Is there anyone competent in support around here?

[maezma85]

The question is basically because I was given a warning supposedly for "Trying to charge for my Fiverr services outside of the platform," which is completely false because I was speaking in Spanish with a client with whom I had created a cover for her book and I told her that I would help her by buying her book on Amazon when Fiverr released the funds to me. Obviously, whoever reviewed it has no idea about Spanish. But the worst part comes when I send a message explaining the whole situation and they respond by explaining how to highlight my GIG. Do they think it's absurd? I continue talking to my client, telling her about the injustice I am experiencing, and the next message I send, which was originally in Spanish, gets blocked after the client tells me she's going to eat:

"Come on, bon appetit. Another for you!" I hope they remove that unfair and false warning from me because I never proposed doing anything outside of Fiverr, and they don't even take the time to see that we are talking normally and that the order is closed. Hahaha, I don't know whether to laugh or cry with this support.

Is there someone from support here on the forum who can solve my problem? Because I have a totally false warning and it seems that you can't talk about anything in the chat that everything is blocked. 

Having to go through this situation is totally unfair because I have been a user who has always respected the rules and I have lost many jobs for reporting many accounts that sent me information hidden in text files to work outside. I have never gone against the rules of the site, I know them very well and it is an injustice to have to have a warning that is totally false. And not only do they not apologize for the misunderstanding, but they reply to me explaining how to promote my GIGs. i'm really furious

Edited April 15, 2023 by maezma85

[maezma85]

I will say right here if the problem has been solved or not. Is there anyone from the support center in the forum who can solve my problem? I haven't even talked about it, I only responded to a person who paid for my service, left me a good tip and asked me to advise her with the Amazon platform and if I could buy her book to help her. Nothing was ever said about hiring a Fiverr service outside. The message was blocked and then reviewed and I got that totally out of place warning

If I have any issues with my account due to the incompetence of those who reviewed the message and don't understand Spanish, I will sue if necessary. I have screenshots of everything.

Edited April 15, 2023 by maezma85

[uk1000]

I'm not from support. Though there are staff in the forum (that you might be able to tag in your post) but I don't know if any are from the customer support section.

Though in your message to the buyer you said:

Quote

In a few days, in the same book listing, you will see what ranking are occupying in the category and subcategory. I have to wait for Fiverr to release the funds so that I can purchase your Kindle version and review it to help you with that.

The "so that I can purchase your Kindle version and review it" part might be what Fiver had an issue with (note: They will also flag a message for review if you say "outside of Fiverr" - which may be what got one of your messages flagged for review).

You saying that you'll purchase their Kindle version through Paypal/Amazon would a payment outside of Fiverr that Fiverr would probably have an issue with. The buyer would receive a monetary payment from you and that would not go through Fiverr. All payment is supposed to go through Fiverr (there might be times when you need something to buy for yourself to do a particular gig/order (lets say you needed photoshop) - I assume that would be no problem - but no payment is allowed to go to the buyer by you off-Fiverr (and no payment by the buyer is allowed to go to you off Fiverr for a Fiverr order). The buyer is the one who is supposed to pay the seller. The only time the buyer would get funds back is through cancelling). Basically you shouldn't have offered to buy their book (through Paypal/Amazon) - it would be an off-site payment and not allowed.

Also if you were offering to write a review on Amazon of the product then that would also be an issue with Fiverr.

See: https://www.fiverr.com/community/standards/prohibited-services

The following (from the above page) is not allowed by Fiverr:

Quote

Paid reviews

Positive or negative feedback on any product, service, or performance.

The issue is lots of people got in trouble a long time ago for creating paid Amazon reviews (that may be biased since they were paid) so Fiverr created rule(s) against it.

Edited April 15, 2023 by uk1000

[maezma85]

7 minutes ago, uk1000 said:

I'm not from support. Though there are staff in the forum (that you might be able to tag in your post) but I don't know if any are from the customer support section.

Though in your message to the buyer you said:

The "so that I can purchase your Kindle version and review it" part might be what Fiver had an issue with (note: They will also flag a message for review if you say "outside of Fiverr" - which may be what got one of your messages flagged for review).

