Just found something... a bit concerning

[misscrystal]

Despair, maybe? When people are feeling this way even the craziest things can sound reasonable 😬

It’s incredibly sad to me, thinking about this. I feel so sorry for them, those who resort to this. It must be terrible.

And what exactly are these fake reviews supposed to do? Help get buyers? Help the gig become better positioned? They do neither of those things, by themselves.

[uk1000]

It’s incredibly sad to me, thinking about this. I feel so sorry for them, those who resort to this. It must be terrible.

And what exactly are these fake reviews supposed to do? Help get buyers? Help the gig become better positioned? They do neither of those things, by themselves.

And what exactly are these fake reviews supposed to do? Help get buyers? Help the gig become better positioned? They do neither of those things, by themselves.

Reviews surely would help get more buyers and might help it’s rank, if the potential buyer doesn’t know they’re fake.

Maybe it depends what you mean by “by themselves” but if seller has something to give it for a delivery it’s still going to help them.

Though anyone doing that will likely get caught by Fiverr at some point and could get a warning.

[cubittaudio]

It’s incredibly sad to me, thinking about this. I feel so sorry for them, those who resort to this. It must be terrible.

And what exactly are these fake reviews supposed to do? Help get buyers? Help the gig become better positioned? They do neither of those things, by themselves.

And what exactly are these fake reviews supposed to do? Help get buyers? Help the gig become better positioned? They do neither of those things, by themselves.

I think when you look at the posts on the forum, the huge number of “how do I get sales?” types in particular… there’s a flawed belief that success on Fiverr is a case of “If you complete tasks A, B, C and D then you will be successful”.

These tasks are usually tick-boxes… “You must rank your gig on the first page”, “you must get more impressions”, “you must get as many favourites for your gig as you can”, and people busy themselves trying to complete those tasks instead of focusing on the bigger picture. It’s telling because you then see posts where people say “I’ve finally got my gig on page 1, but I’m not getting sales, why?”

The mindset is all wrong, but fake reviews and gig exchanges cater to that mindset. I guess, if it were life outside Fiverr, if someone walked into a struggling Mom and Pop store and said “Hey, pay me $x and I’ll help you sky rocket your business”, there are enough desperate people who would do it. Sadly, I suspect in the examples like this Facebook group, someone’s profiting by exploiting the desperate.

[visualstudios]

And what exactly are these fake reviews supposed to do? Help get buyers? Help the gig become better positioned? They do neither of those things, by themselves.

I think when you look at the posts on the forum, the huge number of “how do I get sales?” types in particular… there’s a flawed belief that success on Fiverr is a case of “If you complete tasks A, B, C and D then you will be successful”.

These tasks are usually tick-boxes… “You must rank your gig on the first page”, “you must get more impressions”, “you must get as many favourites for your gig as you can”, and people busy themselves trying to complete those tasks instead of focusing on the bigger picture. It’s telling because you then see posts where people say “I’ve finally got my gig on page 1, but I’m not getting sales, why?”

The mindset is all wrong, but fake reviews and gig exchanges cater to that mindset. I guess, if it were life outside Fiverr, if someone walked into a struggling Mom and Pop store and said “Hey, pay me $x and I’ll help you sky rocket your business”, there are enough desperate people who would do it. Sadly, I suspect in the examples like this Facebook group, someone’s profiting by exploiting the desperate.

In addition to this and as I explained above, even if you have a real service to offer, starting from zero can take a long time. Getting the first reviews quickly helps you rank, then you can start getting organic reviews.

[misscrystal]

And what exactly are these fake reviews supposed to do? Help get buyers? Help the gig become better positioned? They do neither of those things, by themselves.

I think when you look at the posts on the forum, the huge number of “how do I get sales?” types in particular… there’s a flawed belief that success on Fiverr is a case of “If you complete tasks A, B, C and D then you will be successful”.

