Worst Day at Fiverr ever! (well... till now)

[wasi0013]

Woke up in the morning with a notification that, one of my buyer cancelled a 5 star rated delivered order of 285$ out of the blue (Completed it 22 days ago and withdrawn the fee). Fiverr is showing negative balance right now 😕

Got this feedback from the seller support center

Sam Today at 13:46
Hello,

Thank you for reaching out. I’m very sorry to hear about this.

The transactions referred to were canceled due to alerts from our security department. Alerts can result from a chargeback of the payment by the buyer, an alert from our payment vendor, or an alert from other users within our network of suspicious buyer activity. In such cases, we may be required to cancel a transaction or put it on hold for your own protection (for example, a stolen credit card or other fraud activities). This is part of the service we provide to maintain a safe environment for our users.

Please keep in mind that when you don’t get paid, neither does Fiverr, and we have no access to the funds. Our Trust & Safety Team is currently reviewing the buyer’s account. Due to our Privacy Policy, we cannot disclose any actions that will be taken by our Trust & Safety Team regarding the buyer’s account.

We appreciate your understanding.

The balance will zero out when your revenue funds clear. 😦

Please let me know if you have any additional questions or concerns.

Kind Regards,

Some moments ago, Got another notification when I returned from my office showing:

Your Do data mining and web scraping GIG is denied!
DENY REASONS
Suspicion of fraud or spam - This Gig raises suspicions of being a fraudulent service, spam or > potentially violating Fiverr or a third party TOS.

Created another ticket and waiting for hearing what does that even mean??

I have been providing web scraping services since beginning and already completed around 20 orders most of these are web scraping/ data mining tasks. More importantly, majority of my ratings I have got from that gig (15+). I didn’t get any negative review yet! The only negative review I got was on another gig… Well that’s another story

I don’t believe I will get those 285 dollars back… and, I wonder what will happen to my best selling gig…
P.S: That buyer;s account is not accessible right now!

[uxreview]

Quote

Please keep in mind that when you don’t get paid, neither does Fiverr, and we have no access to the funds.

I wonder who came up with that template to calm down customers 😃

 

If you have some time left over and you’re ready for a long fight then contact BBB with this.
https://www.bbb.org/consumer-complaints/file-a-complaint/get-started

It doesn’t have to be BBB, you can find another place to complain about the service.

[wasi0013]

If you have some time left over and you’re ready for a long fight then contact BBB with this.

https://www.bbb.org/consumer-complaints/file-a-complaint/get-started

It doesn’t have to be BBB, you can find another place to complain about the service.

Does it work? I have never heard of it before tbh.

[uxreview]

Does it work? I have never heard of it before tbh.

Based on my experience maybe 30% of the time it works (don’t know Fiverr stats though). With $5 order I wouldn’t bother, but $285 is a pretty decent size to ask at least.

The bottom line is that once the credit is paid out it’s not actually your problem anymore. Fiverr holds your credit for 14days, anything after that is their problem.

[wasi0013]

On 12/16/2017 at 11:32 AM, uxreview said:

Based on my experience maybe 30% of the time it works (don’t know Fiverr stats though). With $5 order I wouldn’t bother, but $285 is a pretty decent size to ask at least.

The bottom line is that once the credit is paid out it’s not actually your problem anymore. Fiverr holds your credit for 14days, anything after that is their problem.

Yes, what makes me afraid is what if it happens to the larger projects that I have delivered. It made me feel kind of insecure!

[cyaxrex]

Based on my experience maybe 30% of the time it works (don’t know Fiverr stats though). With $5 order I wouldn’t bother, but $285 is a pretty decent size to ask at least.

The bottom line is that once the credit is paid out it’s not actually your problem anymore. Fiverr holds your credit for 14days, anything after that is their problem.

Dare I ask if you have tried this yourself with Fiverr?

[uxreview]

Dare I ask if you have tried this yourself with Fiverr?

Nope, but I’ve dealt with similar BBB escalations quite a few times myself representing companies much bigger than Fiverr. Sometimes we won, sometimes we didn’t. We had entire teams to fight off chargebacks because it was a loss for the company not for the client. Our fraud team was working their ass off to prevent these in the first place because with every chargeback there was a penalty fee and if it went over certain % then we might have even lost PayPal as a payment method.

