How to avoid getting banned or scammed

[michal247]

Hi guys, I think for the best of all fiverrians it would be great if everyone could give a tip on how to make yourself secure on fiverr, based on personal experience 🙂

My tips

• If he offers “long term business” it’s scam
• Stop working on order if your client behaviour is weird
• Always act professional so when it comes to messaging CS it will be on your side

[Guest cubittaudio]

The problem with scams, is that some people are just inherently more susceptible to them than others. I got caught in a YouTube rabbit-hole the other day watching videos where regular people try and scam scammers… There’s a guy called Kitboga, who literally just calls these scam call centers, lets them access his computer (using a virtual machine that he’s booby trapped and can monitor what they’re doing) and his entire goal is just to waste as much of their time as possible. It’s pretty entertaining.

But a common scam he runs into, is someone being called up by a call center, and the agent telling them that they’re to be paid a refund for something, but instead of the customer being refunded $400, the agent accidentally refunds them $4000. (in reality, they’ve not refunded them anything) The agent then goes into a fake panic, and says that if they don’t get the $3600 back they’re going to lose their job, then their home, then their family etc. But of course, you can’t just pay the money back… you have to go down to Best Buy or Target and purchase $3600 worth of gift cards, and email them the numbers.

You have to wonder who falls for these kind of things. Refunds for purchases you never made… calls from foreign countries telling you to pay huge sums of money via a gift card. But clearly, some people do fall for them.

But, to your question… 🙂

If I were a scammer, I know who I’d pick on, and who I wouldn’t. I’d pick on the people who are brand new. But not just brand new, I’d pick on the people who seem desperate for a client to order from them. The people who write things like “100% Satisfaction Guaranteed” and “Money Back Guarantee”, and offer unlimited revisions. And people who offer way too much work for absolute rock-bottom prices.

I’d pick on these people because they seem like the kind of people who would go along with my scam. That’s the sad truth about scams… scammers pick out their marks beforehand, and they target those who they think will be easy.

I genuinely believe that if more people made their profiles look more professional… if they priced their services accordingly, and made it clear that they’re not a desperate seller, but a quality service provider who should be considered equal to a buyer, that people would get singled out less. I think the best way to avoid being scammed, is to avoid being picked on in the first place.

[Guest lloydsolutions]

If you type “how to avoid being scammed” in the search bar above there are several posts on the subject which you may find interesting.

[kesharbisht]

Really Practical tips.

[cyaxrex]

The problem with scams, is that some people are just inherently more susceptible to them than others. I got caught in a YouTube rabbit-hole the other day watching videos where regular people try and scam scammers… There’s a guy called Kitboga, who literally just calls these scam call centers, lets them access his computer (using a virtual machine that he’s booby trapped and can monitor what they’re doing) and his entire goal is just to waste as much of their time as possible. It’s pretty entertaining.

But a common scam he runs into, is someone being called up by a call center, and the agent telling them that they’re to be paid a refund for something, but instead of the customer being refunded $400, the agent accidentally refunds them $4000. (in reality, they’ve not refunded them anything) The agent then goes into a fake panic, and says that if they don’t get the $3600 back they’re going to lose their job, then their home, then their family etc. But of course, you can’t just pay the money back… you have to go down to Best Buy or Target and purchase $3600 worth of gift cards, and email them the numbers.

You have to wonder who falls for these kind of things. Refunds for purchases you never made… calls from foreign countries telling you to pay huge sums of money via a gift card. But clearly, some people do fall for them.

But, to your question… 🙂

If I were a scammer, I know who I’d pick on, and who I wouldn’t. I’d pick on the people who are brand new. But not just brand new, I’d pick on the people who seem desperate for a client to order from them. The people who write things like “100% Satisfaction Guaranteed” and “Money Back Guarantee”, and offer unlimited revisions. And people who offer way too much work for absolute rock-bottom prices.

I’d pick on these people because they seem like the kind of people who would go along with my scam. That’s the sad truth about scams… scammers pick out their marks beforehand, and they target those who they think will be easy.

