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Threatened with a bad review, refund demanded


brettstadelmann

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Just be very, very careful with this, because of the confidentiality rule, and no-contact-outside-of-Fiverr rule.

That got me wondering, the TOS prevents you from having off site communications with a buyer/seller (meaning a member of fiverr.) I just took a quick look and can’t see how TOS could possibly prevent you from firing off an email from a private account to the end user (who is not anyone you have any fiverr relationship with) and say something along the lines of.

Hi Mr. third party,

I just wanted to let you know that I was contracted on a freelancing website called fiverr by a Mr. Crappy buyer who hired me to edit text for your book. Just to let you know, that seller has taken my work and cancelled the order, so I thought you might appreciate knowing that the work is not licensed to be used in your project. Further, while acting as your agent Mr. Crappy buyer also threatened me by saying " Kindly refund my fees otherwise I will crucify you with my ratings."

I am advising just in case they claim that they paid me and attempt to collect the fees associated with the job from you.

Sincerely… etc etc.

That got me wondering, the TOS prevents you from having off site communications with a buyer/seller (meaning a member of fiverr.) I just took a quick look and can’t see how TOS could possibly prevent you from firing off an email from a private account to the end user (who is not anyone you have any fiverr relationship with) and say something along the lines of.

Ryan did something like that (DMCA notice, and the articles that weren’t paid for were taken down), and CS got angry. I think that his scamming buyers complained to CS, and then Ryan got a warning. He was supposed to complain to CS and let them handle the situation, not go outside of Fiverr, something like that.

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That got me wondering, the TOS prevents you from having off site communications with a buyer/seller (meaning a member of fiverr.) I just took a quick look and can’t see how TOS could possibly prevent you from firing off an email from a private account to the end user (who is not anyone you have any fiverr relationship with) and say something along the lines of.

Ryan did something like that (DMCA notice, and the articles that weren’t paid for were taken down), and CS got angry. I think that his scamming buyers complained to CS, and then Ryan got a warning. He was supposed to complain to CS and let them handle the situation, not go outside of Fiverr, something like that.

I have used takedown notices successfully but had my proof submitted to the domain registrar and site host. I never contacted the buyer directly. CS supported and helped me. Ryan might have sent notice to the buyer, which would likely be seen as a Fiverr ToS violation.

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I have used takedown notices successfully but had my proof submitted to the domain registrar and site host. I never contacted the buyer directly. CS supported and helped me. Ryan might have sent notice to the buyer, which would likely be seen as a Fiverr ToS violation.

His buyers were resellers, and when their clients complained to them that the articles were taken down, buyers complained to CS.

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CS has replied. Their copy-and-pasted response suggested I work with the buyer to see that his needs were met.

I suppose I should have expected that.

There’s no way I’ll continue to work with someone who has threatened me, so I’ve requested that they simply refund the order.

I’m sorry, everyone. I know I should fight this, I know that this guy will probably just keep doing this to other people, but I can’t afford this kind of stress in my life right now. Please forgive my lack of courage.

Thanks again to all of you. You’ve really helped me through quite an awful day.

yes it happens with me also sometimes its better to let such buyers go ! but dont give up continue to work and focus on new orders make the most out of them

only time you fail when you give up

NEVER GIVE UP !

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CS has replied. Their copy-and-pasted response suggested I work with the buyer to see that his needs were met.

I suppose I should have expected that.

There’s no way I’ll continue to work with someone who has threatened me, so I’ve requested that they simply refund the order.

I’m sorry, everyone. I know I should fight this, I know that this guy will probably just keep doing this to other people, but I can’t afford this kind of stress in my life right now. Please forgive my lack of courage.

Thanks again to all of you. You’ve really helped me through quite an awful day.

CS has replied. Their copy-and-pasted response suggested I work with the buyer to see that his needs were met.

I suppose I should have expected that.

There’s no way I’ll continue to work with someone who has threatened me, so I’ve requested that they simply refund the order.

I’m sorry, everyone. I know I should fight this, I know that this guy will probably just keep doing this to other people, but I can’t afford this kind of stress in my life right now. Please forgive my lack of courage.

Thanks again to all of you. You’ve really helped me through quite an awful day.