These tasks are usually tick-boxes… “You must rank your gig on the first page”, “you must get more impressions”, “you must get as many favourites for your gig as you can”, and people busy themselves trying to complete those tasks instead of focusing on the bigger picture. It’s telling because you then see posts where people say “I’ve finally got my gig on page 1, but I’m not getting sales, why?”

The mindset is all wrong, but fake reviews and gig exchanges cater to that mindset. I guess, if it were life outside Fiverr, if someone walked into a struggling Mom and Pop store and said “Hey, pay me $x and I’ll help you sky rocket your business”, there are enough desperate people who would do it. Sadly, I suspect in the examples like this Facebook group, someone’s profiting by exploiting the desperate.

“I’ve finally got my gig on page 1, but I’m not getting sales, why?”

I don’t know whether to laugh or cry at this. 😢

[visualstudios]

“I’ve finally got my gig on page 1, but I’m not getting sales, why?”

I don’t know whether to laugh or cry at this. 😢

That can happen, of course, but it’s more likely that gig “x” sells if it’s on the first page than if it doesn’t appear at all. All else being equal, more reviews/better search position is always positive.

I’m not saying this is an incredible method to be successful, but I’m saying that it’s worrying when Fiverr bans or warns people for complaining about a 4.7 rating given by mistake, but then thousands of people are actively manipulating ratings and nothing happens.

[misscrystal]

No one ever talks about this but much of a sellers success on fiverr to start with begins with how the staff of fiverr views your gigs. That has a LOT to do with it, regardless of it you make sales, or get reviews.

[visualstudios]

No one ever talks about this but much of a sellers success on fiverr to start with begins with how the staff of fiverr views your gigs. That has a LOT to do with it, regardless of it you make sales, or get reviews.

regardless of it you make sales, or get reviews.

If you don’t make sales, you can’t be classified as a successful seller, I suppose.

[misscrystal]

regardless of it you make sales, or get reviews.

If you don’t make sales, you can’t be classified as a successful seller, I suppose.

If you don’t make sales, you can’t be classified as a successful seller, I suppose.

To the staff of fiverr that is not the most important thing, at all. If THEY like your gigs eventually you will become successful. I’m talking about in a year or two, if not more.

[visualstudios]

If you don’t make sales, you can’t be classified as a successful seller, I suppose.

To the staff of fiverr that is not the most important thing, at all. If THEY like your gigs eventually you will become successful. I’m talking about in a year or two, if not more.

Sales = money, which is the only thing that matters to 90% of people that would engage in this kind of shady deal. These people want to make a quick buck, not necessarily have a 2 year old account by the time they get traction.

[misscrystal]

Sales = money, which is the only thing that matters to 90% of people that would engage in this kind of shady deal. These people want to make a quick buck, not necessarily have a 2 year old account by the time they get traction.

I was talking about the staff of fiverr. They are not that concerned with which gigs make the most money necessarily. Sellers are being promoted to TRS which do not have that many reviews or sales. Just like some Pro gigs, which don’t get many sales, there is something more there which is favored.

[visualstudios]

I was talking about the staff of fiverr. They are not that concerned with which gigs make the most money necessarily. Sellers are being promoted to TRS which do not have that many reviews or sales. Just like some Pro gigs, which don’t get many sales, there is something more there which is favored.

Sure, but that has no bearing on review manipulation. TRS is an extreme case, of course. I’m sure TRS that bought reviews are very few (but still not 0).

[cyaxrex]

You can still by reviews for books on Amazon. It doesn’t change the fact that all the books with dodgy reviews are absolute 💩.

You can easily tell when this happens because authors have 100’s of reviews left in a short amount of time. Then people stop buying their book because no one in their right mind ever would after reading the excerpt.

People who buy reviews for anything don’t understand the basic fundamentals of selling anything:

• You need to have something worth buying.
• You need to optimize your gig or whatever for searches.
• You need to have decent communication skills.
• The quality of what you sell has to match customer expectations.