I don’t know how hard Fiverr tries to fight these off, but it’s worth trying. Once the funds are released Fiverr has no right to ask the money back from you.

[cyaxrex]

Nope, but I’ve dealt with similar BBB escalations quite a few times myself representing companies much bigger than Fiverr. Sometimes we won, sometimes we didn’t. We had entire teams to fight off chargebacks because it was a loss for the company not for the client. Our fraud team was working their ass off to prevent these in the first place because with every chargeback there was a penalty fee and if it went over certain % then we might have even lost PayPal as a payment method.

I don’t know how hard Fiverr tries to fight these off, but it’s worth trying. Once the funds are released Fiverr has no right to ask the money back from you.

Our fraud team was working their ass off to prevent these in the first place because with every chargeback there was a penalty fee and if it went over certain % then we might have even lost PayPal as a payment method.

Yes, I’m aware of this. Also, research shows that once people use chargebacks, there is a 60% chance they will do so again within 30-days. It becomes a habitiual kind of self-justified fraud. i.e. My new Alienware laptop took a day later to arrive and because of this, the retailer failed to provide me with the service agreed upon. I’m entitled to a refund so I’ll use a chargeback to get one.

I do wonder how Fiverr gets away with nicking funds back from sellers after payment clearance periods are over. What is more, I can’t understand why Fiverr doesn’t switch to an actual Escrow payment system.

[uxreview]

Our fraud team was working their ass off to prevent these in the first place because with every chargeback there was a penalty fee and if it went over certain % then we might have even lost PayPal as a payment method.

Yes, I’m aware of this. Also, research shows that once people use chargebacks, there is a 60% chance they will do so again within 30-days. It becomes a habitiual kind of self-justified fraud. i.e. My new Alienware laptop took a day later to arrive and because of this, the retailer failed to provide me with the service agreed upon. I’m entitled to a refund so I’ll use a chargeback to get one.

I do wonder how Fiverr gets away with nicking funds back from sellers after payment clearance periods are over. What is more, I can’t understand why Fiverr doesn’t switch to an actual Escrow payment system.

I do wonder how Fiverr gets away with nicking funds back from sellers after payment clearance periods are over.

They probably keep using templates until they get a pushback from sellers. Let’s say the amount is 10K, would a seller drop that account or keep working for free until it’s paid off? 🙂

If it was 10K for me then I’d just walk and say you can work out that negative balance yourself. Funds are cleared, I’ve used it so have a nice day.

And that template saying Fiverr didn’t get paid either 😃

Well I would respond that I did get paid, funds were cleared so it’s your problem.

[wasi0013]

I do wonder how Fiverr gets away with nicking funds back from sellers after payment clearance periods are over.

They probably keep using templates until they get a pushback from sellers. Let’s say the amount is 10K, would a seller drop that account or keep working for free until it’s paid off? 🙂

If it was 10K for me then I’d just walk and say you can work out that negative balance yourself. Funds are cleared, I’ve used it so have a nice day.

And that template saying Fiverr didn’t get paid either 😃

Well I would respond that I did get paid, funds were cleared so it’s your problem.

Let’s say the amount is 10K, would a seller drop that account or keep working for free until it’s paid off? 🙂

If it was 10K for me then I’d just walk and say you can work out that negative balance yourself. Funds are cleared, I’ve used it so have a nice day.

😄

But, In my case of 285$, the problem is Fiverr is holding funds as pending clearance which will cover it up. So, no chance for me 😅

[uxreview]

Let’s say the amount is 10K, would a seller drop that account or keep working for free until it’s paid off? 🙂

If it was 10K for me then I’d just walk and say you can work out that negative balance yourself. Funds are cleared, I’ve used it so have a nice day.

😄

But, In my case of 285$, the problem is Fiverr is holding funds as pending clearance which will cover it up. So, no chance for me 😅

If it’s within that 14day clearance period then it’s a problem 😃

But I thought you already took that money out.

