My gig with 400+ orders and 271 reviews with 5 stars was removed by Fiverr.

[elena_gonta]

Hi there,

I've been a Fiverr seller for 4 years now and my main gig had good statistics. I delivered over 400 order, had 271 reviews with 5 stars, never revived any complaint. All my reviews were 5 stars.

I was working on the gig improvement and wanted to change the gig title to a more human and attractive form. Once I updated and hit save, the gig was removed automatically.

In the mail, I received a standard message that the gig was removed, saying that "We had to remove your Gig as the service you are offering is prohibited by our Community Standards.

I contacted support, and they replied with a copy and paste message saying that the gig was removed and that it was breaking community Standards. Basically, they do not read the message that I'm sending nor understand the problem.

What can I do to have it restored, and how can I contact the person that would really look into the issue?

Thanks!

 

 

[lloydsolutions]

46 minutes ago, elena_gonta said:

The fact that my service consists of Amazon data scraping cannot be the reason of why the gig was removed.

Subject to your compliance with these Conditions of Use and applicable Service Terms and your payment of any applicable fees, Amazon or its content providers grant you a limited, non-exclusive, non-transferable, non-sublicensable licence to access and make personal and non-commercial use of the Amazon Services. This licence does not include any resale or commercial use of any Amazon Service or its contents; any collection and use of any product listings, descriptions, or prices; any derivative use of any Amazon Service or its contents; any downloading or copying of account information for the benefit of another merchant; or any use of data mining, robots, or similar data gathering and extraction tools.

The above is from the Amazon Conditions of Use.

[sabinespoems]

2 hours ago, elena_gonta said:

I want to stress out the fact that the gig was working for 4 years and was removed only after I made a change in the title, not in the service description or services offered.

What I'd like to add to everything said above, the fact you've been doing it for 4 years doesn't necessarily equal it being allowed. From what I read on this forum my understanding is that it most likely only means that Fiverr only now found out....

 

[smashradio]

3 hours ago, elena_gonta said:

I have been providing this service for 4 years and all I did is to change the title. My gig was removed by a bot, not by a human.

The fact that my service consists of Amazon data scraping cannot be the reason of why the gig was removed.

I want to stress out the fact that the gig was working for 4 years and was removed only after I made a change in the title, not in the service description or services offered.

Just because you've been violating Amazon terms for four years, that does not guarantee that you can keep doing so. Your gig offered Amazon Scraping services,  you say? 

Then I suggest you take another look at the Amazon terms @lloydsolutions was so kind to look up for you. Especially this part: 

(Highlights are mine)

3 hours ago, lloydsolutions said:

This licence does not include any resale or commercial use of any Amazon Service or its contents; any collection and use of any product listings, descriptions, or prices; any derivative use of any Amazon Service or its contents; any downloading or copying of account information for the benefit of another merchant; or any use of data mining, robots, or similar data gathering and extraction tools.

In other words: you violated Amazon terms by performing data scraping on their service, and by doing so, you violated Fiverr TOS. 

Edited June 12, 2022 by smashradio

[lloydsolutions]

5 minutes ago, elena_gonta said:

What can I do to have it restored,

Why was my Gig denied?

If your Gig has recently been denied, you will receive an email update explaining why this is the case. Unfortunately, once your Gig is denied, it will not be restored. If you are still having issues understanding why we advise that you review our Terms of Service and our Community Standards for more information.

The above is from the Help Centre.

 

[the_c0ttage]

Hey Elena! I hope that's your name

Disapointing incidents like this are somewhat common, and you are not the only one. I too had a similar experience. 🤪

What you should do is to contact a Human customer care agent and explain what happened to them.

right now, you are lucky NOT TO have your account Temporarily disabled.

https://www.fiverr.com/support_tickets/selling-on-fiverr/gigs go to this link, check the STATUS of your link and then click on the "I still Need Help".. I attached a screenshot so it will be easier for you!

this will open a Ticket and from my experience, its always a Live Human Agent that will connect with you. it might take some time, less than 24 hours most of the time! 

Hope this will Help. Don't get Discouraged. 😀 But your Only Chance to get this thing Sorted Out is to Contact a Live Human Customer Support Agent!

Stay Safe and Take care!

  

[elena_gonta]

4 minutes ago, lloydsolutions said:

Why was my Gig denied?

If your Gig has recently been denied, you will receive an email update explaining why this is the case. Unfortunately, once your Gig is denied, it will not be restored. If you are still having issues understanding why we advise that you review our Terms of Service and our Community Standards for more information.

The above is from the Help Centre.

