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An old order has been canceled, and now my balance is negative


catalin00

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Hi, I am a seller here on fiverr, and I just got a pretty serious problem.

I woke up in the morning to find out that one of my orders was canceled. I only have 2 orders in queue, so I was shocked since none of the buyers said anything about being unsatisfied with the order so far. I had to think a few moments to recognize the username, but when I got to my laptop and checked the order, I remembered who he was. It looks like an order I have completed 3 months ago (in August) just got canceled. How could this be? The buyer liked the product a lot. He was very happy with my delivery, and never said anything about any issues he had with it. The order was a 3 figures value, which is pretty significant for someone working on fiverr, so I was pretty nervous.
I got even more nervous when I saw my balance. Since I’ve already withdrawn and spent the revenue for this order a long time ago (at least 2 months ago), its value was added to my balance, with a minus in front of it. Now I have a negative balance, meaning I have to pay fiverr over $500 from my upcoming payouts.

Naturally, I went to the inbox, looked for the conversation with the buyer, and tried to write him, to ask about the problem. The thing is that, the buyer’s account is not active anymore. I don’t know what happened to it, it either got disabled, was closed, or was affected by a fiverr bug. I can’t contact him anymore, I can’t see his profile anymore. Of course, I also don’t have any other way of contacting him, because of the stupid policy that doesn’t allow sharing contact info on fiverr.

Then I went to the customers support page. I was looking for a phone number, or a live chat option, since the problem is pretty serious, and I need it fixed as soon as possible. Of course, fiverr doesn’t provide such options, so all I could do was to send a ticket, which I did. Now it’s already been 5 hours since I left ticket, but I’ve got no reply, and something tells me that this won’t be easy to solve.

I am posting this here, and I hope someone knows more about this issue and how to solve it, or what actually happened. I have so many questions… I can’t afford to pay back that order, and I don’t feel like I should have to. I delivered a great product, and the buyer was happy. I don’t think it is fair for fiverr to have this power, to just ask for our money back, months after we already spent it. What should I do next?

Thank you for reading this, and thank you in advance for any help that you can provide.

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Guest cubittaudio

Hi, I am a seller here on fiverr, and I just got a pretty serious problem.

I woke up in the morning to find out that one of my orders was canceled. I only have 2 orders in queue, so I was shocked since none of the buyers said anything about being unsatisfied with the order so far. I had to think a few moments to recognize the username, but when I got to my laptop and checked the order, I remembered who he was. It looks like an order I have completed 3 months ago (in August) just got canceled. How could this be? The buyer liked the product a lot. He was very happy with my delivery, and never said anything about any issues he had with it. The order was a 3 figures value, which is pretty significant for someone working on fiverr, so I was pretty nervous.

I got even more nervous when I saw my balance. Since I’ve already withdrawn and spent the revenue for this order a long time ago (at least 2 months ago), its value was added to my balance, with a minus in front of it. Now I have a negative balance, meaning I have to pay fiverr over $500 from my upcoming payouts.

Naturally, I went to the inbox, looked for the conversation with the buyer, and tried to write him, to ask about the problem. The thing is that, the buyer’s account is not active anymore. I don’t know what happened to it, it either got disabled, was closed, or was affected by a fiverr bug. I can’t contact him anymore, I can’t see his profile anymore. Of course, I also don’t have any other way of contacting him, because of the stupid policy that doesn’t allow sharing contact info on fiverr.

Then I went to the customers support page. I was looking for a phone number, or a live chat option, since the problem is pretty serious, and I need it fixed as soon as possible. Of course, fiverr doesn’t provide such options, so all I could do was to send a ticket, which I did. Now it’s already been 5 hours since I left ticket, but I’ve got no reply, and something tells me that this won’t be easy to solve.

I am posting this here, and I hope someone knows more about this issue and how to solve it, or what actually happened. I have so many questions… I can’t afford to pay back that order, and I don’t feel like I should have to. I delivered a great product, and the buyer was happy. I don’t think it is fair for fiverr to have this power, to just ask for our money back, months after we already spent it. What should I do next?

Thank you for reading this, and thank you in advance for any help that you can provide.

or what actually happened.

It sounds like your buyer issued a PayPal chargeback. I believe that as far as your balance goes, this is all automated. In essence, it’s Fiverr who have lost money here, as PayPal have clawed it back from them.