[miiila]

I´m pretty sure I´ve seen not just one but a couple posts here very recently by sellers who got 50% from Fiverr in such cases, that´s not enough if you did 100% of your work, sure, but better than 0%.

[uxreview]

I´m pretty sure I´ve seen not just one but a couple posts here very recently by sellers who got 50% from Fiverr in such cases, that´s not enough if you did 100% of your work, sure, but better than 0%.

I´m pretty sure I´ve seen not just one but a couple posts here very recently by sellers who got 50% from Fiverr in such cases, that´s not enough if you did 100% of your work, sure, but better than 0%.

Yep, that can easily be the case because then Fiverr only loses half. We used compensations as well to shut these cases down 😃

[wasi0013]

If it’s within that 14day clearance period then it’s a problem 😃

But I thought you already took that money out.

I have took it. But, some other projects are pending clearance. 🙂

[cyaxrex]

Let’s say the amount is 10K, would a seller drop that account or keep working for free until it’s paid off? 🙂

If it was 10K for me then I’d just walk and say you can work out that negative balance yourself. Funds are cleared, I’ve used it so have a nice day.

😄

But, In my case of 285$, the problem is Fiverr is holding funds as pending clearance which will cover it up. So, no chance for me 😅

But, In my case of 285$, the problem is Fiverr is holding funds as pending clearance which will cover it up. So, no chance for me

Yeah but this illegal. If I got a chargeback tomorrow, for $100, this would be basically like saying that 2 buyers paying $50 each for their own order aren’t actually paying for their order, they are paying for someone else’s.

I think more pushbacks will start to happen against this now, especially given that fact that this will result in negative Fiverr balances and rating penalties.

[didaralam274]

Based on my experience maybe 30% of the time it works (don’t know Fiverr stats though). With $5 order I wouldn’t bother, but $285 is a pretty decent size to ask at least.

The bottom line is that once the credit is paid out it’s not actually your problem anymore. Fiverr holds your credit for 14days, anything after that is their problem.

The bottom line is that once the credit is paid out it’s not actually your problem anymore. Fiverr holds your credit for 14days, anything after that is their problem.

I really agree with it. Fiverr should responsible for it as it is their marketplace and they should take responsibility for it.

[uxreview]

But, In my case of 285$, the problem is Fiverr is holding funds as pending clearance which will cover it up. So, no chance for me

Yeah but this illegal. If I got a chargeback tomorrow, for $100, this would be basically like saying that 2 buyers paying $50 each for their own order aren’t actually paying for their order, they are paying for someone else’s.

I think more pushbacks will start to happen against this now, especially given that fact that this will result in negative Fiverr balances and rating penalties.

Yeah but this illegal. If I got a chargeback tomorrow, for $100, this would be basically like saying that 2 buyers paying $50 each for their own order aren’t actually paying for their order, they are paying for someone else’s.

Absolutely agree.

I think more pushbacks will start to happen against this now, especially given that fact that this will result in negative Fiverr balances and rating penalties.

Yep 🙂 We’ll see how they react. Add different payment methods or maybe even increase clearance period.

[miiila]

I´m pretty sure I´ve seen not just one but a couple posts here very recently by sellers who got 50% from Fiverr in such cases, that´s not enough if you did 100% of your work, sure, but better than 0%.

Yep, that can easily be the case because then Fiverr only loses half. We used compensations as well to shut these cases down 😃

Well, yes, but if the reason isn´t just some %?§$"%% buyer, but a stolen credit card or hacked PP account, I guess you´d be very well off with 50%. As far as I´m aware, when there´s comparable stuff offline, you´re SOL. If I get counterfeit, knowingly or not, and someone notices, the police will pick it up and I won´t get anything.

I surely would insist on them telling me the actual specific reason and on 100% if it wasn´t something like that, though, by the way, for a sum like that. 😉

[fastcopywriter]

I searched “data mining,” found someone with 827 reviews, but no TRS’s doing this.

It’s true that data mining can be used for spam, but that’s up to the buyer. Does that make data mining illegal by Fiverr’s TOS? I don’t know.

