Buyer cancelled a £250 order to get music video for free

[richardbloch]

This is why I’ve started offering my services for large, complex project exclusively

on my website & other platforms.

Can you please explain me how much it costs to start a website of your own? Is it affordable? How do I start?

and act as abusive and insolent as their manners allow them to act without any repercussion or protection provided to you by Fiverr.

I’ve seen buyers get away with things that if done half as bad by a seller would lead to instant account termination. Fiverr has a decent pool of professionals and experienced amateurs as sellers, while the same can’t be said of buyers. Basically anyone with one half-working braincell can pose as a buyer, that’s it. No review or rating system for buyers. There’s no way for sellers to know how professional and polite a buyer is. Fiverr should take pride in having a professional, respectable environment for freelancers, not in having cheap services. That attracts all kind of… Peculiar people. There should be a depuration of buyers too.

Can you please explain me how much it costs to start a website of your own? Is it affordable? How do I start?

First, you need a domain name and hosting. Top level domain names (.com, .net, .org) cost around $10-15 yearly. Hosting is anywhere from $2 to $200. A $5-$10/m hosting will do just fine for the beginning.

Then, you need some web development skills. Wordpress is the most popular platform. It’s not that hard to learn, I do most of it myself.

Then, after doing the design, you’ll need to write content presenting your brand/service/product.

Boom. There’s your website.

It can cost anywhere from $60 a year to $10k+ depending on whether you do most of the above yourself or hire other professionals to do it, and how good/expensive those professionals are.

I’ve seen buyers get away with things that if done half as bad by a seller would lead to instant account termination. Fiverr has a decent pool of professionals and experienced amateurs as sellers, while the same can’t be said of buyers. Basically anyone with one half-working braincell can pose as a buyer, that’s it. No review or rating system for buyers. There’s no way for sellers to know how professional and polite a buyer is. Fiverr should take pride in having a professional, respectable environment for freelancers, not in having cheap services. That attracts all kind of… Peculiar people. There should be a depuration of buyers too.

100% true. “Customer is always right” and respecting those that bring money to a business is a must - undeniably. However, sometimes you can take it too far.

If there was a restaurant that let guests yell at, insult, abuse the waiters/staff without anyone reacting in any way, you’d assume that restaurant would get a bad rep quite quickly no matter how cheap/good the service is.

Other platforms do seem to respect and protect the Sellers more, thus attracting higher quality professionals and, simultaneously improving their business and revenue.

Fiverr does seem to still be struggling with having their brand viewed as something more than the bottom marketplace for cheap services.

That’s without even delving into the negative publicity 2018 “doers” marketing campaign has brought the platform. Did you see the comments some of the ads attracted? I couldn’t even quote them without getting banned.

In the end, if it works for them, it works for me as well.

I believe Fiverr could’ve taken a much higher quality approach, however.

[moonstaredits]

Can you please explain me how much it costs to start a website of your own? Is it affordable? How do I start?

First, you need a domain name and hosting. Top level domain names (.com, .net, .org) cost around $10-15 yearly. Hosting is anywhere from $2 to $200. A $5-$10/m hosting will do just fine for the beginning.

Then, you need some web development skills. Wordpress is the most popular platform. It’s not that hard to learn, I do most of it myself.

Then, after doing the design, you’ll need to write content presenting your brand/service/product.

Boom. There’s your website.

It can cost anywhere from $60 a year to $10k+ depending on whether you do most of the above yourself or hire other professionals to do it, and how good/expensive those professionals are.

I’ve seen buyers get away with things that if done half as bad by a seller would lead to instant account termination. Fiverr has a decent pool of professionals and experienced amateurs as sellers, while the same can’t be said of buyers. Basically anyone with one half-working braincell can pose as a buyer, that’s it. No review or rating system for buyers. There’s no way for sellers to know how professional and polite a buyer is. Fiverr should take pride in having a professional, respectable environment for freelancers, not in having cheap services. That attracts all kind of… Peculiar people. There should be a depuration of buyers too.

100% true. “Customer is always right” and respecting those that bring money to a business is a must - undeniably. However, sometimes you can take it too far.

If there was a restaurant that let guests yell at, insult, abuse the waiters/staff without anyone reacting in any way, you’d assume that restaurant would get a bad rep quite quickly no matter how cheap/good the service is.