 

I received a message with a standard text:

"We had to remove your Gig as the service you are offering is prohibited by our Community Standards. This decision was made after careful consideration and cannot be undone. For more information please read our Prohibited Services policy in Fiverr’s Community Standards."

There is no reason nor explanation to why the bot removed the gig. Also, I want to mention that the gig was removed within seconds after I changed the gig title.

GIG Statistic:

• 400+ Orders;
• 271 five-star Reviews;
• 4+ Years;

[elena_gonta]

5 minutes ago, the_c0ttage said:

Hey Elena! I hope that's your name

Disapointing incidents like this are somewhat common, and you are not the only one. I too had a similar experience. 🤪

What you should do is to contact a Human customer care agent and explain what happened to them.

right now, you are lucky NOT TO have your account Temporarily disabled.

https://www.fiverr.com/support_tickets/selling-on-fiverr/gigs go to this link, check the STATUS of your link and then click on the "I still Need Help".. I attached a screenshot so it will be easier for you!

this will open a Ticket and from my experience, its always a Live Human Agent that will connect with you. it might take some time, less than 24 hours most of the time! 

Hope this will Help. Don't get Discouraged. 😀 But your Only Chance to get this thing Sorted Out is to Contact a Live Human Customer Support Agent!

Stay Safe and Take care!

  

Thanks for your message, I have already opened a ticket. But also, receive the copy-paste text from support, that did not even understand the details of the issue.

This is not my first experience with fiverr customer support, when they reply with quick answer templates, and solve the ticket.

[lloydsolutions]

Services that infringe third parties’ terms of service

We do not allow the infringement of third parties’ terms of service on Fiverr. As a valued member of the Fiverr community, we ask you to respect the broader Internet community and refrain from such violations in your Gig offerings. Gigs that are flagged for violations of third parties terms of service will be removed from the marketplace. 

Do not post, offer, or ask for services that infringe third parties’ terms of service. 

Services That involve sharing personal information of third parties 

We do not allow services that breach 3rd-party rights and lead to spamming individuals. In order to ensure this policy, we ask that the data provided in these services will be unique to each order and will only contain business data. 

 Do not post, offer, or ask for:  

• Lists with data (such as email addresses or phone numbers) of individuals, only business data.

• Premade lists containing personal data.

• Scraping social media platforms to obtain information about others.  

• Based on your profile I am assuming that the Prohibited Services you were offering is within the list above.

• We are just buyers and sellers on the forum.

 

[elena_gonta]

2 minutes ago, lloydsolutions said:

Services that infringe third parties’ terms of service

We do not allow the infringement of third parties’ terms of service on Fiverr. As a valued member of the Fiverr community, we ask you to respect the broader Internet community and refrain from such violations in your Gig offerings. Gigs that are flagged for violations of third parties terms of service will be removed from the marketplace. 

Do not post, offer, or ask for services that infringe third parties’ terms of service. 

Services That involve sharing personal information of third parties 

We do not allow services that breach 3rd-party rights and lead to spamming individuals. In order to ensure this policy, we ask that the data provided in these services will be unique to each order and will only contain business data. 

 Do not post, offer, or ask for:  

• Lists with data (such as email addresses or phone numbers) of individuals, only business data.

• Premade lists containing personal data.

• Scraping social media platforms to obtain information about others.  

• Based on your profile I am assuming that the Prohibited Services you were offering is within the list above.

• We are just buyers and sellers on the forum.

 

None of the services in your list were or are being offered by my gig. I never broke any rules or community standards.

[sabinespoems]

41 minutes ago, elena_gonta said:

I was working on the gig improvement and wanted to change the gig title to a more human and attractive form. Once I updated and hit save, the gig was removed automatically.

What was the service you provided and what did you change your title to? 

@lloydsolutions sent that part of Fiverr's ToS, because your gig might've been removed based on your service. I took a quick peek and see you provide a service related to Amazon, including data scraping. Now I know nothing about this, but there might be some terms and conditions of Amazon (i.e. the third party) you're violating. And in turn, Fiverr has removed your gig. 

But as you already did, it's best to check with CS. I've had some encounters with CS as well where their initial answer was unsatisfactory. I simply replied to their email and continued doing so (about 3 emails back and forth), until they finally answered my question.

I don't suggest opening new tickets, but just try to get a better answer with your current ticket. I've had one person answer my initial ticket (who didn't provide a good answer), and another person answer my follow-up mail who did help me. So I suggest to just reply and ask for more detailed clarifications on the matter!

