Seller Not Responding . . . Should I be surprised?

[sarah_iw]

Oh my… so heartbreaking to read…idk how to react to that. I’m just here thinking of how few people ruin ‘new sellers’ reputation and make them not recommendable. I’m here, new seller, yearning to wow that one person who will trust me and give me their order to work on. I really wish people change, take orders seriously and be nice to the buyer. I’m sorry you went through all that…

[eoinfinnegan]

They aren’t very smart about how to manage being self employed. In addition they are totally irresponsible. I don’t think planning goes into it, it’s just a way of operating that is not organized, businesslike, serious about what they are doing, and since everyone they have ever seen is the same way they don’t know anything different.

They just hope that somehow the victim goes away but leaves them the money.

It’s primitive and bumbling.

In addition the idea of actually delivering what they said they would deliver is simply not in their DNA.

I don’t think planning goes into it, it’s just a way of operating that is not organized, businesslike, serious about what they are doing, and since everyone they have ever seen is the same way they don’t know anything different.

I think for many sellers like this, there is an issue of not knowing how to deal with an issue. They perhaps worry about what the buyer will say or assume that just because there is an issue the buyer is going to cancel. As a result, they don’t know what to do and avoiding responding seems like a good plan for them while they try to find a solution.

It’s for this reason that I tend to suggest a “softly, softly” approach as a general rule - I have had a number of times where I think an order could have gone badly (like where the OP mentions the seller seemed afraid to ask for an extension) and by allowing them more time they seem really shocked that someone is allowing them that.

There is every chance that this is less a cultural thing and more as a result of how they have been treated by other buyers in the past. Add in the stories they will have heard (and people usually only tell of their nightmare experiences) and they think that the buyer is going to just cancel.

Overall though, it is not a buyer’s responsibility to babysit a non-professional seller. If they are getting work done for a low price it might be worth their while to do so but if they don’t see potential for solutions then ending the order is the only way to go.

[lenasemenkova]

Since it’s a software development field, what could happen (and what in my experience tends to happen more often than not) is that the seller segmented the project into parts. Most of those parts they could do but eventually they ran into a technical difficulty they weren’t equipped to solve, didn’t account for or planned to outsource but the other party bounced.

Fiverr doesn’t allow partial refunds so you can’t really go: “I did 90% of this job, I’ll refund the rest, please take this elsewhere”. Also, with software development getting something with missing parts may mean that it’d be entirely unusable. So fearing the full refund with most of the work done, the seller can be dragging it out in search for alternative solutions.

I don’t think the behaviour is malicious but it’s terribly irresponsible and I think you should cancel. Software/web development is a job with a lot of moving parts to consider and plan for; not everyone has a natural talent for it. Waaaay too many people think they do.

[coerdelion]

Yeah - that was my first thought. He came across something he didn’t know how to do and just built a hole and pulled it in after himself.

The OP should cancel - with CS if necessary.

[uk1000]

Maybe milestones could have been used. Maybe what the seller did could be completed by another seller. If the seller can’t complete it in the required time, maybe it could be cancelled and if what is done is still helpful, a lower priced order could be made so the buyer could get what has been done, it that will help, eg. towards the complete project/help get that done faster.

[eoinfinnegan]

(post withdrawn by author, will be automatically deleted in 24 hours unless flagged)

I don’t know why you assumed it but there have been plenty of failures from a variety of cultures and countries reported on the forum. Given the field of the order, it was what I assumed too but not due to the issue itself.

We are probably getting close to a potentially charged subject here so I’ll maybe leave it there.

[misscrystal]

I guess you’re right. I would need to have a larger sampling to make that assumption but still I’ve had outstanding examples of this more than once. And after reading what happened here, well, enough said.

I’ve noticed tbh I do extrapolate quite a bit sometimes. But usually it’s correct.
Remember what you said about “full Irish breakfast”?

[cyaxrex]

To put some perspective on this, software engineering is the most in-demand profession at present and competent software engineers are in short supply. Silicon Valley snaps them up pretty much as soon as they can code.

As a result, the majority of startups and small businesses in need of bespoke software outsource projects overseas. Top locations to outsource to include India and Romania. Pakistan isn’t far behind. The reason why rests with there being less of a language barrier.

I can say with certainty, that if you are on a budget and on Fiverr looking to hire a developer, you are not going to find many worth hiring who are not from India, Pakistan, Romania, or other countries where there might be cultural differences - for good or good or bad.