You saying that you'll purchase their Kindle version through Paypal/Amazon would a payment outside of Fiverr that Fiverr would probably have an issue with. The buyer would receive a monetary payment from you and that would not go through Fiverr. All payment is supposed to go through Fiverr (there might be times when you need something to buy for yourself - eg. lets say needed some software to complete an order - I assume that would be no problem - but no payment is allowed to go to the buyer by you off-Fiverr (and no payment by the buyer is allowed to go to you off Fiverr for a Fiverr order). The buyer is the one who is supposed to pay the seller. The only time the buyer would get funds back through cancelling).

Also if you were offering to write a review on Amazon of the product then that would also be an issue with Fiverr.

See: https://www.fiverr.com/community/standards/prohibited-services

The following (from the above page) is not allowed by Fiverr:

 

The issue is lots of people got in trouble a long time ago for creating paid Amazon reviews (that may be biased since they were paid).

I understand that the message was misinterpreted because whoever reviewed it doesn't understand Spanish very well, but the context of the conversation was that she told me that her copies of books were coming and asked me if I was interested in buying her book on Amazon, the same book that I designed and for which he tipped me on Fiverr. I replied that if I would buy her book to help her on the Amazon platform and I would read it to leave her the corresponding review. The entire conversation was in Spanish, I tried to translate it the best I could. But there was never any talk of buying reviews or anything to do with paying for services outside of Fiverr. And the thing about the categories was because I was explaining how Amazon's algorithm worked to rank books. In other words, there is absolutely nothing involved in doing Fiverr business outside. What annoys me is the response I received from the support, what they replied to me even seems disrespectful to me, it seems as if I had spoken to a robot.

[uk1000]

6 minutes ago, maezma85 said:

I replied that if I would buy her book to help her on the Amazon platform and I would read it to leave her the corresponding review

Saying that to the buyer and the fact that you were doing it to rank their book on Amazon would then have let Fiverr know about an off-site payment and the review (which you were doing after receiving payment through their order, even if your gig didn't mention paid reviews). It wasn't something you just wanted to buy for yourself (which might have been okay), but you were buying it to help rank their book, and with a review to help rank it (which would probably be a positive review - which Fiverr might think could be a biased review since it was done to try to rank their book).

So in future I'd definitely not say you will buy their book (as that would be an off-site payment by you) and definitely don't offer to leave a customer review of it on Amazon (because of Fiverr rules/TOS).

You could ask CS what is allowed re: this though.

Edited April 15, 2023 by uk1000

[maezma85]

This person is just starting out on Amazon, so I wanted to help her by advising her and she gave me the link to her books and she told me if you're interested in buying it and to help me promote it if you can. I replied that there would be no problem for him to buy it and that when he read it I would leave the corresponding review. What else can I do against someone who paid me 100 dollars? Am I the one who should bear the warning? I have not provided links, I have done nothing more than respond kindly to your request but I did not tell you that I was going to sell you a service outside of Fiverr or anything like that and the one who gets the warning is me

[maezma85]

On 4/15/2023 at 8:11 AM, uk1000 said:

Saying that to the buyer and the fact that you were doing it to rank their book on Amazon would then have let Fiverr know about an off-site payment and the review (which you were doing after receiving payment through their order, even if your gig didn't mention paid reviews). It wasn't something you just wanted to buy for yourself (which might have been okay), but you were buying it to help rank their book, and with a review to help rank it (which would probably be a positive review - which Fiverr might think could be a biased review since it was done to try to rank their book).

So in future I'd definitely not say you will buy their book (as that would be an off-site payment by you) and definitely don't offer to leave a customer review of it on Amazon (because of Fiverr rules/TOS).

You could ask CS what is allowed re: this though.

With all due respect I tell you, what does that have to do with it? Fiverr doesn't sell books on demand or does it have that service? In addition, I was not the one who proposed the idea of buying it, nor did I pass on the Amazon links.The service I offer was not agreed to outside the platform and the sale of books on demand is not a service offered by Fiverr, also in any case I was not the one who asked to buy a book from me or who sent links to help you find it. promote. Logically, I am a very kind person with my clients. Are you saying that it is fair that I have a warning? Why didn't the system stop the buyer's links? Or why didn't you block her message when she told me that if I was interested and could buy it I would help her? 