Other platforms do seem to respect and protect the Sellers more, thus attracting higher quality professionals and, simultaneously improving their business and revenue.

Fiverr does seem to still be struggling with having their brand viewed as something more than the bottom marketplace for cheap services.

That’s without even delving into the negative publicity 2018 “doers” marketing campaign has brought the platform. Did you see the comments some of the ads attracted? I couldn’t even quote them without getting banned.

In the end, if it works for them, it works for me as well.

I believe Fiverr could’ve taken a much higher quality approach, however.

That’s without even delving into the negative publicity 2018 “doers” marketing campaign has brought the platform. Did you see the comments some of the ads attracted? I couldn’t even quote them without getting banned.

Dont know anything about that incident. Mind explaining it?

100% true. “Customer is always right” and respecting those that bring money to a business is a must - undeniably. However, sometimes you can take it too far.

Exactly, there has to be boundaries. ToS exist, but are rather permissive when it comes to buyers. Granting a professional space for a commercial exchange should be the ultimate goal of any marketplace, not the platform clowning sellers with a biased system and letting customers disrespect them as much as they want. What benefits do we have working in the platform and not by ourselves? Because I can come across bad buyers by myself, and Paypal can also refund a customer money. Fiverr needs to reconsider their system.

Boom. There’s your website

Thanks, I will see if I can make one. Do you have a good experience with it? How do you attract customers?

[philipkapadia]

Such a complex and crucially important thread.

This is one of the reasons I’ve started treating Fiverr as a hobby and went full-on focusing on offering my services directly.

If my 7 years of experience selling on Fiverr have taught me anything, it’s that the buyer has 100% right to cancel an order (read: not pay you for your hard work); regardless of the quality of your service, communication, end result, etc.

I’ve had buyers cancel $100+ orders with: “me no lik this sry” messages.

I swear I’m not kidding. I can tell you of even more peculiar situations.

Buyer: “Dis iz garbage rfund pliz”.

Me: “Thank you for your feedback. I’ve delivered the order meeting all of your requirements and Gig promises. Can you please let me know what do you find wrong with the order so I can revise accordingly?”

Buyer: “idiot no wast my time refnd or i report”

Fiverr Customer Support: refunds the buyer without any basis or question.

Me to Fiverr CS, paraphrasing: “What the hell?!”

Them (auto-generated message): “Sorry, we can’t force the buyer to accept work.”

Essentially, here’s the brutal truth on what’s happening.

Fiverr doesn’t care that you’ve lost time, put in the effort, or even resources into completing an order, or that you’ve completed it fully adhering to the highest quality standards - in 99% cases they’ll cancel it anyway.

Why?

Because they don’t refund Buyer’s funds to their credit cards/bank accounts. They only make refunds to Fiverr Balance. Meaning, the buyer can only spend that money elsewhere on Fiverr. Which means that no matter what, Fiverr will get their commission.

If scamming 3,4,5 Sellers before finally completing an order is what it takes - Fiverr doesn’t care. They’re here to make money, not make sure you get paid for your work. Tracking whether the cancellation request is justified would take manpower which Fiverr simply isn’t willing to pay for due to company’s overly greedy policies.

Now, the fun thing is, with Fiverr Pro and Fiverr’s new marketing approach, they’re aspiring to re-brand themselves as something more than a $5 marketplace, pushing for and encouraging higher average order prices.

Tell me, however: would you prefer doing large, complex orders on a marketplace that makes it almost 100% certain & easy for a buyer to scam yo, and steal your work without even getting to double-checked by the CS team?

Of course not. “We can’t force the buyer to accept any order” won’t cut it when you’ve put 3 - 5 days of hard work into an order.

This is why I’ve started using Fiverr exclusively for small orders, and do the larger ones solely with long-term clients. If a buyer offers $200+ order, I refuse, or ask for the order to be broken apart into smaller pieces.

I can’t risk hours of my work on a platform that provides 0 protection to the Seller. Which is natural. We all have bills to pay and can’t work for free.

This is why I’ve started offering my services for large, complex project exclusively

on my website & other platforms. I feel it’s Fiverr’s loss in a way, because they’re losing on 20% commission of >$5k monthly orders that I would perhaps otherwise handle through Fiverr. That’s a different story altogether, however.