Work with Customer Support to try and resolve this. Gather together all the evidence that you have that shows that you delivered what was asked of you, and that the buyer was happy with your delivery. I’ve read a few reports over the past few months of Fiverr reimbursing sellers when this happens. No guarantees here of course, but try to keep calm and see how this plays out with CS. Remain friendly and polite with them, and I’m sure they will do what they can to help you.

the buyer’s account is not active anymore

Because of what I just explained, Fiverr takes chargebacks very seriously, and any buyer issuing a chargeback is immediately banned from the site. You can at least take comfort in knowing that this buyer will not be able to use Fiverr again (unless they create a duplicate account, which is also grounds for being banned).

You’re absolutely correct that it isn’t fair. Speak with Customer Support. You’re not the first, and you won’t be the last. Hopefully they will get this sorted for you.

Fingers crossed for you, let us know how you get on.

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or what actually happened.

It sounds like your buyer issued a PayPal chargeback. I believe that as far as your balance goes, this is all automated. In essence, it’s Fiverr who have lost money here, as PayPal have clawed it back from them.

Work with Customer Support to try and resolve this. Gather together all the evidence that you have that shows that you delivered what was asked of you, and that the buyer was happy with your delivery. I’ve read a few reports over the past few months of Fiverr reimbursing sellers when this happens. No guarantees here of course, but try to keep calm and see how this plays out with CS. Remain friendly and polite with them, and I’m sure they will do what they can to help you.

the buyer’s account is not active anymore

Because of what I just explained, Fiverr takes chargebacks very seriously, and any buyer issuing a chargeback is immediately banned from the site. You can at least take comfort in knowing that this buyer will not be able to use Fiverr again (unless they create a duplicate account, which is also grounds for being banned).

You’re absolutely correct that it isn’t fair. Speak with Customer Support. You’re not the first, and you won’t be the last. Hopefully they will get this sorted for you.

Fingers crossed for you, let us know how you get on.

Thank you very much for your reply. It does indeed make sense. I’ve already written to CS, but they haven’t replied yet. Honestly, I didn’t think the user had anything to do with it. He was friendly and enjoyed the software I made for him. It was a serious project, so I considered him a serious buyer too. However, it is possible that he did this, either on purpose or by mistake. Thanks once again for the reply. I will post here as soon as I get any update.

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Guest cubittaudio

Thank you very much for your reply. It does indeed make sense. I’ve already written to CS, but they haven’t replied yet. Honestly, I didn’t think the user had anything to do with it. He was friendly and enjoyed the software I made for him. It was a serious project, so I considered him a serious buyer too. However, it is possible that he did this, either on purpose or by mistake. Thanks once again for the reply. I will post here as soon as I get any update.

Honestly, I didn’t think the user had anything to do with it. He was friendly and enjoyed the software I made for him. It was a serious project, so I considered him a serious buyer too. However, it is possible that he did this, either on purpose or by mistake.

Friendly or not, from what you’ve said, I’m 99% certain that this is a chargeback. This doesn’t happen accidentally. Perhaps your buyer doesn’t realise the impact this has on you personally, but they have actively approached PayPal and asked for them to get their money back.

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Honestly, I didn’t think the user had anything to do with it. He was friendly and enjoyed the software I made for him. It was a serious project, so I considered him a serious buyer too. However, it is possible that he did this, either on purpose or by mistake.

Friendly or not, from what you’ve said, I’m 99% certain that this is a chargeback. This doesn’t happen accidentally. Perhaps your buyer doesn’t realise the impact this has on you personally, but they have actively approached PayPal and asked for them to get their money back.

Yeah, I understand. Thank you once again for the reply. Having an idea of what the issue was helped me relax a bit. I hope the Customer Support guys will reply soon.

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Hi catalin00, I’m sorry to give you bad news, but this happened to me like 2 months ago, exactly the same. I talked to fiverr and they don’t resolve this to your favor. Fiverr doesn’t lose money here, they take the money from you, I was really upset with them, since it makes no sense. Here is the mail I got from them.

They even have the balls to say that they also lose on the sale because they don’t earn the commission (WTH!)

Fiverr_Response.png.1b6ce58c5e29efaf3fec6b402bdb9f71.png

Sorry about it, if you get a better solution I would love to heard from it.

Best Regards,
Danilo

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Hi catalin00, I’m sorry to give you bad news, but this happened to me like 2 months ago, exactly the same. I talked to fiverr and they don’t resolve this to your favor. Fiverr doesn’t lose money here, they take the money from you, I was really upset with them, since it makes no sense. Here is the mail I got from them.

They even have the balls to say that they also lose on the sale because they don’t earn the commission (WTH!)

Sorry about it, if you get a better solution I would love to heard from it.

