Scammers invaded Fiverr, making us true sellers invisible.

[catwriter]

15 minutes ago, strategist_ceo said:

I think he noticed and deleted it.

It's not possible to delete your own post.

It might have been deleted because it was reported.

The same person copied one of your posts in another topic.

[izah_moh]

On 11/13/2022 at 8:43 AM, majidshowghi said:

Please search "Character Animation" on Fiverr for example. You will come across a lot of scam gigs very early on page 2, along with videos from Hollywood and Pixar and Japanese anime! Something that they obviously doesn't own and have no right to upload as their work samples!

This is what irks me the most! I once saw someone who stole another artist's work on Instagram and foolishly left the watermark in the image. I went to tell the artist and they tried to get the sellers gig removed and it seems all they did was remove the sellers image and put another one. Seemed to be a Disney animators portfolio reel.

It's heartbreaking because these people are charging hundreds of dollars on work they fully intend to steal!

I just started offering 3D artwork services because I believe I could make some income with my newfound skills and I'm RIDDLED with messages from bottom of the barrel bottom feeders requesting I do hours of work and submit it first before they graciously decide to pay me.

In a purely ironic twist of faith, they created a system where they are scamming one another where they get sales from unsuspecting buyers and then try to pawn it off to others and only request the work first before payment so as to make sure they get the right product from the other scammers and not lose out on the potential buyer's money. Did that not make a lick of sense? EXACTLY!!

There whole process is asinine and I can't wait till they're all kicked from the platform.

They are a pure utter disgrace to the platform and I hate sharing gig space with them!

And don't get me started on new sellers flooding my inbox asking me to "help" or "share my gigs" with them.

*Furiously screams into a pillow from abject frustration*

[shalock]

1 hour ago, izah_moh said:

are charging hundreds of dollars on work they fully intend to steal!

Well, they may be charging that, but let me assure you that most don't get to see any of that money, because if your are promise Disney quality and are delivered a kindergarten drawing, be sure that the buyer will refund that order.

In the other hand, someone who has the ability to produce such quality won't use stolen images.

1 hour ago, izah_moh said:

from bottom of the barrel bottom feeders requesting I do hours of work

That's the 5$ culture that Fiverr is trying to get away from. I agree with you that a vicious circle has been created between all those scammers and have affected the way some buyers expect the work to be made.

 

1 hour ago, izah_moh said:

submit it first before they graciously decide to pay me

That's against ToS and you should report any buyer that tries to do that. That said, many new sellers are willing to engage in such behavior because they want that order, perpetuating the bad habit of the buyer and probably getting themselves scammed.

 

1 hour ago, izah_moh said:

"share my gigs"

Hasn't happened to me but I agree with you that it's disgraceful. There's a lot of new people that seems they were told that Fiverr was a magical money factory and don't understand why it won't work for them.

1 hour ago, izah_moh said:

Furiously screams into a pillow from abject frustratio

I know it may be frustrating, but don't let it get to you. Focus on your work and your gigs, I can assure you probably wouldn't want to work with the kind of buyers that goes for those stolen gigs anyway.

[majidshowghi]

On 11/15/2022 at 2:01 PM, catwriter said:

@vickieito, look, a couple of posts above this one, someone literally copied and pasted your post.

In a topic about scammers who present other people's work as their own.

The irony...

Scamming the scam report point to the topic of scam! :))))
[What I just said? my English is getting weaker day by day :))) ]

But anyway, why someone should do that??? What is the incentive?

[majidshowghi]

On 11/16/2022 at 3:36 PM, shalock said:

That's against ToS and you should report any buyer that tries to do that. That said, many new sellers are willing to engage in such behavior because they want that order, perpetuating the bad habit of the buyer and probably getting themselves scammed.

 

Is it against ToS?! I didn't know that!
Thanks for letting me know

[catwriter]

10 hours ago, majidshowghi said:

But anyway, why someone should do that??? What is the incentive?

Some YouTube guru or local guru or whatever told them that the secret sauce to succeeding on Fiverr is to be active on the forum (that's why we have so many serial likers, they're trying to get to the Grand Master forum badge as if means anything other than a bit of forum gamification). The trouble is, they have probably never been on an internet forum before and have no idea how to be active, and/or they have nothing to say, and/or their English is not good enough to actually talk to someone.

[catwriter]

10 hours ago, majidshowghi said:

Is it against ToS?!

Years ago, when I asked Customer Support about it, they told me that some sellers choose to give buyers a small sample before the order was placed. When they do that, there's no guarantee that the order will ever be placed and that they will get paid for their work, but some sellers choose to do that anyway, to gain the buyer's trust. Then I tried to get CS to tell me if it was forbidden for buyers to ask for those samples (considering that Fiverr's ToS strongly recommends to sellers never to start working before the order was actually placed), and they told me that no, it wasn't forbidden.

[majidshowghi]

1 hour ago, catwriter said:

Some YouTube guru or local guru or whatever told them that the secret sauce to succeeding on Fiverr is to be active on the forum (that's why we have so many serial likers, they're trying to get to the Grand Master forum badge as if means anything other than a bit of forum gamification). The trouble is, they have probably never been on an internet forum before and have no idea how to be active, and/or they have nothing to say, and/or their English is not good enough to actually talk to someone.

The funny thing is that I login in to the community site separately from the Fiverr platform as well! It appears to be a completely other website!

If they used some logic, they probably wouldn't fall for these YouTubers' tricks.

[shalock]

3 hours ago, catwriter said:

it wasn't forbidden.

