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🍀 Seller's Notes on Controlling your Anger when dealing with Trouble Buyers đŸ‘ș


woofy31

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DISCLAIMER: I am not an expert in anger management, but I was a victim of anger. This thread is my view on the matter as it relates to my Fiverr career, with tips based on my own Fiverr experience over the course of seven years dealing with tenths of thousand of buyers, and how I managed to handle the issue. This is not one of those general anger management tips everyone can find online. These are honest life- & career-helping tips from one of the older sellers of Fiverr.


I never had to deal with the notion of “client” before Fiverr, and nobody could ever annoy me. After being welcomed to this wonderful community, I soon started to learn how it is to have a client. And soon, hundreds and later thousands of clients.

Almost all of them were great clients. Many of them were wonderful clients. With some of them, mostly regulars, I became friends (in a professional way). But like any marketplace out there, one cannot avoid the trouble-making clients as years go by.

I’ve been through a lot of situations where clients tried extorting me, threatening me or my wellbeing, use bad language that would make me really uncomfortable, throwing false accusations and name-calling me. This had an unforeseen impact on my emotions, soon finding myself in situations where anger took over me when those clients made it personal.

– rest assured, the anger was only mine to see and feel. I’ve been polite and respectful to these particular clients, and you should must be, too - left uncontrolled, your anger will indirectly project itself on your business


After seeing others in the forum, as well as outside, going through similar anger management issues, I started experimenting with my own emotions, with the anger I felt. For I don’t like invisible things controlling me. So here are my tips for you, you who are or have become short-tempered when dealing with troublesome clients:

  1. Don’t keep the anger inside you, but don’t throw it at others (or at things) either. Keeping it inside you will make it worse, to the point of turning you into your own worst enemy (been there, not a nice view)

  2. Don’t yell, hit or throw things thinking it is your buyer in front of you. That will have ugly consequences in the long run when being confronted with an actual human being. And your keyboard and mouse have no fault. Your table/desk takes a hit without any reason – put yourself in their places: would you enjoy being hit like that for no valid reason?

  3. Instead of building the anger inside you, try talking through your frustrations with someone around you, who you know and won’t have the power to yell at or get mad at. Even if they don’t understand much of your buyer-problems or what you’re saying, they will comfort you, they’ll give you some new perspectives you wouldn’t have thought of while raging inside yourself (I do that with my mother, and she’s the best help I could ever get!)

  4. Try focusing on observing your body’s reaction to anger. Instead of immediately yelling or hitting things, try focusing on what happens in your body while you’re angry: feel your heart pumping hard and try to cool it down; hear your fast/irregular breathing and try to slow it down; look at your shaking hands and try forcing them to stop shaking. Next thing you know, you’ll be calmer and you will definitely not want to observe such reactions again on yourself!

  5. If you don’t have anyone around you to talk to, then change your environment/surroundings and forget about your buyer for now. Take a walk outside, watch other people being happy, watch that dog at the corner taking a wee on that bike without the biker noticing, look at the small things you’ve never noticed around you before. Fill yourself with the positivity around you – you earned it; if, however, you don’t want to get out or break away for a few, try looking back at your older positive reviews, remind yourself of the great words other buyers have left on your gig page, that should do the trick and raise your self-confidence to fight your anger 🙂

  6. When your buyer is abusive, use that to your advantage. Make use of Fiverr’s Terms of Service, maybe quote the terms to your client, eventually reporting their behavior. It will feel good knowing that there’s a chance others will not go through what you went with that client if Fiverr decides to penalize them for their behavior;

  7. When in doubt or out of working solutions, the Forum can actually help you see the bright side of your problems. I’ve found a lot of help while reading & even while contributing to the forum, and it’s been working great as an extra solution to calm down, relax and get away from buyer-related stress. In case you didn’t know, there’s even a “Ranting Pot” forum category where you can discharge your feelings in writing, just make sure to use proper language, be polite & respectful, and avoid name-calling and all that bad stuff that you wouldn’t want to see at your own door 😉


If you’re one of the lucky ones who’ve found their own way of dealing with anger issues, please share your methods with us.

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Guest jenihiggs

This is all really great advice 🙂 Agree with everything you’ve said. I also get the heart pumping and shaking hands when I’m angry. It hasn’t happened to me on Fiverr yet, but I haven’t been here nearly as long as you. I’m sure I’ll get an abusive client at some point. So far, I’ve been lucky.