Best Regards,

Danilo

This is impossible. First of all, it is their job to check the buyer before giving me the confirmation that I can start working on the order. I pay fiverr 20% of my income just to make sure that transactions go smoothly and to check the buyer’s identity. I don’t care that they failed to do so and realised it only 3 months after. That is still my money. They should either forget about it and let me keep the money, or give me the 20% of all the orders I’ve done so far, since they are not capable to do their part.

Second, they didn’t really loose as much as I did. They lost $140 of PASSIVE income. Basically, they didn’t do anything for this money (And also, losing it is their fault more than it is mine). They just took it from me as their fee. On the other hand, I lost $560 of ACTIVE hard work. That was one of my finest products, I did everything I was asked to in order to get it, and I was promised I would get it. It’s my work, so I want my money. That’s why I am working on fiverr, to be assured that I get my payouts.

Third, I’ve already spent the money. I don’t have it anymore. I can’t afford to work for free until I pay back my negative balance. It’s been 3 months, they have no right to ask me to give back the money I earned 3 months ago.

And forth, and most importantly, they are already holding our money for two weeks, as a “clearance period”, during which nobody knows what happens to our revenue. My only guess is that they keep it on hold to make sure they don’t have to pay any refunds or something, and when the payment is finally “cleared”, they consider it is safe to give it to the seller. Since that clearance period is over, they don’t have the right to take back my revenue.

If they can’t do their part, or just let it go when they fail, then there is no reason for me to work with them anymore. Fortunately, I didn’t have any pending funds or balance when it happened, otherwise they would have taken it. I have orders in queue worth $1800. If they refuse to get my balance back to 0, I will simply cancel all my orders and stop using fiverr. They can either let this one go - as it’s their fault - or lose both the amount for that old order and my current and future orders.

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As cubittaudio said, see if you can work it out with support, I’m fairly certain that those processes are automated to start with, so you need to make them aware of what happened, prove that you delivered, etc., all the while staying calm and polite. There are several posts on the forum by sellers who have been compensated, maybe search and take a look at those, perhaps that can help as an argument.

We all agree that chargebacks s*ck and should be pretty much on the very top of Fiverr’s Do list, I think.

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As cubittaudio said, see if you can work it out with support, I’m fairly certain that those processes are automated to start with, so you need to make them aware of what happened, prove that you delivered, etc., all the while staying calm and polite. There are several posts on the forum by sellers who have been compensated, maybe search and take a look at those, perhaps that can help as an argument.

We all agree that chargebacks s*ck and should be pretty much on the very top of Fiverr’s Do list, I think.

Thank you very much for the reply. Can you please post some links to other topics about the same problem? I couldn’t find much (maybe I am not searching for the right terms).

I will, of course, try to settle this with the CS. However, they have to reply first, which they haven’t done yet in 10 hours.

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This is impossible. First of all, it is their job to check the buyer before giving me the confirmation that I can start working on the order. I pay fiverr 20% of my income just to make sure that transactions go smoothly and to check the buyer’s identity. I don’t care that they failed to do so and realised it only 3 months after. That is still my money. They should either forget about it and let me keep the money, or give me the 20% of all the orders I’ve done so far, since they are not capable to do their part.

Second, they didn’t really loose as much as I did. They lost $140 of PASSIVE income. Basically, they didn’t do anything for this money (And also, losing it is their fault more than it is mine). They just took it from me as their fee. On the other hand, I lost $560 of ACTIVE hard work. That was one of my finest products, I did everything I was asked to in order to get it, and I was promised I would get it. It’s my work, so I want my money. That’s why I am working on fiverr, to be assured that I get my payouts.

Third, I’ve already spent the money. I don’t have it anymore. I can’t afford to work for free until I pay back my negative balance. It’s been 3 months, they have no right to ask me to give back the money I earned 3 months ago.

And forth, and most importantly, they are already holding our money for two weeks, as a “clearance period”, during which nobody knows what happens to our revenue. My only guess is that they keep it on hold to make sure they don’t have to pay any refunds or something, and when the payment is finally “cleared”, they consider it is safe to give it to the seller. Since that clearance period is over, they don’t have the right to take back my revenue.

If they can’t do their part, or just let it go when they fail, then there is no reason for me to work with them anymore. Fortunately, I didn’t have any pending funds or balance when it happened, otherwise they would have taken it. I have orders in queue worth $1800. If they refuse to get my balance back to 0, I will simply cancel all my orders and stop using fiverr. They can either let this one go - as it’s their fault - or lose both the amount for that old order and my current and future orders.

I fully agree with you, and believe me, everything you said, I feel it too, I wrote them a pretty extensive mail explaining all of that. The picture I sent you was the final response to that extensive mail. I really hope you can find the way to get your money back, but I didn’t have luck.

