Buyer Disputing After Overdelivering

[jake_hopkins]

Hi All,

I am currently dealing with a buyer who has left me a dispute after I have over-delivered and he has been insulting my work throughout and is now blackmailing me.

I produced him an instrumental as agreed, and he didn’t like it and said it sounded like a ‘polyphonic ringtone’, so I made him another one, which he said similar things about.

Then he left a dispute saying that “it’s up to you keep the sale and i’ll rate it accordingly or cancel my order and i’ll be happy”, so he is basically blackmailing me.

So if I don’t cancel, I will get a bad review and an unhappy buyer on my case (and customer satisfaction is a really big thing for me), and if I do it will affect my (currently 0%) cancellation rate, I will have worked for nothing and he will still have the beat.

Thank you for reading, and I welcome any advice on what to do moving forward.

[kholland65]

Unfortunately I’ve dealt with similar buyers and I do think it’s a flaw, maybe an inherent one, with how sites like this work. Buyers can blackmail you and threaten you with bad ratings if you don’t bend to their will even if they are in the wrong.

The problem is there is no, and can’t really be accountability for buyers, because even if they end up being a terrible client, any ratings against them are useless because they can easily create a new account, which I’ve seen some of my clients do for technical reasons or to circumvent me blocking them when I no longer wanted to work with them.

My first piece of advice would be simple to try your best to remain professional so that way if fiverr support reads through the order they will see that the buyer is the problem and not you. If the buyer is continuing to dispute the order you might have to get CS involved and inform the buyer than TOS states they cannot simply cancel an order because they are dissatisfied with the quality of the service. I have on one occasion had fiverr complete an order on my behalf in just such a situation.

The other option is to basically continue to refuse a cancellation request and eventually hope they get the picture and stop trying, let the order auto complete, and then not rate you, which has also happened to me. If in the event they still do rate you, you can always post a reply to their negative rating where you can outline to any potential readers that this buyer was clearly crazy and malicious so they will essentially ignore the rating.

It really just boils down to you weighing the pros and cons against your particular account and situation. On some level it might be worth giving into him, cancelling the order to cut your loses, and avoid the negative rating. However, your completion rating may go down which could be a problem depending on the volume of work you do. If you put a substantial amount of time into this, are talking about a large sum of money, and feel CS will take your side, you can continue to fight it out and risk the bad rating with the assumption that one negative review among many positives won’t hurt you in terms of buyer perception and search algorithms more than the cancellation will.

[jake_hopkins]

Unfortunately I’ve dealt with similar buyers and I do think it’s a flaw, maybe an inherent one, with how sites like this work. Buyers can blackmail you and threaten you with bad ratings if you don’t bend to their will even if they are in the wrong.

The problem is there is no, and can’t really be accountability for buyers, because even if they end up being a terrible client, any ratings against them are useless because they can easily create a new account, which I’ve seen some of my clients do for technical reasons or to circumvent me blocking them when I no longer wanted to work with them.

My first piece of advice would be simple to try your best to remain professional so that way if fiverr support reads through the order they will see that the buyer is the problem and not you. If the buyer is continuing to dispute the order you might have to get CS involved and inform the buyer than TOS states they cannot simply cancel an order because they are dissatisfied with the quality of the service. I have on one occasion had fiverr complete an order on my behalf in just such a situation.

The other option is to basically continue to refuse a cancellation request and eventually hope they get the picture and stop trying, let the order auto complete, and then not rate you, which has also happened to me. If in the event they still do rate you, you can always post a reply to their negative rating where you can outline to any potential readers that this buyer was clearly crazy and malicious so they will essentially ignore the rating.

It really just boils down to you weighing the pros and cons against your particular account and situation. On some level it might be worth giving into him, cancelling the order to cut your loses, and avoid the negative rating. However, your completion rating may go down which could be a problem depending on the volume of work you do. If you put a substantial amount of time into this, are talking about a large sum of money, and feel CS will take your side, you can continue to fight it out and risk the bad rating with the assumption that one negative review among many positives won’t hurt you in terms of buyer perception and search algorithms more than the cancellation will.