[eoinfinnegan]

What the ToS says about disputes and chargebacks:

Filing a transaction dispute or reversing a payment through your payment provider or your bank is a violation to these Terms of Service. Doing so may get your account temporarily disabled to investigate possible security violations. Note: once you have filed a dispute with your payment provider, the funds will be ineligible for a refund due to our obligations towards the payment provider.

Fiverr reviews cases of payment provider chargebacks and disputes on behalf of sellers. Although results vary per case due to each chargeback reason, we work hard on resolving disputes in the seller’s favor. If the chargeback case allows, Fiverr will return parts or full revenue back to sellers.

While this is not specifically talking about chargebacks, it is relevant too.

If an order is cancelled (for any reason), the funds paid will be refunded to the buyer’s Shopping Balance.

This I think covers the taking of the funds from the seller’s account however it is not clear and definitely needs to be clarified IMO.

[uxreview]

What the ToS says about disputes and chargebacks:

Filing a transaction dispute or reversing a payment through your payment provider or your bank is a violation to these Terms of Service. Doing so may get your account temporarily disabled to investigate possible security violations. Note: once you have filed a dispute with your payment provider, the funds will be ineligible for a refund due to our obligations towards the payment provider.

Fiverr reviews cases of payment provider chargebacks and disputes on behalf of sellers. Although results vary per case due to each chargeback reason, we work hard on resolving disputes in the seller’s favor. If the chargeback case allows, Fiverr will return parts or full revenue back to sellers.

While this is not specifically talking about chargebacks, it is relevant too.

If an order is cancelled (for any reason), the funds paid will be refunded to the buyer’s Shopping Balance.

This I think covers the taking of the funds from the seller’s account however it is not clear and definitely needs to be clarified IMO.

Fiverr reviews cases of payment provider chargebacks and disputes on behalf of sellers. Although results vary per case due to each chargeback reason, we work hard on resolving disputes in the seller’s favor. If the chargeback case allows, Fiverr will return parts or full revenue back to sellers.

I think that’s the key piece of information here. Do they actually review these?

They should send these back to PayPal with a proof that service was provided and unless the buyer is able to prove otherwise it should not affect the seller.

That’s why I would recommend sellers not to accept the template but pursue this. In most companies tier 1 agents have no idea what’s going on, they send templates to fight off the volume.

Probably not worth with $5 because you will spend time sending emails back and forth, but with bigger orders there’s nothing to lose. You might get even just half of it back.

[eoinfinnegan]

Fiverr reviews cases of payment provider chargebacks and disputes on behalf of sellers. Although results vary per case due to each chargeback reason, we work hard on resolving disputes in the seller’s favor. If the chargeback case allows, Fiverr will return parts or full revenue back to sellers.

I think that’s the key piece of information here. Do they actually review these?

They should send these back to PayPal with a proof that service was provided and unless the buyer is able to prove otherwise it should not affect the seller.

That’s why I would recommend sellers not to accept the template but pursue this. In most companies tier 1 agents have no idea what’s going on, they send templates to fight off the volume.

Probably not worth with $5 because you will spend time sending emails back and forth, but with bigger orders there’s nothing to lose. You might get even just half of it back.

As I recall, the specific mention of chargebacks in the ToS is relatively new so it may be that this is a new approach or policy. Just heard from a seller who had an $800 chargeback today too as well as another who had a $400 chargeback reversed last week - ie they got the money back.

It does seem like Fiverr follow up but the approach is not transparent which is annoying.

[wasi0013]

I created two tickets one for the order dispute and one for my denied gig. Once, they responded on my first ticket (The order ticket) I asked them in follow up message about my second ticket. The Support team responded with the following message and marked all my tickets as solved!
My Second ticket was:

wasi0013 Yesterday at 21:58
DENY REASONS
Suspicion of fraud or spam - This Gig raises suspicions of being a fraudulent service, spam or potentially violating Fiverr or a third party TOS.
Hi,
I’m relatively new to fiverr have been using this gig since beginning already completed 10+ orders using this gig. with 15 five star rating.
I did’t get why it was removed!
Side note: I have already lost 285$ at morning today, raised another support ticket for that which was resolved without me getting my well deserved payment. Its an issue regarding a buyer whose account is no longer accessible, I wonder why these happening to me. Very disappointed.
(The buyer had given me 5 star rating on that order as well with a nice review still…)
Please note that, this is creating a very bad impression about fiverr. If this continue then I’m afraid I will have to think twice before accepting any orders from now on.
Tell me how can I fix this issue, please.