Edited April 15, 2023 by maezma85

[uk1000]

6 minutes ago, maezma85 said:

With all due respect I tell you, what does that have to do with it? Fiverr doesn't sell books on demand or does it have that service?

For the review thing - if you do a google search you'll see news from a long time ago saying things like "Amazon sues more than 1,000 Fiverr users offering to write fake product reviews". That's why they don't allow sellers to create customer reviews of products as part of their service. The only 'reviews' they'd allow are things like reviewing their website for them (ie. letting them know what's wrong with their website so they know how to improve it, not giving a public review that will be seen by customers). So "reviews" that are just some analysis that is just for the buyer, not for the public to see is probably okay (but check the rules pages/CS to be sure).

Also since your gig is just for designing the books (not promotion) then I wouldn't offer to do any promotion on it. So we have to follow Fiverr rules or we could get account warnings etc so that's the reason why I said don't offer payment outside Fiverr (eg. paying for their book) and don't offer to leave any customer reviews of anything.

Edited April 15, 2023 by uk1000

[maezma85]

7 minutes ago, uk1000 said:

For the review thing - if you do a google search you'll see news from a long time ago saying things like "Amazon sues more than 1,000 Fiverr users offering to write fake product reviews". That's why they don't allow sellers to create customer reviews of products as part of their service. The only 'reviews' they'd allow are things like reviewing their website for them (ie. letting them know what's wrong with their website so they know how to improve, not giving a public review that will be seen by customers).

Also since your gig is just for designing the books (not promotion) then I wouldn't offer to do any promotion on it. So we have to follow Fiverr rules or we could get account warnings etc so that's the reason why I said don't offer payment outside Fiverr (eg. paying for their book) and don't offer to leave any customer reviews of anything.

Man, but I didn't offer any review or promotion service, I just said that I would help her with that when she asked me for help, nothing more. I told him that I was interested in reading his book and that I would buy it, that's all. But I repeat again... If someone gives you Amazon links and the system doesn't stop them, if someone asks you if you can buy their book and I only answer that I will, am I the one who should receive the warning or should it have been the buyer? I repeat that I did not offer any promotion or review service, I only offered to help her without charging her anything for that because she is new to the platform and I like to help her succeed.

Edited April 15, 2023 by maezma85

[uk1000]

3 minutes ago, maezma85 said:

I repeat that I did not offer any promotion or review service, I only offered to help her without charging her anything for that because she is new to the platform and I like to help her succeed.

You can continue speaking with them in the support ticket about. But in future like I said, I wouldn't do those things if the buyer asks (eg. so you don't risk any account warnings in future). If they give a link and ask you to buy it (off-Fiverr)/add customer review of it it just politely refuse because of Fiverr rules.

[maezma85]

35 minutes ago, uk1000 said:

You can continue speaking with them in the support ticket about. But in future like I said, I wouldn't do those things if the buyer asks (eg. so you don't risk any account warnings in future). If they give a link and ask you to buy it (off-Fiverr)/add customer review of it it just politely refuse because of Fiverr rules.

Brother, but they didn't even reply to me. The only thing they answered me about was the capture, which has nothing to do with my proposal. That's why I came to the forum to look for someone serious from the support center because the answer even seemed like a joke. Just because they read Fiverr, Paypal and Amazon they already drew conclusions but any native Spanish speaker would realize that no service was ever offered outside the platform, at all times I offered my help for free. Imagine that I don't have her contact outside the platform because she never sent anything like that and through Amazon you can't contact anyone. How could I contact her then? In addition, there should be texts where it is said that I am going to charge you for promotion, there is no such thing. What you tell me I understand but this is not a matter of vague interpretations, you have to read all the messages before hurting a person because after closing the sale I even continued to greet her and continued to advise her and answer her questions for him. chat because I'm that nice to my clients, plus they're going to hire me for another cover. Is Fiverr a portal that cares about the client or does it want us to treat it badly? I don't understand why if you're good they punish you and if you're not too.