I genuinely believe that if more people made their profiles look more professional… if they priced their services accordingly, and made it clear that they’re not a desperate seller, but a quality service provider who should be considered equal to a buyer, that people would get singled out less. I think the best way to avoid being scammed, is to avoid being picked on in the first place.

If I were a scammer, I know who I’d pick on, and who I wouldn’t. I’d pick on the people who are brand new. But not just brand new, I’d pick on the people who seem desperate for a client to order from them. The people who write things like “100% Satisfaction Guaranteed” and “Money Back Guarantee”, and offer unlimited revisions. And people who offer way too much work for absolute rock-bottom prices.

You’re wasting your life doing voice overs. Get out there and start robbing people! You’re made for this! 😉

More seriously, this is all good advice. 🙂

[ahmwritingco]

Cyaxrex wrote a post on spotting bad buyers/scammers. It’s currently one of the most popular replies on the forum.

You can avoid all that hassle. Just avoid: Anyone who starts a message with “Dear”Buyers who say they have a very interesting proposition for youAny buyer who wants you to create them a sample or complete a free test projectAll buyers who say “If this works out, I’ll have lots more work for you!”Anyone who after 2 x messages still can’t say what they wantAll buyers who try to get you to commit to anything like a 100% satisfaction guaranteeFilter out those messages and you filter out ove…

[Guest cubittaudio]

If I were a scammer, I know who I’d pick on, and who I wouldn’t. I’d pick on the people who are brand new. But not just brand new, I’d pick on the people who seem desperate for a client to order from them. The people who write things like “100% Satisfaction Guaranteed” and “Money Back Guarantee”, and offer unlimited revisions. And people who offer way too much work for absolute rock-bottom prices.

You’re wasting your life doing voice overs. Get out there and start robbing people! You’re made for this! 😉

More seriously, this is all good advice. 🙂

You’re wasting your life doing voice overs. Get out there and start robbing people! You’re made for this!

It’s always good to have something up your sleeve for when the orders stop coming through right??? 😉

I worked for a while for a cyber security company, and some of the stuff you’d be exposed to was fascinating, especially around social engineering.

I was watching an interview the other day with a lady who has built a business around trying to penetrate physical security in some of the biggest buildings in London. She gets contracted in, and her goal is that, at some point over the course of a couple of months, she tries to leave her business card on the CEO’s desk without being stopped on her way in or out. Some of the tricks she uses are incredible, but they almost all revolve around exploiting people, even if just for a second.

[naveedanjum340]

good stuff to avoid scam

[miiila]

Avoiding getting banned is relatively easy: RTFM. Read the Terms of Service that you accepted when you registered your account and don’t do anything that’s against those.

Since I just read a relevant thread where someone got told they manipulated the buyer by support while they think they didn’t:

• Don’t do anything that could be interpreted as manipulating a buyer …
  … don’t ask for or hint at reviews …
  … don’t ask buyers to “close/complete” an order (orders auto-complete after 3 days and Fiverr wants buyers to have those 3 days to check the delivery; they tell them about the 3-days auto-completion when you deliver something and also remind buyers of the auto-completion per notification, so leave it at that) …
  … don’t tell buyers about how your whatever rating will suffer if they do or don’t do whatever …
  … and for the sake of all that is holy, don’t tell buyers things like that you won’t be able to feed your family if they cancel an order or don’t give you 5* …

If a buyer complains about you and or support looks into your account for any reason, chances are, that will be seen as manipulation.

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Avoiding getting scammed:

Use your common sense, that will help with common scams;

for other things, listen to what your spidey senses tell you;

some scams might not be avoidable; if it happens, try to communicate effectively with support. Write your ticket offline and read it with the eyes of someone who isn’t you, explain things very clearly and in as few words as possible, support your case with quotes from the ToS if applicable, with screenshots that prove your points. Stay level-headed and polite at all times, the support person isn’t the scammer and you want them to be your friend, not your enemy. Even if they can’t do anything for you in one case, stay polite and respectful, they might be able to help you in another case and be more willing to do so if you didn’t take your anger at the scammer out on them.