It’s so true that it doesn’t do any good to release your anger at the buyer. I’ve done that before in my previous job. Before Fiverr, I was a manager at Home Depot. I definitely lost my cool a few times at HD, and it only ever made me feel worse and escalated the situation. When you remain calm, you have a level of control over the situation. At the very least, you still have control over yourself.

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Well. First of all thanks for sharing this with everyone as there are lot people that don’t know how to control their anger. I practice some of the tips that you said for a long time.

The main thing is not to get personal with business as what we have on Fiverr it’s almost the same as running your own business. If you have a troubled buyer and if you want to save a headache just give him/her a refund. But if you know that you did a good job and have proof that the buyer is unreasonable and breaks the TOS always report him to CS. If you have a reason why CS would always help you. It’s bad that some sellers create sections in the ranting pot and they use bad language for buyers, that won’t help you.

Just from what I noticed by updating the FAQ on my pages that I don’t offer refunds nor unlimited revisions the number of those troubled buyers dropped enormously. That’s one of the tips that I got here on the forum. If I am correct it was pointed out to me by Eoin.

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This is all really great advice 🙂 Agree with everything you’ve said. I also get the heart pumping and shaking hands when I’m angry. It hasn’t happened to me on Fiverr yet, but I haven’t been here nearly as long as you. I’m sure I’ll get an abusive client at some point. So far, I’ve been lucky.

It’s so true that it doesn’t do any good to release your anger at the buyer. I’ve done that before in my previous job. Before Fiverr, I was a manager at Home Depot. I definitely lost my cool a few times at HD, and it only ever made me feel worse and escalated the situation. When you remain calm, you have a level of control over the situation. At the very least, you still have control over yourself.

I’m sure I’ll get an abusive client at some point. So far, I’ve been lucky.

Try not to be so sure about it, you’ll attract bad energy towards you, assuming you believe in bad energies 😛 I don’t know. Maybe it is luck. Maybe it’s not, and it’s actually dependent on how you arrange your own stuff.

The main thing is not to get personal with business as what we have on Fiverr it’s almost the same as running your own business.

Agreed - though it can be hard to not get personal when your buyer forces it to become personal 😕

It’s bad that some sellers create sections in the ranting pot and they use bad language for buyers, that won’t help you.

Yes, indeed. Which is why I specified in my OP to avoid doing that if one chooses to rant in this category. Not only will it not help you, it won’t help others either.

Just from what I noticed by updating the FAQ on my pages that I don’t offer refunds nor unlimited revisions the number of those troubled buyers dropped enormously.

That’s an interesting fact. I always thought it was a time waster to mention in your gig that you don’t offer refunds
 :thinking:

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Guest jenihiggs

I’m sure I’ll get an abusive client at some point. So far, I’ve been lucky.

Try not to be so sure about it, you’ll attract bad energy towards you, assuming you believe in bad energies 😛 I don’t know. Maybe it is luck. Maybe it’s not, and it’s actually dependent on how you arrange your own stuff.

The main thing is not to get personal with business as what we have on Fiverr it’s almost the same as running your own business.

Agreed - though it can be hard to not get personal when your buyer forces it to become personal 😕

It’s bad that some sellers create sections in the ranting pot and they use bad language for buyers, that won’t help you.

Yes, indeed. Which is why I specified in my OP to avoid doing that if one chooses to rant in this category. Not only will it not help you, it won’t help others either.

Just from what I noticed by updating the FAQ on my pages that I don’t offer refunds nor unlimited revisions the number of those troubled buyers dropped enormously.

That’s an interesting fact. I always thought it was a time waster to mention in your gig that you don’t offer refunds
 :thinking:

I hadn’t thought about it that way. Maybe. I’ll definitely think about that. I suppose that’s just my way of dealing with my fear of confrontation. I really detest confrontations, even when they’re just online. It’s like, by telling myself it’s inevitable and just a fact of doing business, it somehow makes it easier to deal with. I don’t end up in a ball of anxiety over trying to avoid disagreements. I just deal with them as they come up in the best and most professional way that I can.

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I’m sure I’ll get an abusive client at some point. So far, I’ve been lucky.