I have been harmed for being kind and wanting to help without charging anything for that, that is the reality but the buyer who sent the links asking me to help her share in order to have sales and who asked me if I could buy her book does not have any kind from problems. I should have told him something like: I'm not interested in helping you promote your book or buying it from a person who had just paid me for a design service and left me a tip, it's illogical. There is not a single line of text where it talks about payments outside of Fiverr, there is not a single line of text where I say that I am going to charge you for a service to promote, the rest is assumptions

Edited April 15, 2023 by maezma85

[uk1000]

15 minutes ago, maezma85 said:

Bro, but they didn't even answer me. The only thing they answered me was that of the capture that has nothing to do with my proposal...

I don't understand why if you're nice they punish you and if you're not too.

So on the support ticket wait for their reply and if it's not about what you asked then you should be able to add new post in that ticket further explaining it.

For the forum, if you can find a staff member here that are relevant for this you could tag them (maybe check which staff member supports the book designing section or the graphics & design section).

15 minutes ago, maezma85 said:

Just because they read Fiverr, Paypal and Amazon they already drew conclusions

Though lets say I've created a book and I pay for you on Fiverr to design the cover for $100. I then make my book for sale on amazon at $50 (or whatever price). I ask you to buy it through Amazon and leave a customer review. You say yes. The buyer would then receive $50 payment for their book (from you) when they get their money from Amazon (less any fees Amazon take) and get the (likely positive) customer review that you added. So even if you were just offering to help Fiverr would probably still see that that (eg. $50) payment was made off-Fiverr for that book (or that it was being offered to be paid) that would then get transferred (minus fees) to the buyer and the customer review (which they have rules against). So it may be hard to get CS to remove any warning about this.

Edited April 15, 2023 by uk1000

[maezma85]

22 minutes ago, uk1000 said:

So on the support ticket wait for their reply and if it's not about what you asked then you should be able to add new post in that ticket further explaining it.

For the forum, if you can find a staff member here that are relevant for this you could tag them (maybe check which staff member supports the book designing section).

Though lets say I've created a book and I pay for you on Fiverr to design the cover for $100. I then make my book for sale on amazon at $50 (or whatever price). I ask you to buy it through Amazon and leave a customer review. You say yes. The buyer would then receive $50 payment for their book (from you) when they get their money from Amazon (less any fees Amazon take) and get the (likely positive) customer review that you added. So even if you were just offering to help Fiverr would probably still see that that (eg. $50) payment was made for that book (or that it was being offered to be paid) that would then get transferred (minus fees) to the buyer and the customer review (which they have rules against). So it may be hard to get CS to remove any warning about this.

That's already being a conspiracy. This is not about supposing but about proving what you accuse. There is no contact information, there is no line of text that even hints that a service is going to be sold outside of Fiverr, if it were forbidden to pass an Amazon link the system would block it and, in any case, I did not send the links. The seller cannot be contacted on the amazon platform either, so the assumptions here are superfluous. They have to prove what they accuse or they shouldn't bother and damage a seller's reputation. The buyer did not receive any warning, I did. And I was not the one who proposed the purchase of your book, I only replied that I was interested in buying her book, It wasn't me who sent the amazon links asking me to help her promote her book either, I offered to help her and I never asked her for anything in return. I just replied that if I was interested in buying it. His Kindle book costs 1.99 so the theory you mentioned wouldn't make sense.

Edited April 15, 2023 by maezma85

[uk1000]

For that being a conspiracy - I'm not suggesting Fiverr would actually see that off-site payment (only the sites that received the payments would see those), but if they knew that a seller was offering or agreeing to pay outside of Fiverr for the buyer's book, even though it was the buyer who asked them to (based on what was in the Fiverr messages/posts on the order page) and they saw that the seller was offering to leave a customer review on Amazon for it, then they could check if those things were okay or not with Fiverr's rules/TOS. They'd likely think based on those rules that those things aren't allowed. I agree that the book price is really low though (negligible really). But it's best not to mention on Fiverr to buyers that stuff about you buying it with paypal/through amazon and that you'd be reviewing it (because of Fiverr rules). You could check with CS what they do allow re: that (eg. if you just wanted a copy of the book you designed).