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I fully agree with you, and believe me, everything you said, I feel it too, I wrote them a pretty extensive mail explaining all of that. The picture I sent you was the final response to that extensive mail. I really hope you can find the way to get your money back, but I didn’t have luck.

Thanks, I really appreciate your support. At least now I know what to expect when I finally get a reply from the CS.

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Guest hanshuber16

Thank you very much for the reply. Can you please post some links to other topics about the same problem? I couldn’t find much (maybe I am not searching for the right terms).

I will, of course, try to settle this with the CS. However, they have to reply first, which they haven’t done yet in 10 hours.

Can you please post some links to other topics about the same problem? I couldn’t find much (maybe I am not searching for the right terms).

Sure! No worries. Here are 3 forum threads about other sellers who’ve faced CBs, and Fiverr helped them recover the CB funds:

A user purchased 96 sales from me in the past month. I helped this person continually through everything they have been through - night and day I was helping them with their many issues. Yyesterday all of a sudden, my email was blown up with disputes that the buyer filed. He had purchased close to $5,000 worth of readings and is now trying to get pretty much all of his money back. I emailed Fiverr support and they basically told me they can do nothing about it. Does anyone have any experience …
All from the same user. Leaving me with a negative balance and order completion rate in red. And I don’t even charge a lot on here for this particular reason. But when you buy like 10 gigs and chargeback all of them, it defeats the purpose of it. I’ve sent a ticket to Fiverr, let’s see what CS has to say. I’m not taking the hit for this nonsense. Funny thing is, I have blocked this user multiple times after he first ordered. He was asking for free stuff, discounts, being difficult about revisio…
Hello, I am seeking help from the community. After delivering the order, the buyer gave a revisions saying that he needs to check all the images correctly then he will come back as the files are taking time to download and he needs to check the work. After three days, I got a notification saying the order is canceled and I will not be able to contact him anymore. In this three day, I knocked him several times but he did not respond and even he did not come online at all. Now, the order page s…

This may not happen to you, too. There is no guarantee of that. However, I hope these threads help put your mind at ease (at least, a little bit).

Good luck! 🍍

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Thank you very much for the reply. Can you please post some links to other topics about the same problem? I couldn’t find much (maybe I am not searching for the right terms).

I will, of course, try to settle this with the CS. However, they have to reply first, which they haven’t done yet in 10 hours.

I don’t remember the titles of the threads and could only try searching for whatever terms might work, I will in case I suffer a chargeback 😉 Here’s one where a seller got his money that I found on top with search term “chargeback”:

Once again…that nightmare came true! Buyer charged back 2 orders worth $500, 1 month after rating (5 star) the orders. Of course, fiverr can not do anything about it. This is not something in fiverr’s hands but man…Not only lost $500, even my “Completion Rate” dropped. Such a bad start to the day! Agh!
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I don’t remember the titles of the threads and could only try searching for whatever terms might work, I will in case I suffer a chargeback 😉 Here’s one where a seller got his money that I found on top with search term “chargeback”:

Once again…that nightmare came true! Buyer charged back 2 orders worth $500, 1 month after rating (5 star) the orders. Of course, fiverr can not do anything about it. This is not something in fiverr’s hands but man…Not only lost $500, even my “Completion Rate” dropped. Such a bad start to the day! Agh!

Thanks a lot, will check it out.

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This is impossible. First of all, it is their job to check the buyer before giving me the confirmation that I can start working on the order. I pay fiverr 20% of my income just to make sure that transactions go smoothly and to check the buyer’s identity. I don’t care that they failed to do so and realised it only 3 months after. That is still my money. They should either forget about it and let me keep the money, or give me the 20% of all the orders I’ve done so far, since they are not capable to do their part.

Second, they didn’t really loose as much as I did. They lost $140 of PASSIVE income. Basically, they didn’t do anything for this money (And also, losing it is their fault more than it is mine). They just took it from me as their fee. On the other hand, I lost $560 of ACTIVE hard work. That was one of my finest products, I did everything I was asked to in order to get it, and I was promised I would get it. It’s my work, so I want my money. That’s why I am working on fiverr, to be assured that I get my payouts.

Third, I’ve already spent the money. I don’t have it anymore. I can’t afford to work for free until I pay back my negative balance. It’s been 3 months, they have no right to ask me to give back the money I earned 3 months ago.

And forth, and most importantly, they are already holding our money for two weeks, as a “clearance period”, during which nobody knows what happens to our revenue. My only guess is that they keep it on hold to make sure they don’t have to pay any refunds or something, and when the payment is finally “cleared”, they consider it is safe to give it to the seller. Since that clearance period is over, they don’t have the right to take back my revenue.