Well, I mean to ask for a complete job in the like of "do all this and then, if I like it, I'll place an order and buy it". As far as I know, that kind of behavior goes against the ToS and the way the platform works.

Asking for a sample is different, however, I've never given a free sample as I think that it will encourage in some buyers a the impression that they can get things for free. The only exception I do is with buyers that I've worked before when they ask for a small favor or a quick test of concept.

[shalock]

4 hours ago, catwriter said:

YouTube guru or local guru

I had the same impression from some posts i saw. Whats worse, I have a suspicion that someone is profiting from this kind of magic courses by selling seminars or workshops to succeed on Fiverr.

[catwriter]

2 hours ago, majidshowghi said:

The funny thing is that I login in to the community site separately from the Fiverr platform as well! It appears to be a completely other website!

 

Indeed, and yet, no matter how many times you tell them that, they won't believe you, typically because the "guru" was from their own country, and you're seen as a mean gatekeeper keeping the secret sauce (and all the buyers) to yourself.

1 minute ago, shalock said:

Whats worse, I have a suspicion that someone is profiting from this kind of magic courses by selling seminars or workshops to succeed on Fiverr.

Definitely.

A while ago, we had a bunch of brand new sellers all post a new topic on the forum, each asking about Fiverr's Terms of Service. It turned out they had a teacher teaching them about Fiverr and telling them to start using the forum (and asking for help in the forum), but probably never told them how to do it.

6 minutes ago, shalock said:

Well, I mean to ask for a complete job in the like of "do all this and then, if I like it, I'll place an order and buy it".

Depending on what you offer (for example, short texts), it can be the same thing.

[oskars25]

I lost my hope by doing report the actual sellers who have created several accounts, not reporting people anymore for content what they actually cant use or dont have rights. Fiverr Customer support after 3 years  spending here are really bad.  They just dont care about sellers, they just care about money they make.

Sucess managers also they are tired or not paid enough, they dont care to actually help you. They have no motivation. People creating and scaming others, fiverr just says they will look in to that, and actually not doing anything.

Sorry for saying this Fiverr, but you guys were 20x better support to actually count on you 3  years back. Now there are no needs to contact you, since only you get automated messages back.

Explained about vip customer support help with obtaining ranks at fiverr. But in the end that waiting time is 5x longer. Your words what you offer to ranked people or not doesnt even go close to actual time!

[izah_moh]

11 hours ago, catwriter said:

Then I tried to get CS to tell me if it was forbidden for buyers to ask for those samples (considering that Fiverr's ToS strongly recommends to sellers never to start working before the order was actually placed), and they told me that no, it wasn't forbidden.

From what I gather, giving samples is fine. Completing the whole thing is a definite no-no.

 

7 hours ago, shalock said:

Well, I mean to ask for a complete job in the like of "do all this and then, if I like it, I'll place an order and buy it". As far as I know, that kind of behavior goes against the ToS and the way the platform works.

Asking for a sample is different, however, I've never given a free sample as I think that it will encourage in some buyers a the impression that they can get things for free. The only exception I do is with buyers that I've worked before when they ask for a small favor or a quick test of concept.

Yeah, I wholeheartedly get this.

But on the other hand I still make exceptions, like with my voice acting gig, to send like a one sentence sample to buyers just to get my foot in the door. It works a lot of the time, and it saves me the headache of buyers being confused that my voice "doesn't match what they envisioned or thought". (As if that's my fault that they didn't listen to the 2 dozen + audio samples I have listed up, but that's a rant for another day.)

The sad reality of the situation is that a lot of these scammers are just unemployed guys (and gals) from poor countries with nothing better to do and have been promised by a fake YouTube "millionaire" that Fiverr is nothing but a "get-rich-quick scheme" and if you game the system, you can be a millionaire overnight.

So they flock to the website like hungry droves to try and squeeze even if it's 5 bucks off any unsuspecting buyer.

Because a long time ago I was talking in the forum how I wasn't trying to make a big deal out of a $10 order a bad buyer was trying to dupe me out of, but was aware I was privileged enough to think that way because $10 is practically someone's monthly salary where I'm from. And another user/seller threw it back in my face that that was barely enough to get their coffee.

Talk about a callous and harsh reality check.

So as much as I hate them, I don't want to fully blame them. Because what lengths would you go to to dig and claw your way out of abject poverty?

[catwriter]

21 hours ago, oskars25 said:

Sorry for saying this Fiverr, but you guys were 20x better support to actually count on you 3  years back.

You mean, before the pandemic, and before Fiverr was flooded with way too many desperate people trying to earn without skills someone would pay for.

[oskars25]

36 minutes ago, catwriter said:

You mean, before the pandemic, and before Fiverr was flooded with way too many desperate people trying to earn without skills someone would pay for.

YES!

[majidshowghi]

On 11/19/2022 at 2:56 PM, oskars25 said:

I lost my hope by doing report the actual sellers who have created several accounts, not reporting people anymore for content what they actually cant use or dont have rights. Fiverr Customer support after 3 years  spending here are really bad.  They just dont care about sellers, they just care about money they make.

Sucess managers also they are tired or not paid enough, they dont care to actually help you. They have no motivation. People creating and scaming others, fiverr just says they will look in to that, and actually not doing anything.

Sorry for saying this Fiverr, but you guys were 20x better support to actually count on you 3  years back. Now there are no needs to contact you, since only you get automated messages back.

Explained about vip customer support help with obtaining ranks at fiverr. But in the end that waiting time is 5x longer. Your words what you offer to ranked people or not doesnt even go close to actual time!

What recommendations would you provide in more detail?
Do you believe Fiverr should hire more employees to work in customer support?