I understand why you did it and it is easy for me to say “Never cancel” when I have a lot more reviews but I really urge you to not cancel in these situations. I can honestly say that seeing a 1 star review (or a couple) on a seller’s profile has never really put me off ordering from them. The thing is, to give a one star review, the order has to have been absolutely dreadful or else the buyer has been unreasonable. If the seller appears professional, has good reviews from others then the former seems unlikely and so I assume it has to be the latter reason for the review being 1 star.

If I see a whole string of 2-3 star reviews then I am more likely to be cautious with ordering as there is clearly a problem there - an odd 1-star is not an issue.

In addition, I think a lot of sellers value reviews more highly than buyers do! I have had only a handful of buyers mention any reviews of mine.

So in future, my advice would be that when it comes to “Threatened with a bad review, refund demanded” that you add the final part - “Said No”.

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CS has replied. Their copy-and-pasted response suggested I work with the buyer to see that his needs were met.

I suppose I should have expected that.

There’s no way I’ll continue to work with someone who has threatened me, so I’ve requested that they simply refund the order.

I’m sorry, everyone. I know I should fight this, I know that this guy will probably just keep doing this to other people, but I can’t afford this kind of stress in my life right now. Please forgive my lack of courage.

Thanks again to all of you. You’ve really helped me through quite an awful day.

I understand why you did it and it is easy for me to say “Never cancel” when I have a lot more reviews but I really urge you to not cancel in these situations. I can honestly say that seeing a 1 star review (or a couple) on a seller’s profile has never really put me off ordering from them. The thing is, to give a one star review, the order has to have been absolutely dreadful or else the buyer has been unreasonable. If the seller appears professional, has good reviews from others then the former seems unlikely and so I assume it has to be the latter reason for the review being 1 star.

If I see a whole string of 2-3 star reviews then I am more likely to be cautious with ordering as there is clearly a problem there - an odd 1-star is not an issue.

In addition, I think a lot of sellers value reviews more highly than buyers do! I have had only a handful of buyers mention any reviews of mine.

So in future, my advice would be that when it comes to “Threatened with a bad review, refund demanded” that you add the final part - “Said No”.

Thanks all for your support. I just want to make it clear: it wasn’t the

idea of a one-star rating which concerned me. I’m sure the buyer would have

ended looking like an idiot in that outcome. Nor was it the money. I felt

threatened by the buyer, and in follow up correspondence he continued to be

abusive. That’s why I caved. He could have just had a bad day. He could be

a professional scammer, as some have suggested. He could be a sociopath,

and it wouldn’t be hard for him to find me outside of fiverr. It was a

gamble I chose not to take.

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CS has replied. Their copy-and-pasted response suggested I work with the buyer to see that his needs were met.

I suppose I should have expected that.

There’s no way I’ll continue to work with someone who has threatened me, so I’ve requested that they simply refund the order.

I’m sorry, everyone. I know I should fight this, I know that this guy will probably just keep doing this to other people, but I can’t afford this kind of stress in my life right now. Please forgive my lack of courage.

Thanks again to all of you. You’ve really helped me through quite an awful day.

I understand why you did it and it is easy for me to say “Never cancel” when I have a lot more reviews but I really urge you to not cancel in these situations. I can honestly say that seeing a 1 star review (or a couple) on a seller’s profile has never really put me off ordering from them. The thing is, to give a one star review, the order has to have been absolutely dreadful or else the buyer has been unreasonable. If the seller appears professional, has good reviews from others then the former seems unlikely and so I assume it has to be the latter reason for the review being 1 star.

If I see a whole string of 2-3 star reviews then I am more likely to be cautious with ordering as there is clearly a problem there - an odd 1-star is not an issue.

In addition, I think a lot of sellers value reviews more highly than buyers do! I have had only a handful of buyers mention any reviews of mine.

So in future, my advice would be that when it comes to “Threatened with a bad review, refund demanded” that you add the final part - “Said No”.

This might offer some slight satisfaction:

"

Thank you for contacting us regarding your order. I canceled it for you and

also asked our Trust & Safety team to review the buyer’s behavior on Fiverr.

"

Thanks all for your support. I just want to make it clear: it wasn’t the

idea of a one-star rating which concerned me. I’m sure the buyer would have

ended looking like an idiot in that outcome. Nor was it the money. I felt

threatened by the buyer, and in follow up correspondence he continued to be

abusive. That’s why I caved. He could have just had a bad day. He could be

a professional scammer, as some have suggested. He could be a sociopath,

and it wouldn’t be hard for him to find me outside of fiverr. It was a

gamble I chose not to take.