People who buy reviews condense all the above down to “if I have reviews, I will be a success.” Then they burn through their paid review budget and end up presiding over a mek-seller kingdom of no real orders and an empty bank account.

It needs to be remembered that even a $5 gig costs $7 to actually purchase. There is no way around this. Buying reviews from a third party will also mean that you do not get back the $4 you would in order revenue.

As far as I’m concerned, people who go this route are more than welcome to do so, Every bankrupt idiot in the world is another idiot who can’t really be a danger to anyone.

[misscrystal]

You can still by reviews for books on Amazon. It doesn’t change the fact that all the books with dodgy reviews are absolute 💩.

You can easily tell when this happens because authors have 100’s of reviews left in a short amount of time. Then people stop buying their book because no one in their right mind ever would after reading the excerpt.

People who buy reviews for anything don’t understand the basic fundamentals of selling anything:

• You need to have something worth buying.
• You need to optimize your gig or whatever for searches.
• You need to have decent communication skills.
• The quality of what you sell has to match customer expectations.

People who buy reviews condense all the above down to “if I have reviews, I will be a success.” Then they burn through their paid review budget and end up presiding over a mek-seller kingdom of no real orders and an empty bank account.

It needs to be remembered that even a $5 gig costs $7 to actually purchase. There is no way around this. Buying reviews from a third party will also mean that you do not get back the $4 you would in order revenue.

As far as I’m concerned, people who go this route are more than welcome to do so, Every bankrupt idiot in the world is another idiot who can’t really be a danger to anyone.

Every bankrupt idiot in the world is another idiot who can’t really be a danger to anyone

It truly is the mark of an idiot to buy reviews.

[visualstudios]

You can still by reviews for books on Amazon. It doesn’t change the fact that all the books with dodgy reviews are absolute 💩.

You can easily tell when this happens because authors have 100’s of reviews left in a short amount of time. Then people stop buying their book because no one in their right mind ever would after reading the excerpt.

People who buy reviews for anything don’t understand the basic fundamentals of selling anything:

• You need to have something worth buying.
• You need to optimize your gig or whatever for searches.
• You need to have decent communication skills.
• The quality of what you sell has to match customer expectations.

People who buy reviews condense all the above down to “if I have reviews, I will be a success.” Then they burn through their paid review budget and end up presiding over a mek-seller kingdom of no real orders and an empty bank account.

It needs to be remembered that even a $5 gig costs $7 to actually purchase. There is no way around this. Buying reviews from a third party will also mean that you do not get back the $4 you would in order revenue.

As far as I’m concerned, people who go this route are more than welcome to do so, Every bankrupt idiot in the world is another idiot who can’t really be a danger to anyone.

I agree with most of what you say in most cases. But it’s not that simple.

A $5 gig costs $7, but someone gets $4 along the way. So the effective cost per fake review is $3, I had already mention that above.

If your service is horrible, then you’re not going anywhere with or without fake reviews. BUT if your service is competent, you can pay $30 for 10 fake reviews and take a couple weeks until you start getting real orders instead of waiting months. That’s the idea.

Again, for many people buying reviews will be bad business and throwing money away. But not for all. It’s not magic, it’s just an headtstart or competitive advantage. It can also be used in a pinch to avoid dropping a level for stats, for example. If you’re horrible, it’s not gonna work, but if you just need it to fix the ocasional drop…

[misscrystal]

I agree with most of what you say in most cases. But it’s not that simple.

A $5 gig costs $7, but someone gets $4 along the way. So the effective cost per fake review is $3, I had already mention that above.

If your service is horrible, then you’re not going anywhere with or without fake reviews. BUT if your service is competent, you can pay $30 for 10 fake reviews and take a couple weeks until you start getting real orders instead of waiting months. That’s the idea.

