Buyer cancelled order but has the finished product

[scottcorwin]

Hello, I’m still relatively new to Fiverr, so I could use the community’s help here. A buyer requested a fairly standard order from me about 5 days ago. I do Excel & VBA work exclusively at the moment, and he wanted his workbook to notify him if he had a duplicate entry in a column (this is the simplified situation). I did that well before the deadline of 2 days hit, and sent him a test copy via the messaging. I also sent a short tutorial video to demo the macro.
Anyway, he decided he had a second task he wanted completed, so I obliged. The problem though is that his task involves a server that auto-refreshes data on the workbook, and I have no way of accessing that. I asked him if he would be available to do a live session so I could send him a test copy for this new issue, because he would have to tell me if it worked or not (I hope this makes sense).
Well, at that point he shut down comms completely. He didn’t respond to several of my messages. Now, in my naivete I hadn’t yet extended the deadline to accommodate for this new task, but I told him I would send him that extension request today along with the new workbook. Anyway, he cancelled on me out of the blue, and I’m feeling a bit cheated. If he had an issue with my original workbook I would have liked for him to just tell me that.

Any suggestions on how to proceed? Thanks.

[dolly_donut]

My advice would be to contact CS and explain the situation - that you delivered what he ordered and then he requested additional work over and above the original order. Then he cancelled the order, having received the original work. You may get the standard response from CS which is usually about making the customer happy, etc. But given that you have no indication that the buyer is unhappy, it’s worth brining to their attention. You may well not see the money that you earned though 😦 But Fiverr may side with you. It’s a bit hit and miss and often depends which CS agent you get!

[coerdelion]

You sent the order through messaging, rather than the order page? That means you did the order for free, unfortunately.

Always deliver through the order page. Never messaging. Not ever.

That delivery for free is pretty much why you’re not hearing from him now …

[humanissocial]

If someone ordered something on Amazon, would you send it to them yourself before they made the full transaction and then hope Amazon would pay you?

That’s what you’ve done here. I doubt Fiverr will help you.

No buyer has to accept and pay for anything until they officially accept it. You removed that option. That isn’t your buyer’s problem. They do not have to pay you just because you decided to do things the wrong way, even if they have the finished product. You can’t get it back because it isn’t watermarked/protected.

[miiila]

Hello, I’m still relatively new to Fiverr, so I could use the community’s help here. A buyer requested a fairly standard order from me about 5 days ago. I do Excel & VBA work exclusively at the moment, and he wanted his workbook to notify him if he had a duplicate entry in a column (this is the simplified situation). I did that well before the deadline of 2 days hit, and sent him a test copy via the messaging. I also sent a short tutorial video to demo the macro.

Anyway, he decided he had a second task he wanted completed, so I obliged. The problem though is that his task involves a server that auto-refreshes data on the workbook, and I have no way of accessing that. I asked him if he would be available to do a live session so I could send him a test copy for this new issue, because he would have to tell me if it worked or not (I hope this makes sense).

Well, at that point he shut down comms completely. He didn’t respond to several of my messages. Now, in my naivete I hadn’t yet extended the deadline to accommodate for this new task, but I told him I would send him that extension request today along with the new workbook. Anyway, he cancelled on me out of the blue, and I’m feeling a bit cheated. If he had an issue with my original workbook I would have liked for him to just tell me that.

Any suggestions on how to proceed? Thanks.

If you let an order get late, the buyer will get the option to cancel one-sidedly, without having to put in a cancellation request which would need to be approved by the seller.

If a buyer wants something additional during the Gig, which wasn’t part of the original Gig, you have 2 options - either send them a Gig extra they can accept and pay for (along with an extension request if needed) or send them a new custom offer for the new request.

The latter might be the better option if you’re not sure a buyer will (be able to) accept the extra/extension request on time for you to deliver on time, as then, you can deliver the original Gig and the buyer first needs to accept the new offer for the 2nd request, before you’ll have to deliver, or even start working on it.

If you’ve finished a job, deliver. If a buyer thinks something is wrong with it, they can request a revision, but once you delivered the complete work, it can’t get late anymore. Just don’t deliver incomplete work, and you’re good.

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Anyway, he cancelled on me out of the blue,

Out of the blue is not really possible, unless he somehow convinced support to cancel for him.

Neither buyer nor seller can cancel out of the blue, they can only request a cancellation and the other party gets a notification and can accept or reject the cancellation request.

Only if the other party won’t react for x time, or the seller lets an order get late, the order will get cancelled/the buyer gets the option to cancel one-sidedly.

So, probably, you let the order get so late that the buyer got the option to cancel without needing you to accept, or very late (see “order status” in the Help Center), which is even worse, as the buyer can cancel and an automatic 1* review is left under the buyer’s name, even if they themselves might not have left a review at all, or perhaps a 3* or whatever.

You can find all that info in Fiverr’s Help Center, it’s worth to read through all those “technical” articles, so you’re prepared for such situations and can avoid a lot of issues.