Try not to be so sure about it, you’ll attract bad energy towards you, assuming you believe in bad energies 😛 I don’t know. Maybe it is luck. Maybe it’s not, and it’s actually dependent on how you arrange your own stuff.

The main thing is not to get personal with business as what we have on Fiverr it’s almost the same as running your own business.

Agreed - though it can be hard to not get personal when your buyer forces it to become personal 😕

It’s bad that some sellers create sections in the ranting pot and they use bad language for buyers, that won’t help you.

Yes, indeed. Which is why I specified in my OP to avoid doing that if one chooses to rant in this category. Not only will it not help you, it won’t help others either.

Just from what I noticed by updating the FAQ on my pages that I don’t offer refunds nor unlimited revisions the number of those troubled buyers dropped enormously.

That’s an interesting fact. I always thought it was a time waster to mention in your gig that you don’t offer refunds
 :thinking:

That’s an interesting fact. I always thought it was a time waster to mention in your gig that you don’t offer refunds
 :thinking:

It’s the best thing that you could possibly do for your gigs

Agreed - though it can be hard to not get personal when your buyer forces it to become personal 😕

The best thing is to refund those buyers or be prepared for a negative review. In case they want to make everything personal. 😩

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What a wonderful post!
This sure did serve as a reminder regarding various notions. Anger is something that harms its owners, not the person it’s inflicted upon. I for instance have gone though a turbulence of emotions in various phases of life concerning dishonest, selfish and opportunistic people.

At times I felt like just giving up altogether.But soon enough I would realize this would have ZERO effect on the person behind all this.

Everyday, we have a million reasons to get angry, or stressed.But when we indulge in these things, these negative energies give power to something outside of ourselves over our happiness.No one should have the key to our feelings, and we shouldn’t let it be so brittle. Fiverr statistics are just numbers, dishonest buyers are just petty people messing up their own lives and conscience. We can CHOOSE to not let these emotions control us.

In such critical situations, what I remembered were the sayings of the late Henri Nowen:

“Did I offer peace today? Did I bring a smile to someone’s face? Did I say words of healing? Did I let go of my anger and resentment? Did I forgive? Did I love?’ These are the real questions. I must trust that the little bit of love that I sow now will bear many fruits, here in this world and the life to come”

It really helped me.

Thank you again for this wonderful post. 🙂

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What a wonderful post!

This sure did serve as a reminder regarding various notions. Anger is something that harms its owners, not the person it’s inflicted upon. I for instance have gone though a turbulence of emotions in various phases of life concerning dishonest, selfish and opportunistic people.

At times I felt like just giving up altogether.But soon enough I would realize this would have ZERO effect on the person behind all this.

Everyday, we have a million reasons to get angry, or stressed.But when we indulge in these things, these negative energies give power to something outside of ourselves over our happiness.No one should have the key to our feelings, and we shouldn’t let it be so brittle. Fiverr statistics are just numbers, dishonest buyers are just petty people messing up their own lives and conscience. We can CHOOSE to not let these emotions control us.

In such critical situations, what I remembered were the sayings of the late Henri Nowen:

“Did I offer peace today? Did I bring a smile to someone’s face? Did I say words of healing? Did I let go of my anger and resentment? Did I forgive? Did I love?’ These are the real questions. I must trust that the little bit of love that I sow now will bear many fruits, here in this world and the life to come”

It really helped me.

Thank you again for this wonderful post. 🙂

You’re most welcome, and I’m glad to hear it helps.

No one should have the key to our feelings, and we shouldn’t let it be so brittle. Fiverr statistics are just numbers, dishonest buyers are just petty people messing up their own lives and conscience. We can CHOOSE to not let these emotions control us.

Couldn’t have said it any better! ❀

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Well. First of all thanks for sharing this with everyone as there are lot people that don’t know how to control their anger. I practice some of the tips that you said for a long time.

The main thing is not to get personal with business as what we have on Fiverr it’s almost the same as running your own business. If you have a troubled buyer and if you want to save a headache just give him/her a refund. But if you know that you did a good job and have proof that the buyer is unreasonable and breaks the TOS always report him to CS. If you have a reason why CS would always help you. It’s bad that some sellers create sections in the ranting pot and they use bad language for buyers, that won’t help you.