TOS states they cannot simply cancel an order because they are dissatisfied with the quality of the service

Exactly, I have explained this to the buyer and he just keeps on insulting me and my work, calling me a “dishwash”

I will just keep on refusing his disputes, and after the order is settled will report him for blackmail.

[graphtersawyer]

You should go ahead and contact CS about the buyer trying to blackmail you, as that’s against TOS. It doesn’t guarantee that they’ll do anything about it, and they’ll probably tell you that they can’t force a buyer to complete an order, but it’s worth a try to see if something more can be done.

[brenna_n]

definitely send this to customer service and ask them for help

[jake_hopkins]

UPDATE: Customer Support cancelled the order, so I emailed them and asked them why. Then they conducted a further investigation and compensated me, but my order completion rate and other statistics aren’t going back to 100%, like they were before.

[graphtersawyer]

UPDATE: Customer Support cancelled the order, so I emailed them and asked them why. Then they conducted a further investigation and compensated me, but my order completion rate and other statistics aren’t going back to 100%, like they were before.

Follow up with them again to get the completion rate fixed. The same thing has happened to me before. I was compensated, and they fixed the stats when I asked.

[jake_hopkins]

Follow up with them again to get the completion rate fixed. The same thing has happened to me before. I was compensated, and they fixed the stats when I asked.

I have asked- and they just kind of avoiding talking to me about it. Just usual Fiverr customer support…

[graphtersawyer]

I have asked- and they just kind of avoiding talking to me about it. Just usual Fiverr customer support…

They’ve always been good to me, and the forum tends to attract more bad experiences than good ones (we have a ranting pot, after all), so don’t fret yet.

[kholland65]

Follow up with them again to get the completion rate fixed. The same thing has happened to me before. I was compensated, and they fixed the stats when I asked.

That’s interesting because I’ve been through similar situations and they always tell me it’s not a manual thing they can change.

I’ve had buyers dispute bank charges a month later which automatically cancels the order. I always get my money, eventually, but they always say there is nothing they can do about the hit to my cancelation rating.

The cancellation rating is honestly the worst part of this website and is totally unnecessary, not to mention its a broken metric. Sellers do not need additional incentives to complete orders because we obviously want to get paid. What ends up happening is the strict punishments for cancellation ratings allows buyers to hold sellers hostage and promotes a buyer is always right attitude. All of my cancellations in the 2 years I’ve been on this site have been the buyers fault. Bank disputes, improper files, not reading my gig, purchasing the wrong packages, previewing files incorrectly, or just being a complete jerk. I’m constantly fearful of bad clients because I know they are like landmines. Once I hit one that is no undoing the damage they cause. You have to live with either a cancellation or bad review. It’s a lose lose.

[graphtersawyer]

That’s interesting because I’ve been through similar situations and they always tell me it’s not a manual thing they can change.

I’ve had buyers dispute bank charges a month later which automatically cancels the order. I always get my money, eventually, but they always say there is nothing they can do about the hit to my cancelation rating.

The cancellation rating is honestly the worst part of this website and is totally unnecessary, not to mention its a broken metric. Sellers do not need additional incentives to complete orders because we obviously want to get paid. What ends up happening is the strict punishments for cancellation ratings allows buyers to hold sellers hostage and promotes a buyer is always right attitude. All of my cancellations in the 2 years I’ve been on this site have been the buyers fault. Bank disputes, improper files, not reading my gig, purchasing the wrong packages, previewing files incorrectly, or just being a complete jerk. I’m constantly fearful of bad clients because I know they are like landmines. Once I hit one that is no undoing the damage they cause. You have to live with either a cancellation or bad review. It’s a lose lose.

Your CS agent def lied…