Again, for many people buying reviews will be bad business and throwing money away. But not for all. It’s not magic, it’s just an headtstart or competitive advantage. It can also be used in a pinch to avoid dropping a level for stats, for example. If you’re horrible, it’s not gonna work, but if you just need it to fix the ocasional drop…

you can pay $30 for 10 fake reviews and take a couple weeks until you start getting real orders instead of waiting months.

OR you can have a gig people want to buy. And start getting orders immediately that way. 🙀

[visualstudios]

you can pay $30 for 10 fake reviews and take a couple weeks until you start getting real orders instead of waiting months.

OR you can have a gig people want to buy. And start getting orders immediately that way. 🙀

Yes. Both exist. There’s no incompatibility.

[misscrystal]

I agree with most of what you say in most cases. But it’s not that simple.

A $5 gig costs $7, but someone gets $4 along the way. So the effective cost per fake review is $3, I had already mention that above.

If your service is horrible, then you’re not going anywhere with or without fake reviews. BUT if your service is competent, you can pay $30 for 10 fake reviews and take a couple weeks until you start getting real orders instead of waiting months. That’s the idea.

Again, for many people buying reviews will be bad business and throwing money away. But not for all. It’s not magic, it’s just an headtstart or competitive advantage. It can also be used in a pinch to avoid dropping a level for stats, for example. If you’re horrible, it’s not gonna work, but if you just need it to fix the ocasional drop…

It’s not magic, it’s just an headtstart or competitive advantage. It can also be used in a pinch to avoid dropping a level for stats, for example.

Frankly it’s a bit alarming to have a Pro seller advocating buying reviews.

[cyaxrex]

I agree with most of what you say in most cases. But it’s not that simple.

A $5 gig costs $7, but someone gets $4 along the way. So the effective cost per fake review is $3, I had already mention that above.

If your service is horrible, then you’re not going anywhere with or without fake reviews. BUT if your service is competent, you can pay $30 for 10 fake reviews and take a couple weeks until you start getting real orders instead of waiting months. That’s the idea.

Again, for many people buying reviews will be bad business and throwing money away. But not for all. It’s not magic, it’s just an headtstart or competitive advantage. It can also be used in a pinch to avoid dropping a level for stats, for example. If you’re horrible, it’s not gonna work, but if you just need it to fix the ocasional drop…

A $5 gig costs $7, but someone gets $4 along the way. So the effective cost per fake review is $3, I had already mention that above.

If someone is charging for fake reviews, how are you going to get $4 back? This would mean that the person you are paying is providing their service free. The person providing a service will also be aware that there is significant risk doing so. If they get rumbled, their business collapses when Fiverr bans their buying accounts.

You might get $4 back in order revenue. However, I highly doubt the service provider will charge you a flat fee of $7 per review. It would have to be more to cover operating expenses.

That said, charging $7 would be a fantastic way to blackmail Fiverr sellers. i.e. If a TRS guy came along who is obviously making their living off Fiverr, I’d sell them a few reviews then threaten to alert Fiverr unless they cough up a juicy $1k or a few Bitcoin.

As I see it, this is actually the only way a business like this can make money.

[misscrystal]

A $5 gig costs $7, but someone gets $4 along the way. So the effective cost per fake review is $3, I had already mention that above.

If someone is charging for fake reviews, how are you going to get $4 back? This would mean that the person you are paying is providing their service free. The person providing a service will also be aware that there is significant risk doing so. If they get rumbled, their business collapses when Fiverr bans their buying accounts.

You might get $4 back in order revenue. However, I highly doubt the service provider will charge you a flat fee of $7 per review. It would have to be more to cover operating expenses.

That said, charging $7 would be a fantastic way to blackmail Fiverr sellers. i.e. If a TRS guy came along who is obviously making their living off Fiverr, I’d sell them a few reviews then threaten to alert Fiverr unless they cough up a juicy $1k or a few Bitcoin.

As I see it, this is actually the only way a business like this can make money.