Technically they should really do the same thing to the buyer though if they were asking for the seller to do that (or if the buyer bought the seller's book or other product outside of Fiverr after after being asked to on Fiverr). Basically Fiverr should treat the buyer and seller equally rule-wise really.

Edited April 15, 2023 by uk1000

[vickiespencer]

3 hours ago, uk1000 said:

For the review thing - if you do a google search you'll see news from a long time ago saying things like "Amazon sues more than 1,000 Fiverr users offering to write fake product reviews". That's why they don't allow sellers to create customer reviews of products as part of their service

 

I have not read this whole thread. However, I agree with @uk1000 about offering to write an Amazon review. Several authors have returned to my inbox to share a link to their book and ask me to review it. I always thank them for letting me know and avoid acknowledging their request for a review because I am aware of Amazon suing Fiverr review sellers in the past. 
 

[melanielm]

I understand you were not taking business off Fiverr and you were not saying you would review their book for pay.

However, what you said looked like you *could* be offering that. IF you bought their book and left a review and said anything about it, you would essentially be sharing off-Fiverr information with them. They would be able to identify you as the person who left a review and would therefore have another way to contact you. It looks like a way to possibly circumvent the rule about no off-site contact. Therefore, it's a bad idea.

Intention doesn't really matter when something looks like it breaks the rules. At this point, probably just better to move on and not do that again.

[miiila]

Drop the matter right away if not yesterday, be glad you got away with a warning, and keep that warning in mind.

[maezma85]

17 hours ago, melanielm said:

I understand you were not taking business off Fiverr and you were not saying you would review their book for pay.

However, what you said looked like you *could* be offering that. IF you bought their book and left a review and said anything about it, you would essentially be sharing off-Fiverr information with them. They would be able to identify you as the person who left a review and would therefore have another way to contact you. It looks like a way to possibly circumvent the rule about no off-site contact. Therefore, it's a bad idea.

Intention doesn't really matter when something looks like it breaks the rules. At this point, probably just better to move on and not do that again.

That is precisely the problem, you cannot penalize for what it may seem but for what it really is. If there is no payment request for a service and no contact information outside the platform, where is the point in sanctioning? In this case it is a warning but it is harmful. Who guarantees that they will misinterpret a message again?

[maezma85]

17 hours ago, melanielm said:

I understand you were not taking business off Fiverr and you were not saying you would review their book for pay.

However, what you said looked like you *could* be offering that. IF you bought their book and left a review and said anything about it, you would essentially be sharing off-Fiverr information with them. They would be able to identify you as the person who left a review and would therefore have another way to contact you. It looks like a way to possibly circumvent the rule about no off-site contact. Therefore, it's a bad idea.

Intention doesn't really matter when something looks like it breaks the rules. At this point, probably just better to move on and not do that again.

That is precisely the problem, you cannot penalize for what it may seem but for what it really is. If there is no payment request for a service and no contact information outside the platform, where is the point in sanctioning? In this case it is a warning but it is harmful. Who guarantees that they will not misinterpret a message again? And I think they should take into account that if I have reported many accounts offering me to work abroad because logically I do not want to get into trouble. But even more anger gives me that they do not answer the ticket

[maezma85]

5 hours ago, miiila said:

Drop the matter right away if not yesterday, be glad you got away with a warning, and keep that warning in mind.

I have to be happy about what? There is absolutely nothing real about the warning because I have not sold anything off the platform. Do you understand? I can't be happy about something that is totally unfair and false. Indeed it was yesterday, I have been on the platform for 2 years with impeccable conduct and I continue in the same way to this day, with the particular difference that I have a warning for something I did not do.

Edited April 16, 2023 by maezma85

[maezma85]

23 hours ago, vickiespencer said:

 

I have not read this whole thread. However, I agree with @uk1000 about offering to write an Amazon review. Several authors have returned to my inbox to share a link to their book and ask me to review it. I always thank them for letting me know and avoid acknowledging their request for a review because I am aware of Amazon suing Fiverr review sellers in the past. 
 