So, that’s my 2 cents.

What happened to you can happen to anyone and has certainly happened to me more times than I can count throughout the years.

Adapt and overcome this challenge your way is the only advice I can offer at the moment.

But remember and know this without a doubt: the Buyer can permanently keep your orders in “revision” for no good reason, demand cancellation and get it without any valid explanation and reason, and act as abusive and insolent as their manners allow them to act without any repercussion or protection provided to you by Fiverr.

That’s my take derived solely from experience of being a seller on this platform for years, do what you want with it.

That’s crazy. I really feel for you. I’m doing everything in my power to get my funds back, I even visited TOS and it says: “Orders are not eligible to be cancelled based on the quality of service/materials delivered by the seller if the service was rendered as described in the Gig page. Buyers may rate their experience with the seller on the order page, including the overall level of service quality received.”

I’m starting to think this whole thing is a scam…

[moonstaredits]

I don’t know if you have an adobe subscription, but if you do - You can make a website on adobe portfolio!

I made mine on adobe portfolio: https://philipkapadia.com

Thank you, it’s really helpful to know that ✨

[sangumyc]

but… 99.9% fiverr buyers are real genuine buyers. am also working two years here as a seller

[philipkapadia]

but… 99.9% fiverr buyers are real genuine buyers. am also working two years here as a seller

Has this ever happened to you?

[mattboa]

Such a complex and crucially important thread.

This is one of the reasons I’ve started treating Fiverr as a hobby and went full-on focusing on offering my services directly.

If my 7 years of experience selling on Fiverr have taught me anything, it’s that the buyer has 100% right to cancel an order (read: not pay you for your hard work); regardless of the quality of your service, communication, end result, etc.

I’ve had buyers cancel $100+ orders with: “me no lik this sry” messages.

I swear I’m not kidding. I can tell you of even more peculiar situations.

Buyer: “Dis iz garbage rfund pliz”.

Me: “Thank you for your feedback. I’ve delivered the order meeting all of your requirements and Gig promises. Can you please let me know what do you find wrong with the order so I can revise accordingly?”

Buyer: “idiot no wast my time refnd or i report”

Fiverr Customer Support: refunds the buyer without any basis or question.

Me to Fiverr CS, paraphrasing: “What the hell?!”

Them (auto-generated message): “Sorry, we can’t force the buyer to accept work.”

Essentially, here’s the brutal truth on what’s happening.

Fiverr doesn’t care that you’ve lost time, put in the effort, or even resources into completing an order, or that you’ve completed it fully adhering to the highest quality standards - in 99% cases they’ll cancel it anyway.

Why?

Because they don’t refund Buyer’s funds to their credit cards/bank accounts. They only make refunds to Fiverr Balance. Meaning, the buyer can only spend that money elsewhere on Fiverr. Which means that no matter what, Fiverr will get their commission.

If scamming 3,4,5 Sellers before finally completing an order is what it takes - Fiverr doesn’t care. They’re here to make money, not make sure you get paid for your work. Tracking whether the cancellation request is justified would take manpower which Fiverr simply isn’t willing to pay for due to company’s overly greedy policies.

Now, the fun thing is, with Fiverr Pro and Fiverr’s new marketing approach, they’re aspiring to re-brand themselves as something more than a $5 marketplace, pushing for and encouraging higher average order prices.

Tell me, however: would you prefer doing large, complex orders on a marketplace that makes it almost 100% certain & easy for a buyer to scam yo, and steal your work without even getting to double-checked by the CS team?

Of course not. “We can’t force the buyer to accept any order” won’t cut it when you’ve put 3 - 5 days of hard work into an order.

This is why I’ve started using Fiverr exclusively for small orders, and do the larger ones solely with long-term clients. If a buyer offers $200+ order, I refuse, or ask for the order to be broken apart into smaller pieces.

I can’t risk hours of my work on a platform that provides 0 protection to the Seller. Which is natural. We all have bills to pay and can’t work for free.

This is why I’ve started offering my services for large, complex project exclusively

on my website & other platforms. I feel it’s Fiverr’s loss in a way, because they’re losing on 20% commission of >$5k monthly orders that I would perhaps otherwise handle through Fiverr. That’s a different story altogether, however.