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It’s not up to any one of us to tell the OP what to do. It’s his decision. Sometimes the stress is not something we want to deal with.

Of course, but the forum would be pretty worthless if instead of advice we all just said “sorry that happened”. Anyone can give advice and rationale for that advice but the final decision is always for the person to make themselves based on their own circumstances and “feeling” on the matter.

Definitely no one-size-fits-all when it comes to dealing with people!

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That got me wondering, the TOS prevents you from having off site communications with a buyer/seller (meaning a member of fiverr.) I just took a quick look and can’t see how TOS could possibly prevent you from firing off an email from a private account to the end user (who is not anyone you have any fiverr relationship with) and say something along the lines of.

Ryan did something like that (DMCA notice, and the articles that weren’t paid for were taken down), and CS got angry. I think that his scamming buyers complained to CS, and then Ryan got a warning. He was supposed to complain to CS and let them handle the situation, not go outside of Fiverr, something like that.

He was supposed to complain to CS and let them handle the situation, not go outside of Fiverr, something like that.

Great info, thanks! 20 characters

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His buyers were resellers, and when their clients complained to them that the articles were taken down, buyers complained to CS.

His buyers were resellers, and when their clients complained to them that the articles were taken down, buyers complained to CS.

It would be interesting to know how CS approaches this matter with Pro sellers who clearly are allowed to communicate more freely with buyers off-site.

Also, If your assumption is correct regarding Ryan, this raises a huge flaw/danger in how Fiverr operates.

Because a client of a reseller has no affiliation with Fiverr, literally any reseller could go to CS and say that a Fiverr seller had communicated with their end client directly in order to extort services for free.

If a buyer with a completed order complained to Fiverr and said that a seller was attempting to communicate with one of their clients directly, I would expect Fiverr to investigate. (Though how is open to interpretation). If, however, I was Fiverr and I could see that a seller made a delivery which a buyer insisted on canceling, I wouldn’t give the buyer the time of day. If anything, a buyer complaining like this would be an admission of their own guilt in regard to using Fiverr to extort free work in the first place.

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His buyers were resellers, and when their clients complained to them that the articles were taken down, buyers complained to CS.

It would be interesting to know how CS approaches this matter with Pro sellers who clearly are allowed to communicate more freely with buyers off-site.

Also, If your assumption is correct regarding Ryan, this raises a huge flaw/danger in how Fiverr operates.

Because a client of a reseller has no affiliation with Fiverr, literally any reseller could go to CS and say that a Fiverr seller had communicated with their end client directly in order to extort services for free.

If a buyer with a completed order complained to Fiverr and said that a seller was attempting to communicate with one of their clients directly, I would expect Fiverr to investigate. (Though how is open to interpretation). If, however, I was Fiverr and I could see that a seller made a delivery which a buyer insisted on canceling, I wouldn’t give the buyer the time of day. If anything, a buyer complaining like this would be an admission of their own guilt in regard to using Fiverr to extort free work in the first place.

If, however, I was Fiverr and I could see that a seller made a delivery which a buyer insisted on canceling,

Remember what Ryan did? His gigs offered short delivery times, buyers would order too much, he’d send them some of the work (not via the Delivery button), they would promise not to cancel, and they’d cancel anyway once the order got late.

His case was complicated.

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If, however, I was Fiverr and I could see that a seller made a delivery which a buyer insisted on canceling,

Remember what Ryan did? His gigs offered short delivery times, buyers would order too much, he’d send them some of the work (not via the Delivery button), they would promise not to cancel, and they’d cancel anyway once the order got late.

His case was complicated.

His case was complicated.

The only complicated thing with Ryan was why he didn’t increase prices. No payment means no transfer of rights to any work. Fiverr was right to want to put an end to Ryan’s failed to deliver on time reviews. The fact remains, however, that if a buyer willfully tries to extort work from a seller, they have no right to presume that Fiverr will penalize the seller for reserving their own right to retain ownership of any material they have produced.

Anyway, this could go round in circles all day. This is the way I roll through and it ain’t changing.

You buy from me, you use a chargeback or corner me into giving you work for free, I then annihilate you if you try to claim ownership of or profit from my work. Judge Judy wouldn’t stand for it and neither do I.

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