Account restriction - investors demand explanation, don't know what to tell em

[datadriven007]

Hi, 

we got into a fight with one of the buyers and today our account was restricted. 

The problem is we're not individual freelancers, but a limited liability company with investors on board. We've convinced our investors to start selling on Fiverr, and they invested money to increase our team to be able to service requests from clients. 

Things were going well, we've started to generate a high five figure income (in our currency) monthly from Fiverr and started to scale our team to service Fiverr clients. We had straight 5's as our feedback, completed 14 orders, and clients really loved us. We just entered Level 1 Seller yesterday. We also started to build long term relationships. Until that one buyer came.

Our investors are one of the biggest investment groups in the central and eastern Europe and they're demanding explanation from us why we were restricted, they think it's our fault. This guys won't take "we don't know" as an answer. But we really don't know what to tell them. Our corporate / investment contract says we must inform their legal team about any entities that do harm to any of the channels of distribution of our services. 

Do you think there's anyone in Fiverr that can fully explain to us why we were restricted that we can pass on to our investors? I'm afraid they will be escalating this issue. I've already had CEE journalists getting in touch with me why we were restricted just like that without any prior notice. 

We're really lost.

Also, we had over 4k usd in open contracts when we were restricted. What should we do now - continue working? Stop working? 

 

[datadriven007]

Huge apologies for the weird title on this chat. I think I rushed to publishing it too fast. Can't see a way to edit it right now... 

[melanielm]

What did Fiverr's message say when you were restricted? They send an email.

Really though, getting into a fight with a buyer doesn't seem very professional. You must have done something that broke the TOS.

[datadriven007]

They wrote this:

Your account was flagged for violation of our Community Standards and our Terms of Service.

As a result, your account is currently under review by our Trust and Safety team. During the period of the review, you will be able to complete your active orders. However, you cannot place or receive new orders and you cannot communicate with users, other than your Buyers/Sellers within an active order. This decision was taken after careful consideration and cannot be undone.

To be honest, I get it - we may have done something wrong - fine - but I need a concrete paragraph that we broke, because at the moment I must act in accordance with the corporate contract that binds my actions. From what I read, they can process this as long as 90 days. 

Also, when I said "a fight" I mean that I reported them to Fiverr support for spreading defamatory information about our services and company, as well as lies. The buyer was praising us in private chat on Fiverr multiple time, and then completed the contract without any notice or information about the intention to do so, didn't give us a chance to correct any mistakes they noticed (there weren't any) and completely destroyed us in a public feedback, even though they bought 4 hours of simple consultative support, and we provided 15+ hours of support, development, and analytics. That just didn't feel right and fair, and I felt the urge to do something about it. 

[datadriven007]

Also, what should we done with another clients that we had in the pipeline here in Fiverr (no offers / orders yet, but very close - estimation and negotiation stage). That was easily another $5k right there. We can't get in touch with them at all?

[melanielm]

No, unfortunately you cannot get in touch with them at all. You can only complete active orders you already have.

[datadriven007]

Ok, clear, thanks @melanielm