Buyer wants me to make 2 estimates so he can pay half

[joepmbrtn]

This buyer has zero ratings, and no picture in his profile. He wanted me to communicate with him outside of Fiverr, and now he wants me to make 2 estimates, so he can pay for half the project, and then pay the second project upon completion.

This seems super shady. Advice?

[Guest lloydsolutions]

The answers to these questions are in the Terms of Service at the bottom of the Fiverr main page.

All the rules are explained there.

Off Fiverr contact is not allowed and the buyer has to order and pay first and then you deliver.

Suggest you politely explain that your buyer needs to read the Terms of Service.

[wordpress_whiz]

This buyer has zero ratings, and no picture in his profile. He wanted me to communicate with him outside of Fiverr, and now he wants me to make 2 estimates, so he can pay for half the project, and then pay the second project upon completion.

This seems super shady. Advice?

He wanted me to communicate with him outside of Fiverr,

Contact Support about the buyer’s attempt to lure you to communicate outside of Fiverr…They are the best people to help you when it comes to this kind of situation because the buyer is not supposed to communicate outside this platform…

[sue_mcl]

This buyer has zero ratings, and no picture in his profile. He wanted me to communicate with him outside of Fiverr, and now he wants me to make 2 estimates, so he can pay for half the project, and then pay the second project upon completion.

This seems super shady. Advice?

This seems super shady. Advice?

This is 100% shady, do not work with this buyer no matter what he tempts you with (not only because he is shady, but he is asking you to break the TOS which puts YOUR account at risk.

[catwriter]

This buyer has zero ratings, and no picture in his profile. He wanted me to communicate with him outside of Fiverr, and now he wants me to make 2 estimates, so he can pay for half the project, and then pay the second project upon completion.

This seems super shady. Advice?

This seems super shady.

Not necessarily, the buyer might be new to the platform, and clueless about the rules…

Advice?

As @lloydsolutions suggested, politely refer to your buyer to the Terms of Service (tell them that the terms are not some boring legal stuff, but a bunch of explanations about how Fiverr works), and explain them the ordering process.

Another solution would be to politely inform the buyer that you don’t feel that you’re a good match for their needs, and that you’re sure they’d be much happier with someone else. You can also report them to CS, so that someone can keep an eye on them.

[misscrystal]

No don’t do it. Tell him he needs to pay for it all at the same time. He sounds like he would be difficult anyway. He might not know you can’t communicate outside of fiverr.

[cyaxrex]

This buyer has zero ratings, and no picture in his profile. He wanted me to communicate with him outside of Fiverr, and now he wants me to make 2 estimates, so he can pay for half the project, and then pay the second project upon completion.

This seems super shady. Advice?

This buyer has zero ratings, and no picture in his profile. He wanted me to communicate with him outside of Fiverr, and now he wants me to make 2 estimates, so he can pay for half the project, and then pay the second project upon completion.

This seems super shady. Advice?

Don’t do it. I just had a buyer order 1 article and gush about how they actually need 2 but were confused with the payment process. They then said that if I delivered 2 articles, they would happily pay later. I said no, delivered 1 article, and politely reminded them that they could order a second article at any time. All I got for the trouble was a 3-star review.

Retainer payments, requests for reduced prices, and people who want to split orders up to pay in smaller increments are ALWAYS trouble. If they don’t want to pay your regular prices, politely suggest that they find a more budget seller.

[misscrystal]

This buyer has zero ratings, and no picture in his profile. He wanted me to communicate with him outside of Fiverr, and now he wants me to make 2 estimates, so he can pay for half the project, and then pay the second project upon completion.

This seems super shady. Advice?

Don’t do it. I just had a buyer order 1 article and gush about how they actually need 2 but were confused with the payment process. They then said that if I delivered 2 articles, they would happily pay later. I said no, delivered 1 article, and politely reminded them that they could order a second article at any time. All I got for the trouble was a 3-star review.

Retainer payments, requests for reduced prices, and people who want to split orders up to pay in smaller increments are ALWAYS trouble. If they don’t want to pay your regular prices, politely suggest that they find a more budget seller.

requests for reduced prices, and people who want to split orders up to pay in smaller increments are ALWAYS trouble.

These are the cheapskates who make trouble because all they really can think about is that money they spent and it kills them.

[wooden_fish]

IIRC, custom orders over $100 can have built-in milestones, right?

[fonthaunt]

IIRC, custom orders over $100 can have built-in milestones, right?

I think that some people have the milestone feature (assuming it still exists) and some don’t. I’ve never had it and I do a lot of higher value custom orders. I heard it didn’t work well anyway so I am not waiting for it. 😃 If I have a client who needs something in milestones I just do that within the custom quote framework, so if they need to pay for part 1 up front I give them a quote for just part 1. After they mark that order complete I give them a quote for the next part and so on.

I would love to see a milestone feature that worked very well, but someone told me that you can get stuck with a complete milestone and no way to proceed. (Someone else might know more.)

[Guest humanissocial]

Even if this wasn’t against the terms and wasn’t shady, do you really want to work for the kind of person who would do that to you?

People like that also go out of scope, want multiple revisions, are never satisfied, etc.

[dawalagiri]

Yes, maintain distance with the buyer if you find any doubtful behavior, mark spam/block if you are sure they are asking you to violate Fiverr T&C.

[Guest salindals]

do not communicate with him outside fiverr

[misscrystal]

That milestone feature was not a good idea since it’s a given you won’t get the complete payments. If a buyer can’t come up with the entire payment, he won’t be able to come up with the rest of the payments, or will change his mind about them. On paper it looks good though. It’s also possible for the seller to cause the breakdown in the structure along the way by not doing his part of the job in the planned intervals.