Knowing this field, I’m really not comfortable with it being implied in this thread that the sellers nationality has anything to do with what happened here. The reality is that we do not know what happened, can’t know what happened, and outsourcing bespoke software development on a budget is always high-risk.

The OP’s original question was " Seller Not Responding … Should I be surprised?" - I’d say no. This is because I know this industry. The good news (regardless of why this order went awry), is that the OP has been advised how to deal with this situation. Now I think we should just leave things at that.

[markp]

In my opinion this is not a cultural thing, but a lazy idiot thing. you can’t tar a whole country with the same brush because of the behaviour of a few Useless indivduals whose raison d’être is “Do as little as possible for as much as possible”. the heads of Microsoft and Google are from one of the countries that are constantly maligned as being in the same boat, directly or by insinuation. Its a minority reflecting badly on the majority.

With regards to the project. it may be that it needed to be broken up into separate projects and done by people with different skill sets. At a company I used to work for I had some developers working for me from eastern Europe. One we called “Mister java” as he had a pathlogical hatred of javascript.

Different people have different skillsets & willingness to work with different types of code and languages and unless the developer in question had a good level of ability he probably took something on he was 50% qualified to do and tried to wing it on the rest and found copying and pasting code from the internet did not cut it. (More people than you would believe do this).

He is obviously not going to respond and is leaving a bad impression of himself and Fiverr. I would cancel the order and report him.

[misscrystal]

I stand corrected. This has been edited.

[markp]

I stand corrected. This has been edited.

when people are desperate for money they do desperate things. They overstate their abilities and make claims about abilities they do not have, then try to get other people to do their work, or try and find solutions that are beyond their capabilities to implement . Its not a cultural thing its an idiot thing and I’m referring specifically to here.

[misscrystal]

when people are desperate for money they do desperate things. They overstate their abilities and make claims about abilities they do not have, then try to get other people to do their work, or try and find solutions that are beyond their capabilities to implement . Its not a cultural thing its an idiot thing and I’m referring specifically to here.

You’re right markp. It could happen anywhere there are desperate people.

[epiphanyanimati]

So on November 12 the order started and the order delivery date was updated to November 27th. He didn’t meet the 27th as a deadline so we both agreed on 3 days delivery extension, my delivery date was adjusted to the 30th

I’m afraid that this means you no longer have an order with this seller. When an order is over 3-days late, it is automatically cancelled by Fiverr. When that happens, your funds are credited to you as Fiverr credit.

There is no way this can not be the case.

After December 9th I contacted him on the 13th and 18th respectively . . .

It might be the case that your seller sent a further message asking you to extend the deadline on you order, but you missed it. - Either this or something went wrong on their end. (Messages do go missing on Fiverr occasionally.)

Your order will have canceled automatically if it was still late by the 9th. This means that your seller did not get paid (and can’t get paid) anything. They may be ignoring you, as they might feel like they put in a lot of work for nothing and now don’t want to hear from you again.

Of course, there is a problem with communication here. However, your seller does stop responding at exactly the same time that your order would have been automatically canceled.

As a buyer, you will need to now click on the order page and see what it says there. - And check your shopping balance.

Orders don’t cancel after being 3 days late, I’ve had an order that was almost 30 days late and it did not get auto-cancelled…

[cyaxrex]

Orders don’t cancel after being 3 days late, I’ve had an order that was almost 30 days late and it did not get auto-cancelled…

Well, I’m pretty sure they used to. I went through a bad patch in 2017 where several of my orders got to 3-days late. They all cancelled at the exact time they had started 3-days earlier. I also expected them to, as I thought that was how Fiverr worked.

I’ll just put this down to having slipped between a few parallel universes since then.

[gina_riley2]

in the OP’s case nothing at all was done

I just don’t understand why seller would do that because they don’t benefit from this at all. They are not going to be paid and supposedly they spent their time working on this project so I just don’t see why someone would go missing like that and ignore messages (though I know it’s quite common judging from everything we saw on this forum)

Crazy, huh?

You’d be surprised at how often it happens though.

I had a guy ghosting me while delivering other orders and getting reviews, while mine sat there being really late.

I had another guy that immediately contacted me after I cancelled for being 4 days late. When the system gave him the review, he asked me to take it down. I was new then and didn’t know about the auto 1 star.

I’ve even had a guy who delivered via inbox for something I didn’t order, then asked for money, review, etc, etc. :rofl:

I have to wonder what goes through their mind when ignoring my messages? I guess they just want me to go away?