That is a problem for both companies. I have nothing to do with that issue because I did not offer any review service. I only offered to help a customer who has been very kind and generous to me answering him that I had no problem buying his book and posting a review after reading it, something that seems totally logical to me if someone buys a book and reads it. There are no contact details, there is no request for payment of anything and even so the support center are rude who do not even respond and are unable to admit that they were wrong with me. Do you know what the biggest problem is, Vicky? That no one bothered to read the context and that whoever reviewed it probably doesn't even speak Spanish.

Edited April 16, 2023 by maezma85

[maezma85]

This issue is already resolved. Thanks to everyone for your replies. I am happy to know and it gives me peace of mind that the support center knows how to rectify when something is wrong.

[miiila]

15 hours ago, maezma85 said:

I have to be happy about what? There is absolutely nothing real about the warning because I have not sold anything off the platform. Do you understand? I can't be happy about something that is totally unfair and false. Indeed it was yesterday, I have been on the platform for 2 years with impeccable conduct and I continue in the same way to this day, with the particular difference that I have a warning for something I did not do.

Yes, I perfectly understood the "unfair, because you didn't actually take or wanted to take business off-platform" part, you're absolutely right there, and I'd also have argued about that with support until they'd seen my point, I actually kept it brief intentionally, as I was sure you'd understand.

It was a nicely meant advice about the "helping customers with their Amazon book by buying and reviewing it" part; it would've been better to go with the warning than risking that someone else takes a good look and decides that a warning might not be enough. You got lucky in that the notoriously overworked and often not too well reading support person either didn't really catch on about the review thing or was letting you off the hook easily with just a warning, you can actually lose your account over such a thing, depending, and don't trust any "three strikes" myths, depending on what exactly the ToS or guidelines violation in question is, you might not even get a second chance.

Anyway, if you want to keep telling buyers that you'd buy and review their book on Amazon or such, good luck, you might need it, whenever there's an issue with an order, or someone is doing an account evaluation for checking if you're up to TRS standards, or such, it might be a more attentive person. 

 "I only offered to help a customer who has been very kind and generous to me answering him that I had no problem buying his book and posting a review after reading it,"

You didn't have a problem, and I get it, as you'd, of course, have left a completely sincere review, not in the least influenced by that the author was your customer, so what's wrong with that, however, Fiverr and Amazon have a problem with it, when there's a paid service involved, even if the paid service part directly had nothing to do with the feedback. I don't want to go into it even deeper, just some food for thought, and you can easily google the whole complex, it's quite interesting, actually. Do what you want of course, Like others, I was just trying to make you see about the review thing and help you not to potentially jeopardize your account, take it, or leave it.

Awesome that the "taking business off-platform issue" was rightfully recognised as a misunderstanding on Fiverr's part and resolved by support and that you could get the unfounded warning for that off your account. It's also my experience that they do rectify mistakes on their part. 👍

 

[catwriter]

1 hour ago, miiila said:

You didn't have a problem, and I get it, as you'd, of course, have left a completely sincere review, not in the least influenced by that the author was your customer, so what's wrong with that, however, Fiverr and Amazon have a problem with it, when there's a paid service involved, even if the paid service part directly had nothing to do with the feedback. I don't want to go into it even deeper, just some food for thought, and you can easily google the whole complex, it's quite interesting, actually.

I remember the case of an author, let's call her Kelly (not her name, this is just to make the story clear). She bought a book by an author named Molly (again, not the real name), loved it, and left a review on Amazon. It was a legitimate Amazon purchase and a legitimate review. However, Amazon removed that review, and might have even warned Kelly (I'm not sure if I remember the warning part correctly, but they definitely removed the review) because someone there thought that Kelly and Molly were friends so that Kelly was artificially increasing Molly's reviews/ranking.

And why did Amazon think that, when Kelly and Molly didn't even know each other? They might have met briefly when they attended the same convention, but that's about it. So why? Because they were at the same convention. So they must be friends. Never mind the fact that they both attended the convention for business purposes, just like a bunch of other writers writing in the same genre did.

That's how nuts Amazon can get about reviews.