Just from what I noticed by updating the FAQ on my pages that I don’t offer refunds nor unlimited revisions the number of those troubled buyers dropped enormously. That’s one of the tips that I got here on the forum. If I am correct it was pointed out to me by Eoin.

Eoin and Woofy have pointed out to me regarding unlimited revisions too. I am done with them and now offer a finite number of them. Hoping to deal with lesser trouble-makers now.

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That’s an interesting fact. I always thought it was a time waster to mention in your gig that you don’t offer refunds
 :thinking:

It’s the best thing that you could possibly do for your gigs

Agreed - though it can be hard to not get personal when your buyer forces it to become personal 😕

The best thing is to refund those buyers or be prepared for a negative review. In case they want to make everything personal. 😩

If you do not offer refunds, does that mean that you accept negative reviews if the buyer does not like the work?

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Guest gamunu

DISCLAIMER: I am not an expert in anger management, but I was a victim of anger. This thread is my view on the matter as it relates to my Fiverr career, with tips based on my own Fiverr experience over the course of seven years dealing with tenths of thousand of buyers, and how I managed to handle the issue. This is not one of those general anger management tips everyone can find online. These are honest life- & career-helping tips from one of the older sellers of Fiverr.


I never had to deal with the notion of “client” before Fiverr, and nobody could ever annoy me. After being welcomed to this wonderful community, I soon started to learn how it is to have a client. And soon, hundreds and later thousands of clients.

Almost all of them were great clients. Many of them were wonderful clients. With some of them, mostly regulars, I became friends (in a professional way). But like any marketplace out there, one cannot avoid the trouble-making clients as years go by.

I’ve been through a lot of situations where clients tried extorting me, threatening me or my wellbeing, use bad language that would make me really uncomfortable, throwing false accusations and name-calling me. This had an unforeseen impact on my emotions, soon finding myself in situations where anger took over me when those clients made it personal.

– rest assured, the anger was only mine to see and feel. I’ve been polite and respectful to these particular clients, and you should must be, too - left uncontrolled, your anger will indirectly project itself on your business


After seeing others in the forum, as well as outside, going through similar anger management issues, I started experimenting with my own emotions, with the anger I felt. For I don’t like invisible things controlling me. So here are my tips for you, you who are or have become short-tempered when dealing with troublesome clients:

  1. Don’t keep the anger inside you, but don’t throw it at others (or at things) either. Keeping it inside you will make it worse, to the point of turning you into your own worst enemy (been there, not a nice view)

  2. Don’t yell, hit or throw things thinking it is your buyer in front of you. That will have ugly consequences in the long run when being confronted with an actual human being. And your keyboard and mouse have no fault. Your table/desk takes a hit without any reason – put yourself in their places: would you enjoy being hit like that for no valid reason?

  3. Instead of building the anger inside you, try talking through your frustrations with someone around you, who you know and won’t have the power to yell at or get mad at. Even if they don’t understand much of your buyer-problems or what you’re saying, they will comfort you, they’ll give you some new perspectives you wouldn’t have thought of while raging inside yourself (I do that with my mother, and she’s the best help I could ever get!)

  4. Try focusing on observing your body’s reaction to anger. Instead of immediately yelling or hitting things, try focusing on what happens in your body while you’re angry: feel your heart pumping hard and try to cool it down; hear your fast/irregular breathing and try to slow it down; look at your shaking hands and try forcing them to stop shaking. Next thing you know, you’ll be calmer and you will definitely not want to observe such reactions again on yourself!

  5. If you don’t have anyone around you to talk to, then change your environment/surroundings and forget about your buyer for now. Take a walk outside, watch other people being happy, watch that dog at the corner taking a wee on that bike without the biker noticing, look at the small things you’ve never noticed around you before. Fill yourself with the positivity around you – you earned it; if, however, you don’t want to get out or break away for a few, try looking back at your older positive reviews, remind yourself of the great words other buyers have left on your gig page, that should do the trick and raise your self-confidence to fight your anger 🙂

  6. When your buyer is abusive, use that to your advantage. Make use of Fiverr’s Terms of Service, maybe quote the terms to your client, eventually reporting their behavior. It will feel good knowing that there’s a chance others will not go through what you went with that client if Fiverr decides to penalize them for their behavior;

  7. When in doubt or out of working solutions, the Forum can actually help you see the bright side of your problems. I’ve found a lot of help while reading & even while contributing to the forum, and it’s been working great as an extra solution to calm down, relax and get away from buyer-related stress. In case you didn’t know, there’s even a “Ranting Pot” forum category where you can discharge your feelings in writing, just make sure to use proper language, be polite & respectful, and avoid name-calling and all that bad stuff that you wouldn’t want to see at your own door 😉


If you’re one of the lucky ones who’ve found their own way of dealing with anger issues, please share your methods with us.

