What to do: Nightmare customer, viruses, offensive material etc

[eacopen]

I just finished an order for a customer that I never should have done. Let me explain.



I have an editing service on fiverr that’s kind of new. Business exploded and I got 6 orders in one day the other day. I’m still playing catch up, as some of them are large orders with lots of extras. This customer contacted me and asked for more information. I responded quickly and politely told them I couldn’t help them with their very large order for 2 more days and that I would send them a custom offer due to the nature of their work. They ignored this and ordered my basic gig in a quantity of 3, giving me 24 hours to edit 15,000 words, triple what I normally do in 1 day for 1 customer. I should have cancelled the order but I was afraid it would hurt my rating. I decided to do the order, even if it meant my other 5 orders got pushed back a day.

Then everything went wrong.

They had me retrieve their files from dropbox and all of them were huge. There were 15 files, each between 2mb and 17mb in size due to a bunch of random pictures at the beginning of the file. When I opened one file, my virus program alerted and told me it had a trojan in it. Great. Customer gave me a virus. As if that wasn’t enough, the files took me twice as long to edit as normal because this person had such poor English. I don’t mind working with people who have poor grammar and spelling. It comes with the territory of what I do but this person…90% of the files were gibberish and I had to completely guess at what they were even trying to say. On top of that, they contained offensive material concerning the treatment of women and one article argued that it was funny to watch death row executions. I was very disturbed.



I feel this requires more than just a negative review but I don’t know what to do. I also don’t know how to give the negative review without spooking potential clients. What do I do?

[sincere18]

At the time you opened the first one and it gave you a virus, you should have cancelled the order. And especially when it contained innapropriate content, again you should have cancelled. Then also contact Customer Support and let them know.

I’m not sure what you are saying in terms of giving a negative review, sellers don’t give reviews only buyers.

[eacopen]

When the customer completes the order, it always asks me to say thank you or something like that. Is that not considered a review? I wasn’t aware it was optional. I know I should have cancelled on several occasions. The virus file was the very last one I opened, of course, after spending 5 hours on a $15 gig. How bad does it hurt you to cancel a gig?

[sincere18]

Reply to @eacopen: That comment doesn’t go anywhere public, buyers don’t get reviews (sellers have suggested that they should so other sellers can stay away from the bad ones) but it sounds like that’s just for you to say thank you or give any messages along with the files you are delivering. Does it say “review”?

I would report it to Fiverr Customer Support to let them know your buyer sent documents with a virus and inappropriate s****l material.

[belengarcia]

Reviews given from sellers to buyers are almost worthless, as only your own potencial buyers will see them. They are optional, many sellers don’t rate buyers. I do it, because I think it shows potential buyers that you are polite and take some time to say thank you.

Regarding cancellations, they don’t hurt you in any way when they are mutual. When a buyer or seller requests a mutual cancellation, a message is sent to the other part. The other part has two days (or maybe three?) to accept the mutual cancellation. If it’s not accepted and also not refused, the order cancels but then it’s not mutual, and if you do many of those you can loose your levels.

More info about cancelations:
http://support.fiverr.com/hc/en-us/articles/201505116-Order-Cancellation-Policy

If I were you, I’d have cancelled that order. The buyer was problematic from the beginning, and even if the cancellation was not mutual, it’s better that a bad review. And those problematic buyers are prone to giving bad reviews.

[idesigngraphic]

It sounds like a fraudulent thing to begin with. This person might be going round buying fake gigs (maybe/probably cancelling later on) and making it really hard for the buyer so they cancel (gibberish files & offensive) just so he can affect a lot of people with his virus & hack accounts maybe.

[musiqwrite]

 When you cancel an order, it is impossible for the customer to review you. They can only review you if the order is mutually accepted. Honestly, I don't understand how anyone ever gets bad ratings. I also do proofreading/editing and ran into a similar issue with a man from India who needed his SEO articles revised. 

Like you said, it was mostly gibberish and I had to guess what he meant most of the time. By the end of the proofreading, he took the work and decided to cancel without even requesting a modification and needless to say I was furious. I should've canceled it. I have a policy now that I need to see the work before I accept it, there are way too many SEO mills in the middle east with people dishing out crap writing and ripping off editors like us.

[misscrystal]

As soon as they ignored what you told them about sending them a custom order that should have been your cue to cancel.

[eacopen]

The buyer now requested a modification and uploaded more articles, demanding more work without paying more. Avoid working with Writeandgetpaid. She’s looking for free work.