back his article again, and he was just helpless.

Is there a way my content can be protected if a buyer rejects it, after all i have already sent him something? What if he rejects the write-up, collects his money back from me and later use the content of my rejected write-up, am i protected against such occurrences?

Am i protected against verbal abuse, insults, and exploitation on Fiverr?

Finally, let me sound a special note of warning to all sellers: Fiverr is a profit-making organization concerned with creating a platform for selling your talents but they are keen on the cash. So don’t be surprised that when issues arise, they will defend the buyer, not you.

And besides, buyers bring the money, sellers collect. So they over-protect the buyers forgetting the labour, effort, pain and time you have put into your art.

Watch out for yourself, don’t sell yourself cheap and be wise when dealing with buyers.
Try to prevent helpless situations that will make you say, like my friend said, 'what the hell is wrong with those people?’

Thank you

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12 articles in three days? The most I’ve written within that time frame in general is 3 (one 1K+ word and two 600-800 word). While on another site I got stuck with a buyer that at first glance was seen to be decent but later discovered they weren’t all that great.

Their job request for writing was reasonable enough because they wanted me to write articles based specific keywords. Simple enough till I saw that the articles weren’t focused on a single group of keywords but a jumble of keywords that would have made for awkward reading; it also didn’t help that they took forever to respond (the response after the deadline wasn’t a pleasant one either).

No one’s truly safe from these types of behaviors nor mannerisms. The best anyone can do is roll with the punches and hope CS handle the situations accordingly.

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This will sound harsh but this is the reality of the world and especially the internet.

Your friend accepted a job he could not do well in the time provided.
That is his fault.

The Buyer was obnoxious.
He shouldn’t be but there are people like that out there. These may have been for someone else that he also had a deadline for which could explain his reaction a little. Or he could just be an a*****e.

Yes, we can spend hours on work to earn our $5, does that mean the buyer should be oh so thankful to us?
No, it is a business transaction. Buyers don’t care whether it took 5 minutes or 5 hours. If it is what they wanted they are happy, if not then they are not happy.

Are we protected against exploitation etc?
That is up to you. This is the world of self-employment/freelancing. It’s not for everyone. If you want someone to stand up for you in times of difficulty you need to get an employer. Or a lawyer.

What is wrong with these people?
They want the best work for the lowest cost they can (generally). That can cause people to act irrationally. What may be a small order worth less than $4 to you may be a major part of a new enterprise or business plan, it may be the most important thing for them at that time. You need to treat it as such.

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I think your friend bit off more than he could chew.
He got into difficulties, made a buyer very angry at him, and had to give back the money the buyer paid. It’s not a big deal. Hopefully he learned from it.

Regarding this:
"Am i protected against verbal abuse, insults, and exploitation on Fiverr?"
Answer: No. Welcome to the world of business.

Your friend made a mistake and brought this on himself when he took a job he couldn’t do. I turn down potential buyers when they want what I can’t deliver.

I’m sorry he was spoken to so rudely and that was wrong of the buyer to do that.

"So don’t be surprised that when issues arise, they will defend the buyer, not you."
This isn’t true. I find fiverr customer support to be very fair.

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If I had a dollar for every time when person I was working with (online/offline) verbal abused me (though I don t find cursing as verbal abuse, I don t really take that as a abuse at all), insulted or exploited I would be a millionaire…and if I had a dollar for all of that in personal life I would be a billionaire… Welcome to life and grow some *******.

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Sorry, but I have to agree with the overall consensus so far. We pay a commission to have some basics handled like a degree of promotion, a CS department, a payment handling system and a very mild system of arbitration. We have the freedom to set our own hours and decide what we want to do with our skills but it’s not a job where you have a Human Resources department looking after everything from your taxes to a degree of your job satisfaction.

When you work on Fiverr, you are a business owner. Some customers are going to treat you like dirt, some will demand a 90% discount (which you can refuse) and some will demand their money back. You can protect your own work in many cases with takedown notices or watermarked work. Sometimes the buyer will get away with the product and is the equivalent of a shoplifter. It’s another risk of business.

The friend you describe not only accepted a job that he wasn’t able to do, he delivered a faulty product to a paying customer. If I buy a nice outfit that I want to wear tonight, get to my car and realize it had a stain on it, I’ll return it. I don’t wait for the store to try to clean it. If they can’t give me the right product then I want my money back. I do agree that we are not all reasonable personalities and sure, we sellers are all business men (and women) trying to make a living. Sure I feel terrible when a buyer treats me badly, but I won’t trade my freelancing for the alternative so far.

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Your friend on one side, did a mistake. He accepted a deadline of 3 days. He simply accepted a deadline that he cannot manage to deliver. On the other side, the buyer insulted him. This is very serious. Buyers insulting sellers the way they like its not good. Fiverr support should take a step towards this issue

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Well, welcome to life like @magy1808 said. Although situations like this can be avoided. Which is why SELLERS should not be in a hurry to just accept anything all because of the pay, but rather focus on their strength.

In this situation I can’t overly say the buyer was a SCAM, when the seller projected he could achieve all the goals. In business, learn to be candid about what you can offer; if a buyer wants it fine, if they don’t fine as well. This way, the SELLER will have a justifiable evidence against the BUYER, because some BUYERs too in actual sense are Fraudulent people.

See this shared: Managing Time, Selling Faster

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Yeah I totally missed the fact that seller didn t do what was agreed with an order. So, in this case seller did huge mistake. Never accept job you can not do. It is like this: oh yummy, money, I will accept this even though I know I can t do it, but who cares after I f***** up, I will just write raging post on forum and look for an empathy, it doesn t matter that I didn t do my job.

In offline situation that seller would get fired. Thank god this is online so they can continue working and crying about bad buyer for whom they didn t do work. booooo-effin-hoooooo

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Well i agree with the issue of your friend biting more than he could chew. OMG! 12 articles? he shouldn’t have accepted such offer. the buyer should have paid more and split the work among other buyers and not being so miserly that he had to contact all to one person to perform magic. but the issue of fiverr protecting originally sent document which was rejected, i think something should be done about it. as you have sent out a document and buyer rejects,what of if he was just pulling some stunts to avoid paying for it. he may later use the documents. well fiverr is the best selling place that needs more improvement too. lets listen to the voices of the fiverr users no matter how unreasonable they may sound. that is my own submission. thank you

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