Don’t yell, hit or throw things thinking it is your buyer in front of you.

You can use your brand new iphone 😂 kidding

that’s a really practical solution i’m gonna give it a shot

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That’s correct. It’s better to have one negative review than lose money.

Wow, that’s a great approach. I am going to add this in my gig too.

But what if a buyer orders from my quote in buyer request and I had not mentioned this no-refund policy there. What am I going to say to such a buyer if they ask for a refund?

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That’s correct. It’s better to have one negative review than lose money.

That’s correct. It’s better to have one negative review than lose money.

Yes, indeed, but only if you have enough positives to make that negative meaningless. If you have 10 positives and 3 negatives, that could hurt as it would be 30% negative feedback.

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That’s correct. It’s better to have one negative review than lose money.

Yes, indeed, but only if you have enough positives to make that negative meaningless. If you have 10 positives and 3 negatives, that could hurt as it would be 30% negative feedback.

Well, you are right in cases when we have a lot of reviews like me, you and some other people one negative review won’t do any harm. I haven’t checked @capri2794’s profile.

@capri2794 - It’s highly likely that even buyers from the “Sellers Request”(spoof) section would go ahead and check your gig and they will see that you don’t offer any refunds.

EDIT: @woofy31 is this a serious descusion that me and you have?

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Wow, that’s a great approach. I am going to add this in my gig too.

But what if a buyer orders from my quote in buyer request and I had not mentioned this no-refund policy there. What am I going to say to such a buyer if they ask for a refund?

But what if a buyer orders from my quote in buyer request and I had not mentioned this no-refund policy there. What am I going to say to such a buyer if they ask for a refund?

That’s what I love about bringing multiple minds into one place - you’ll always find something you’ve never thought about 😃

I do know that sending a custom offer on a BR quote allows you to specify the gig matching the offer, so that means the buyer will see the gig you’re offering them, and it would be their responsibility to click it to see more info and the refund policy. But unfortunately I doubt most buyers would check out that part of the offer.

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But what if a buyer orders from my quote in buyer request and I had not mentioned this no-refund policy there. What am I going to say to such a buyer if they ask for a refund?

That’s what I love about bringing multiple minds into one place - you’ll always find something you’ve never thought about 😃

I do know that sending a custom offer on a BR quote allows you to specify the gig matching the offer, so that means the buyer will see the gig you’re offering them, and it would be their responsibility to click it to see more info and the refund policy. But unfortunately I doubt most buyers would check out that part of the offer.

I doubt most buyers would check out that part of the offer.

Exactly.

Now if I go like: My gig FAQ clearly mentions that I do not offer refunds.

Buyer: You sent me an offer and I accepted it. How am I supposed to go through your gigs FAQs and know that you sell crap and do not refund?

😕

the buyer will see the gig you’re offering them, and it would be their responsibility to click it to see more info and the refund policy.

But this makes me relieved and I’m adding the non-refund policy. 😛

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I doubt most buyers would check out that part of the offer.

Exactly.

Now if I go like: My gig FAQ clearly mentions that I do not offer refunds.

Buyer: You sent me an offer and I accepted it. How am I supposed to go through your gigs FAQs and know that you sell crap and do not refund?

😕

the buyer will see the gig you’re offering them, and it would be their responsibility to click it to see more info and the refund policy.

But this makes me relieved and I’m adding the non-refund policy. 😛

@capri2794 also take out from your gig description that you offer 100% Money Back Guarantee. Because you don’t want to contradict yourself. 😉

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Going for a different strategy. My strategy is to bottle it up until im 80, at that age i can get away with allot more so then it will be time to let it out in form of all kinds of fun stuff such as vandalizing by graffiti, giving people who pass me on my blinged out walker etc. People will just say something like “his just an old senile man”.
Just hope my bottle is big enough, its already got 40 years in it and 40 more to go 🙂

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