If they can’t do their part, or just let it go when they fail, then there is no reason for me to work with them anymore. Fortunately, I didn’t have any pending funds or balance when it happened, otherwise they would have taken it. I have orders in queue worth $1800. If they refuse to get my balance back to 0, I will simply cancel all my orders and stop using fiverr. They can either let this one go - as it’s their fault - or lose both the amount for that old order and my current and future orders.

This is impossible. First of all, it is their job to check the buyer

I think it’s impossible to stop a buyer from PayPal chargeback if they don’t read fiverr FAQ and end up getting banned.

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This is impossible. First of all, it is their job to check the buyer

I think it’s impossible to stop a buyer from PayPal chargeback if they don’t read fiverr FAQ and end up getting banned.

well, maybe, but it’s still their job. As I said above, I consider that the 20% I am giving fiverr is for making sure the transactions go smoothly. However, in this case, it just made things worse. If I had worked through paypal only, the worst thing that could have happened would be that I had to fight the paypal chargeback. I would have contacted paypal support and tried to settle everything. I would also be able to contact the buyer and ask what on earth just happened.

Now, how did fiverr “improve” the situation?

  • I can’t contact paypal directly, because the payment wasn’t made to me, but to fiverr

  • I can’t call or chat live with anyone, as fiverr doesn’t have such features

  • I can’t contact the buyer, because fiverr didn’t allow me to ask for an email or phone number

  • Even if everything settles out, I am still left with my completion rate destroyed for the next month or so

I really start to wonder what the benefits of working through fiverr really are.

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Hi catalin00, I’m sorry to give you bad news, but this happened to me like 2 months ago, exactly the same. I talked to fiverr and they don’t resolve this to your favor. Fiverr doesn’t lose money here, they take the money from you, I was really upset with them, since it makes no sense. Here is the mail I got from them.

They even have the balls to say that they also lose on the sale because they don’t earn the commission (WTH!)

Sorry about it, if you get a better solution I would love to heard from it.

Best Regards,

Danilo

they don’t resolve this to your favor.

This is only relevant to your case.

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They handle each case as unique. They do sometimes reimburse sellers all or part. Sometimes they don’t. Remain polite, clear and professional with Support for ideal results. Good luck!

I would love to send a polite message to the CS. The only issue is that they haven’t replied yet to the one I’ve already sent 12 hours ago.

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It usually takes 24-48 hours at minimum.

well, I’ll wait, as I can’t do much more. However, for such important problems, I think a call line or live chat would be a must. Especially since I see that this issue is more common than I first thought. Looks like a lot of people are in the same situation. I wonder if they are planning to fix it somehow sometime, or to actually do something about it.

Personally, I felt like I got hit by a car when I saw the notification this morning. At least they should think about sellers that are in this situation for the first time and explain somewhere the issue and what steps we should take.

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Hi catalin00, I’m sorry to give you bad news, but this happened to me like 2 months ago, exactly the same. I talked to fiverr and they don’t resolve this to your favor. Fiverr doesn’t lose money here, they take the money from you, I was really upset with them, since it makes no sense. Here is the mail I got from them.

They even have the balls to say that they also lose on the sale because they don’t earn the commission (WTH!)

Sorry about it, if you get a better solution I would love to heard from it.

Best Regards,

Danilo

Since you said:

they don’t resolve this to your favor.

this sounds like you intended the OP to know that it would not be resolved in the seller’s favor because that is how it was for you personally. That isn’t the case. Sometimes Support does resolve these things in the seller’s favor and sometimes they do give the seller all or part of the money back. The fact that they didn’t do so for you might be relevant up to a point, but since you used the word “YOUR” it sounded like you were telling the OP there was no chance. That’s all. No big thing, but the seller should find out from Support, not make an assumption of chance based on someone else’s experience.

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Since you said:

they don’t resolve this to your favor.

this sounds like you intended the OP to know that it would not be resolved in the seller’s favor because that is how it was for you personally. That isn’t the case. Sometimes Support does resolve these things in the seller’s favor and sometimes they do give the seller all or part of the money back. The fact that they didn’t do so for you might be relevant up to a point, but since you used the word “YOUR” it sounded like you were telling the OP there was no chance. That’s all. No big thing, but the seller should find out from Support, not make an assumption of chance based on someone else’s experience.

Ok got you, you are right. I suppose I just assumed that fiverr treats all sellers in the same way.

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Ok got you, you are right. I suppose I just assumed that fiverr treats all sellers in the same way.

I actually wish that were more true than it probably is. From what I’ve seen, there may actually be some special folks who get extra help with cancellations and other things. However, I would consider that a rumor, not a fact.

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