So, that’s my 2 cents.

What happened to you can happen to anyone and has certainly happened to me more times than I can count throughout the years.

Adapt and overcome this challenge your way is the only advice I can offer at the moment.

But remember and know this without a doubt: the Buyer can permanently keep your orders in “revision” for no good reason, demand cancellation and get it without any valid explanation and reason, and act as abusive and insolent as their manners allow them to act without any repercussion or protection provided to you by Fiverr.

That’s my take derived solely from experience of being a seller on this platform for years, do what you want with it.

I’m sorry about what happened to both of you guys. Your “subjects” here were clearly lying (the manager call is totally fake in your case, @philipkapadia).

Honestly this is a matter for the BBB, because I think they changed again in the ToS how the refunding stuff works recently. There have been cases in the past where buyers couldn’t cancel if the work was on par with what advertised, so they were kindly pushed to pay and accept the delivery (meaning that after a bit of a fight, you could still win). Correct me if I’m misremembering.

Because they don’t refund Buyer’s funds to their credit cards/bank accounts. They only make refunds to Fiverr Balance. Meaning, the buyer can only spend that money elsewhere on Fiverr. Which means that no matter what, Fiverr will get their commission.

This one’s new to me. Actually worrying, I’ve just had an order that was made to me cancelled (no harm on my end as my stats are intact and I went through CS) because it was misplaced and it makes me wonder, what if a very unsatisfied buyer went berserk on a seller over the commission because they don’t want to spend money anymore.

Pssst, @ Philip

On your website’s front page:

*recently

*availability

In the CV:

*automated dialogue

*knowledge

[sangumyc]

Has this ever happened to you?

i have facing two time that situation. i aspect the cancelation. * add some water mark for untill you buyer get confirmed the design. Then share the source and design(without your water mark)

[teramangala]

Has this ever happened to you?

If you see that your client (or anybody) is using your work, you can initiate a DMCA copyright infringement proceeding, as the payment is canceled, they are not entitled to use your work.

[wordpress454]

helpful for me as a new seller.Waiting for your next suggetion.thanks you

[eliiclaire]

That’s crazy. I really feel for you. I’m doing everything in my power to get my funds back, I even visited TOS and it says: “Orders are not eligible to be cancelled based on the quality of service/materials delivered by the seller if the service was rendered as described in the Gig page. Buyers may rate their experience with the seller on the order page, including the overall level of service quality received.”

I’m starting to think this whole thing is a scam…

From now on, people should quote this part of TOS to CS when they have something like this happens, so Fiverr can’t make their copy-paste response.

[richardbloch]

That’s crazy. I really feel for you. I’m doing everything in my power to get my funds back, I even visited TOS and it says: “Orders are not eligible to be cancelled based on the quality of service/materials delivered by the seller if the service was rendered as described in the Gig page. Buyers may rate their experience with the seller on the order page, including the overall level of service quality received.”

I’m starting to think this whole thing is a scam…

“Orders are not eligible to be cancelled based on the quality of service/materials delivered by the seller if the service was rendered as described in the Gig page. Buyers may rate their experience with the seller on the order page, including the overall level of service quality received.”

Yeah, no. Trust me, and trust me 100% on this one - that part of the ToS is there solely because it looks good on paper.

It’s never enforced in practice on Fiverr.

By never I mean never.

[richardbloch]

From now on, people should quote this part of TOS to CS when they have something like this happens, so Fiverr can’t make their copy-paste response.

From now on, people should quote this part of TOS to CS when they have something like this happens, so Fiverr can’t make their copy-paste response.

Tried it. Forget about it. Doesn’t work one bit.

“Thank you for your concern, we understand and feel you, but we can’t force the buyer accept an order.”

That’s all you’ll get.

[genuineguidance]

This buyer obviously wants to make money off of you. I myself have had a case like this happen, and it’s super annoying. In my case, I got lucky and was able to contact customer support and I guess they decided I was right and refused to refund the order to the buyer. But this happens extremely rare.

I don’t think there is much to do, but you should try to ask them if they would like another revision. See what happens.

but you should try to ask them if they would like another revision.

The order has been cancelled according to the OP. There is no opportunity to “fix it” or “revise” what was delivered, unfortunately.

GG