If a TRS guy came along who is obviously making their living off Fiverr, I’d sell them a few reviews then threaten to alert Fiverr unless they cough up a juicy $1k or a few Bitcoin.

You could set up a monthly payment plan for them, indefinitely.

[visualstudios]

It’s not magic, it’s just an headtstart or competitive advantage. It can also be used in a pinch to avoid dropping a level for stats, for example.

Frankly it’s a bit alarming to have a Pro seller advocating buying reviews.

That’s extremely insulting. I NEVER advocated for buying reviews, and I suggest you don’t acuse me of that. Explaining the though process of those who do has nothing do to with advocacy. Next thing you say, a guy writing a book explaining the motivations behind serial killers is a murderer. Come on.

[visualstudios]

A $5 gig costs $7, but someone gets $4 along the way. So the effective cost per fake review is $3, I had already mention that above.

If someone is charging for fake reviews, how are you going to get $4 back? This would mean that the person you are paying is providing their service free. The person providing a service will also be aware that there is significant risk doing so. If they get rumbled, their business collapses when Fiverr bans their buying accounts.

You might get $4 back in order revenue. However, I highly doubt the service provider will charge you a flat fee of $7 per review. It would have to be more to cover operating expenses.

That said, charging $7 would be a fantastic way to blackmail Fiverr sellers. i.e. If a TRS guy came along who is obviously making their living off Fiverr, I’d sell them a few reviews then threaten to alert Fiverr unless they cough up a juicy $1k or a few Bitcoin.

As I see it, this is actually the only way a business like this can make money.

If a TRS guy came along who is obviously making their living off Fiverr, I’d sell them a few reviews then threaten to alert Fiverr unless they cough up a juicy $1k or a few Bitcoin.

I hadn’t even thought of that. That’s genius, actually.

[misscrystal]

That’s extremely insulting. I NEVER advocated for buying reviews, and I suggest you don’t acuse me of that. Explaining the though process of those who do has nothing do to with advocacy. Next thing you say, a guy writing a book explaining the motivations behind serial killers is a murderer. Come on.

Sorry about that. You just kept giving good reasons for buying reviews but I guess you were being hypothetical. I’m sure you weren’t advocating that anyone should do that, in spite of all the good reasons you gave. I got the impression you were sold on the idea for some people but I guess I was wrong.

[visualstudios]

Sorry about that. You just kept giving good reasons for buying reviews but I guess you were being hypothetical. I’m sure you weren’t advocating that anyone should do that, in spite of all the good reasons you gave. I got the impression you were sold on the idea for some people but I guess I was wrong.

I think I made that obvious from the beginning, when I say I don’t even want to apply to the groups and that I think Fiverr should be more consistent with bans for review manipulation and crack down on these groups.

[uk1000]

Was on facebook, and got the idea of searching for Fiverr Review.

What did I get? Tens of pages and private groups all with names like “fiverr review exchange”. Some of them have around 10k active members. I couldn’t see the private groups, and a lot of the descriptions weren’t in english. All the pages and groups seemed to be from a select few countries.

The pages are open and sell $5-$100 5 star reviews from “top canadian, uk german, american” accounts.

One of the pages boasted that recently one of their members had achieve TRS status, and that another “had started from scratch and was making 500€/month”.

There’s a massive ratings manipulation going on, and it seems to work at least sometimes. This affects almost exclusively low value orders, since they must be paying the Fiverr commission for placing those reviews, and that would get expensive fast.

Very conservative estimate - around 25k sellers (or people looking to be sellers) engaging in some kind of review trade/purchase, or at least interested in it.

There’s a massive ratings manipulation going on, and it seems to work at least sometimes.

It would be easier for Fiverr to detect ratings manipulation, not by checking for paid reviews but by automatically checking the text on the order page/delivery message for those asking for a 5 star rating.

They could check both, but the above should be easier and they already have it all the necessary info stored.