Edited June 12, 2022 by sabinespoems

[lloydsolutions]

 

2 minutes ago, sabinespoems said:

I think the reason @lloydsolutions sent that part of Fiverr's ToS is because your gig might've been removed based on your service. I took a quick peek and see you provide a service related to Amazon, including data scraping. Now I know nothing about this, but there might be some terms and conditions of Amazon (i.e. the third party) you're violating. And in turn, Fiverr has removed your gig. 

That is the reason.

[elena_gonta]

I have been providing this service for 4 years and all I did is to change the title. My gig was removed by a bot, not by a human.

The fact that my service consists of Amazon data scraping cannot be the reason of why the gig was removed.

I want to stress out the fact that the gig was working for 4 years and was removed only after I made a change in the title, not in the service description or services offered.

[melanielm]

It was removed now because they finally caught you breaking the rules.

There is no free pass on rule-breaking just because you got away with it for four years.

[elena_gonta]

On 6/12/2022 at 8:36 PM, lloydsolutions said:

 

That is the reason.

1)    Thanks for bringing that up. The paragraph you copied and pasted is part of the “TRADEMARKS” section of the amazon.co.uk conditions of use.

Here is a direct link: https://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/help/customer/display.html?nodeId=GLSBYFE9MGKKQXXM

It is a paragraph taken out of the context. If we read the very beginning of the “Conditions of Use” section, we can see the following:

“Please read these conditions carefully before using Amazon Services. By using Amazon Services, you signify your agreement to be bound by these conditions. We offer a wide range of Amazon Services, and sometimes additional terms may apply. When you use an Amazon Service (for example Your Profile, Gift Cards or Amazon applications for mobile), you will also be subject to the terms, guidelines and conditions applicable to that Amazon Service ("Service Terms"). If these Conditions of Use are inconsistent with the Service Terms, those Service Terms will control.”

It is clearly stated that these conditions apply to the users of Amazon Services who signed an agreement with Amazon prior to benefiting of these services. These conditions do not apply to non-users of Amazon Services.

The data scraping process is being directed without creating and account with Amazon or using any of the Amazon Services. The individual or company conducting data scraping on Amazon is not bound to the platform by any agreements, contracts or conditions to follow.

With this being said, no Amazon marketplaces’ rules were broken and accordingly, no Fiverr Terms of Service and our Community Standards involving third parties’ terms of service were broken either.

2)    The @lloydsolutions statement saying “That is the reason.” Is false accusation. It implies that the seller to whom this message was addressed to, did break the Fiverr Community Standards and that for this reason, the seller’s gig was removed.

In reality, the seller did not do any prohibited actions involving third parties’ terms of service. This kind of statements may affect the seller’s professional reputation and lead to penalties and lost profit.

Furthermore, this statement falls under the “Fake News” Fiver Community Standards, saying: “Fiverr defines Fake News as false or intentionally misleading information or propaganda that is developed and presented as authentic news.”

With all the above being said, I would like a public apology for the false accusation of breaking the Fiverr Community Standards.

 

[elena_gonta]

On 6/13/2022 at 12:43 AM, smashradio said:

Just because you've been violating Amazon terms for four years, that does not guarantee that you can keep doing so. Your gig offered Amazon Scraping services,  you say? 

Then I suggest you take another look at the Amazon terms @lloydsolutions was so kind to look up for you. Especially this part: 

(Highlights are mine)

In other words: you violated Amazon terms by performing data scraping on their service, and by doing so, you violated Fiverr TOS. 

The above statement is a direct accusation of the seller elena_gonta of violating Amazon terms for four years and for violating Fiverr TOS.

This is a false and defamatory statement that discredits the seller’s professional reputation and may cause lost profit and other penalties.

As well as this declaration falls under the “Fake News” Fiver Community Standards saying: “Fiverr defines Fake News as false or intentionally misleading information or propaganda that is developed and presented as authentic news.”

Please take note and full responsibility of this violation and provide a public apology.

[anniejenkinson]

Hi Elena,

Is the gig still removed? I just saw you do have one with 221 reviews for a data scraping service. I wondered if it had been resurrected or was the removed listing for a different type of data scraping service to the one on display currently? You said it had 271 reviews but your whole profile only has 272 across various gigs. 

I would have thought that if Fiverr had a problem (upon manual review by customer support) with data scraping per se, they wouldn't offer a category for it. But they do--titled Data Mining & Scraping!

I do understand the removal was by an annoying bot--but now, a real live person in customer support should have taken a look at your account and it's certainly odd that they removed your listing given that they offer a category for this service.

I think you should keep responding on the ticket you have used via Customer Support. Just ensure you explain clearly that Fiverr offers a category for your service and that this is a general business service not in violation of any third-party terms or Fiverr terms.