I’m not someone who nags. I fill out requirements, tell seller my timezone and unless they message me with clarification questions, I don’t bug them. Well, until my order is at least 12 hours late.

Fustrating.

[uk1000]

Crazy, huh?

You’d be surprised at how often it happens though.

I had a guy ghosting me while delivering other orders and getting reviews, while mine sat there being really late.

I had another guy that immediately contacted me after I cancelled for being 4 days late. When the system gave him the review, he asked me to take it down. I was new then and didn’t know about the auto 1 star.

I’ve even had a guy who delivered via inbox for something I didn’t order, then asked for money, review, etc, etc. :rofl:

I have to wonder what goes through their mind when ignoring my messages? I guess they just want me to go away?

I’m not someone who nags. I fill out requirements, tell seller my timezone and unless they message me with clarification questions, I don’t bug them. Well, until my order is at least 12 hours late.

Fustrating.

Though I think messaging while uploading a very big file/files for a delivery (attaching on a Fiverr delivery) can increase the chance of an upload failure. Maybe it depends on the connection. Though they can always respond directly after.

[adeela71]

oh sorry to hear that but it is surprising for me as a seller. Every seller have a count down at every order and after the evaluation system of levels it is more difficult to make such big mistake of reducing response rate. You should go for resolution center and ask fiverr support to help. If seller not responding this is the only best option 🙂

[adeela71]

It’s disheartening you know? I understand there’s bad sellers and bad buyers on the platform . . . I get that, but I dunno if I’m just on a really bad string or something, but this is ridiculous. I don’t understand why I can’t get a response form him? Like did I offend him or something? I made sure to wait at least 3 days between each response as to not overwhelm them but still not so much as a courtesy message saying “Hey sorry i don’t have time to fully answer your questions . . soon though!” Like nothing!

you can track him by checking his last online. And if he knowingly not responding then go for CS.

[uk1000]

oh sorry to hear that but it is surprising for me as a seller. Every seller have a count down at every order and after the evaluation system of levels it is more difficult to make such big mistake of reducing response rate. You should go for resolution center and ask fiverr support to help. If seller not responding this is the only best option 🙂

and after the evaluation system of levels it is more difficult to make such big mistake of reducing response rate.

Though the current response rate only takes into account the first response to any new message thread, not the others (and the first messages I think were okay and responded to). Maybe it could be changed to also take into account other messages (those where the buyer’s message ended in a question mark), as long as there wouldn’t be too many problems with doing that.

[adeela71]

and after the evaluation system of levels it is more difficult to make such big mistake of reducing response rate.

Though the current response rate only takes into account the first response to any new message thread, not the others (and the first messages I think were okay and responded to). Maybe it could be changed to also take into account other messages (those where the buyer’s message ended in a question mark), as long as there wouldn’t be too many problems with doing that.

Yeah it is basically about 3 days but it get into account if its too late as i got an order that was late only two days in modification and i lost my one point in my response rate. May be it was bug in system but it happens with me.

[uk1000]

Yeah it is basically about 3 days but it get into account if its too late as i got an order that was late only two days in modification and i lost my one point in my response rate. May be it was bug in system but it happens with me.

Late deliveries will cause the “late delivery” stat on the evaluation to increase (assuming it’s not cancelled, and not without one of those auto-late reviews), so that could cause a level drop/failure to be promoted. Late deliveries alone shouldn’t affect the response rate stat as that should only be affected currently by not replying to the first message in a message thread in the last 60 days.

[adeela71]

Late deliveries will cause the “late delivery” stat on the evaluation to increase (assuming it’s not cancelled, and not without one of those auto-late reviews), so that could cause a level drop/failure to be promoted. Late deliveries alone shouldn’t affect the response rate stat as that should only be affected currently by not replying to the first message in a message thread in the last 60 days.

yeah my be i consider it wrong.

[uk1000]

yeah my be i consider it wrong.

If the response rate ever drops when it shouldn’t (eg. by a message flagged as spam that it says shouldn’t affect the response rate) you can always contact CS to fix it.

[adeela71]

If the response rate ever drops when it shouldn’t (eg. by a message flagged as spam that it says shouldn’t affect the response rate) you can always contact CS to fix it.

lol i think i am the one who always run to CS. I had experience level drop as well because of this and after evaluation it automatically up but i lost my level. That was horrible experience though. But yes CS is always very responsive