Reply to the first ticket and Response:

wasi0013 Yesterday at 22:00
I have created another issue just now! It seems like fiverr is denying my gig now! Please, let me know how can I fix that. Its my most rated & best selling gig.

Santiago Yesterday at 22:09
Hi again,

Thank you for following up with us.

I checked for you, and it appears that your Gig was denied for raising suspicions of being a fraudulent service; being a spam-related service; or of potentially violating a third party’s Terms of Service or Fiverr’s Terms of Service.

Please let me know if you have any further questions.

Santiago | Fiverr Customer Support
Please review our Fiverr Online Safety Tips

I wonder… Is it support bot? 😑

[miiila]

What the ToS says about disputes and chargebacks:

Filing a transaction dispute or reversing a payment through your payment provider or your bank is a violation to these Terms of Service. Doing so may get your account temporarily disabled to investigate possible security violations. Note: once you have filed a dispute with your payment provider, the funds will be ineligible for a refund due to our obligations towards the payment provider.

Fiverr reviews cases of payment provider chargebacks and disputes on behalf of sellers. Although results vary per case due to each chargeback reason, we work hard on resolving disputes in the seller’s favor. If the chargeback case allows, Fiverr will return parts or full revenue back to sellers.

While this is not specifically talking about chargebacks, it is relevant too.

If an order is cancelled (for any reason), the funds paid will be refunded to the buyer’s Shopping Balance.

This I think covers the taking of the funds from the seller’s account however it is not clear and definitely needs to be clarified IMO.

I don´t quite like the “for any reason” bit either.

[misscrystal]

Woke up in the morning with a notification that, one of my buyer cancelled a 5 star rated delivered order of 285$ out of the blue (Completed it 22 days ago and withdrawn the fee). Fiverr is showing negative balance right now 😕

Got this feedback from the seller support center

Sam Today at 13:46

Hello,

Thank you for reaching out. I’m very sorry to hear about this.

The transactions referred to were canceled due to alerts from our security department. Alerts can result from a chargeback of the payment by the buyer, an alert from our payment vendor, or an alert from other users within our network of suspicious buyer activity. In such cases, we may be required to cancel a transaction or put it on hold for your own protection (for example, a stolen credit card or other fraud activities). This is part of the service we provide to maintain a safe environment for our users.

Please keep in mind that when you don’t get paid, neither does Fiverr, and we have no access to the funds. Our Trust & Safety Team is currently reviewing the buyer’s account. Due to our Privacy Policy, we cannot disclose any actions that will be taken by our Trust & Safety Team regarding the buyer’s account.

We appreciate your understanding.

The balance will zero out when your revenue funds clear. 😦

Please let me know if you have any additional questions or concerns.

Kind Regards,

Some moments ago, Got another notification when I returned from my office showing:

Your Do data mining and web scraping GIG is denied!

DENY REASONS

Suspicion of fraud or spam - This Gig raises suspicions of being a fraudulent service, spam or > potentially violating Fiverr or a third party TOS.

Created another ticket and waiting for hearing what does that even mean??

I have been providing web scraping services since beginning and already completed around 20 orders most of these are web scraping/ data mining tasks. More importantly, majority of my ratings I have got from that gig (15+). I didn’t get any negative review yet! The only negative review I got was on another gig… Well that’s another story

I don’t believe I will get those 285 dollars back… and, I wonder what will happen to my best selling gig…

P.S: That buyer;s account is not accessible right now!

Your Do data mining and web scraping GIG is denied!

I noticed these types of gigs recently and was surprised they were allowed since this is a violation of copyright laws or spam laws or violates websites terms of service to do this.

In the United States, website owners can use three major legal claims to prevent undesired web scraping: (1) copyright infringement (compilation), (2) violation of the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act (“CFAA”), and (3) trespass to chattel.

Web scraping - Wikipedia