Edited June 17, 2022 by anniejenkinson
Typo due to Fiverr forum-ing at 0300 hrs!

[elena_gonta]

Hi Annie,

Thanks for the detailed message 😉

The gig was restored and yes, it is the one with 221 reviews. I indicated the data of 271 reviews as it was from my memory, given that at that moment the gig statistics were not available.

I was supper lucky after trying to get someone from support to understand the issue, I found Allie who was a superstar and forwarded the issue to the relevant team who fixed everything and got the gig restored.

You're right, there is a Data Mining & Scraping department as well as a multitude of Amazon Data Scraping gigs on Fiverr.

To my experience, Fiverr Customer Support is very hard to communicate with. Agents tend to answer with standard copy and paste templates and just close the tickets without even trying to understand the issue described. I get to have someone discuss the issue at the 3rd or 4th ticket. There is some room for improvement in this area.

It would be great is Fiverr could offer phone support for sellers, where we would be able to speak to agents and explain them if there were any account or gig issues.

Overall, all you say is true, all we can do in similar cases is to keep communicating with customer support and to provide them all the details they might need.

 

[jonbaas]

9 hours ago, elena_gonta said:

It would be great is Fiverr could offer phone support for sellers, where we would be able to speak to agents and explain them if there were any account or gig issues.

I can tell you exactly why CS doesn't offer a phone option. If they did offer a phone support option, thousands of new sellers (who know nothing about freelancing, or business, nor care to take the time to learn) would keep calling them, begging to have CS make sure their gigs got impressions and orders, and then getting frustrated/mad, when CS informs them that that's not something that they can provide. The fact that CS already recieves thousands of written tickets like this, shows exactly why a phone-based help system is a bad idea. It is easier to respond with a quick blanket response, and then close tickets, than to have to sit on the phone with all those sellers, listening to all of them complain about how Fiverr doesn't give them the success they aren't willing to work for.

[abdheshkjha]

As you have mentioned, you were providing "Amazon Scraping services" (Offering this types of services is again Fiverr TOS). Might be this is the reason, your GIG has been removed.

 

[jahidprime]

very sad, get well soon man!

[elena_gonta]

20 hours ago, abdheshkjha said:

As you have mentioned, you were providing "Amazon Scraping services" (Offering this types of services is again Fiverr TOS). Might be this is the reason, your GIG has been removed.

 

The above statement is a direct accusation of the seller elena_gonta of violating Amazon terms for four years and for violating Fiverr TOS.

This is a false and defamatory statement that discredits the seller’s professional reputation and may cause lost profit and other penalties.

As well as this declaration falls under the “Fake News” Fiver Community Standards saying: “Fiverr defines Fake News as false or intentionally misleading information or propaganda that is developed and presented as authentic news.”

[elena_gonta]

On 6/18/2022 at 6:55 AM, jonbaas said:

I can tell you exactly why CS doesn't offer a phone option. If they did offer a phone support option, thousands of new sellers (who know nothing about freelancing, or business, nor care to take the time to learn) would keep calling them, begging to have CS make sure their gigs got impressions and orders, and then getting frustrated/mad, when CS informs them that that's not something that they can provide. The fact that CS already recieves thousands of written tickets like this, shows exactly why a phone-based help system is a bad idea. It is easier to respond with a quick blanket response, and then close tickets, than to have to sit on the phone with all those sellers, listening to all of them complain about how Fiverr doesn't give them the success they aren't willing to work for.

I agree with that. However, when sellers reach out to support with a real issue, they get the same treatment, support agents "respond with a quick blanket response, and then close tickets".

This can only mean that the Fiverr seller support system design needs to be changes and there is huge room for improvement.

[jonbaas]

15 hours ago, elena_gonta said:

I agree with that. However, when sellers reach out to support with a real issue, they get the same treatment, support agents "respond with a quick blanket response, and then close tickets".

This can only mean that the Fiverr seller support system design needs to be changes and there is huge room for improvement.

CS tells everyone who opens a support ticket the same thing, regardless as to whether or not a user likes the answer provided. No seller is entitled to the answer THEY want from CS. CS shares the best answer that they are able to provide, to every ticket that is opened.

[the_c0ttage]

16 minutes ago, elena_gonta said:

Thanks for your message, I have already opened a ticket. But also, receive the copy-paste text from support, that did not even understand the details of the issue.

This is not my first experience with fiverr customer support, when they reply with quick answer templates, and solve the ticket.

Keep trying... its you only way to get this sorted out as I said before. take care!