reviews The Introduction of Reviews for Cancelled Orders – Some Thoughts After My Meeting With Fiverr

[leannelrivers]

57 minutes ago, donnovan86 said:

I am sure they can't track competitors which will ask a friend or even travel somewhere just to place an order and leave a very very bad review.

It was mentioned on the call today (I'm not quoting exactly) that sellers who think they can find a way around the system to burn other sellers should think again. Fiverr now has more ways of finding people out. They didn't mention how, and I didn't ask. It's enough for me to know that Fiverr seems determined to crack down on dishonest sellers, create more transparency on both sides and improve the reputation of the platform.
Just my opinion, but I think it's slightly paranoid to suggest a seller would travel or employ someone else to sabotage another person's success. Even if there are such people willing to do it, is it worth worrying about so heavily? 

[smashradio]

Just now, leannelrivers said:

It was mentioned on the call today (I'm not quoting exactly) that sellers who think they can find a way around the system to burn other sellers should think again. Fiverr now has more ways of finding people out. They didn't mention how, and I didn't ask. It's enough for me to know that Fiverr seems determined to crack down on dishonest sellers, create more transparency on both sides and improve the reputation of the platform.
Just my opinion, but I think it's slightly paranoid to suggest a seller would travel or employ someone else to sabotage another person's success. Even if there are such people willing to do it, is it worth worrying about so heavily? 

I wrote a lengthy response, but it went to the approval bin, as most of my posts have been these last few days. Very annoying. 

I can say that Fiverr has multiple ways of identifying this. Like I mentioned in my "soon-to-be-approved" post, the people who want to do this sort of thing don't have the resources to make a dent in their category, and the people who do don't want to. 

But if someone did, they would have to deal with the dough required and then have multiple people purchase and cancel. The trend alone would make the bells go off. Fiverr can track you by device, IP, location, habits, usernames, patterns, spending, etc. Imagine if 50 orders came it around the same time from the same place, all of the similar amounts in the same category, and all of them were cancelled and got a negative review. That's a clear trend. Fiverr has AI systems identifying these things. 

[leannelrivers]

2 minutes ago, smashradio said:

The trend alone would make the bells go off.

And new accounts/buyers can't review cancelled orders either, so starting a new account somewhere to screw someone over wouldn't work. 

[smashradio]

4 minutes ago, leannelrivers said:

And new accounts/buyers can't review cancelled orders either, so starting a new account somewhere to screw someone over wouldn't work. 

Exactly. It's a theoretical scenario so unlikely that I'm willing to eat my Stetson should it ever occur on a massive scale. 

The fine print of my Stetson bet, to ensure the safety of both my digestive system and my cherished headgear.

The event must be of significant scale: At least 1,000 orders must be placed, cancelled, and negatively reviewed, within a single 24-hour period.
Authenticity of actions: All involved parties must be verified by a team of independent experts as acting in accordance with the described scenario and not in a bid to make me munch on my Stetson.
Verified by Fiverr: Fiverr’s official statement confirming the event must be produced within 72 hours of occurrence.
Should anyone in this thread ever be implicated in any way the bet will be null and void. This includes, but is not limited to, instigating, encouraging, or participating in the scheme.
Hat Consumption: Should all the above terms be met, I will, within 48 hours, post a video of me "symbolically" eating my hat. However, the actual consumption of the Stetson hat will not occur due to health and safety regulations. Instead, I shall indulge in a specially commissioned, edible replica of said Stetson hat, which shall be deemed an acceptable alternative. These stipulations are set forth to maintain the integrity of the bet, the health of the proposer (me), and, most importantly, the longevity of my favored Stetson.

[donnovan86]

32 minutes ago, leannelrivers said:

They didn't mention how, and I didn't ask. It's enough for me to know that Fiverr seems determined to crack down on dishonest sellers, create more transparency on both sides and improve the reputation of the platform.

I agree, the change is good for those that actually offer great services.

32 minutes ago, leannelrivers said:

Just my opinion, but I think it's slightly paranoid to suggest a seller would travel or employ someone else to sabotage another person's success. Even if there are such people willing to do it, is it worth worrying about so heavily? 

When Fiver is your primary or only source of income, such things can deliver a huge hit. I was just sharing an example, but just how some people cancel payments to get their accounts banned and their money back, I am sure there are maleficent sellers that try to discredit others. I am not worried heavily, but I didn't see any specific mention about this. Sure, buyers that also sell can't leave a review. That doesn't stop a maleficent seller to go the extra mile and harm others. And how would you know, really? 

Edited July 18, 2023 by donnovan86

[smashradio]

6 minutes ago, donnovan86 said:

I agree, the change is good for those that actually offer great services.

When Fiver is your primary or only source of income, such things can deliver a huge hit. I was just sharing an example, but just how some people cancel payments to get their accounts banned and their money back, I am sure there are maleficent sellers that try to discredit others. I am not worried heavily, but I didn't see any specific mention about this. Sure, buyers that also sell can't leave a review. That doesn't stop a maleficent seller to go the extra mile and harm others. And how would you know, really? 

As I mentioned, they can track a lot of identifying factors. Hiding a digital footprint or trend big enough to actually harm anyone at scale is nearly impossible these days. 

[donnovan86]

45 minutes ago, smashradio said:

That's a clear trend. Fiverr has AI systems identifying these things. 

True, but what if a buyer asks a friend to buy a $5 gig from someone, and then they go and harm the target seller? That person is not a first time buyer anymore. And how would the seller have any protection? I mean, I am a writer so I have a wild imagination, so maybe I exaggerate, but who will protect the seller then? There's no way to know a new buyer with 2 orders wants to do harm, so.. 

13 minutes ago, smashradio said:

Hiding a digital footprint or trend big enough to actually harm anyone at scale

I didn't say at scale. Just a single person. They don't need to do this at scale to damage a person's livelihood. Just a single, targeted attack that's well-thought towards a few top rated or best selling gigs, and no one knows who was behind the bad review. Not sure if the cancellation appears on the "buyer's" page with a reply from the seller, I bet it doesn't.. It would appear just on the seller's page.

Anyway, as I said, I don't see this done at scale, but I don't care if it's at scale or not if it harms a genuine seller that did nothing wrong. 

The idea is, I didn't see anything specific last time when they tried to introduce this.. I am not sure what they changed this time around, but I would expect them to heavily focus on protecting sellers, because this opens a door to the Wild West. Any buyer can buy a $5 gig and then start asking for a refund a few times. Then they just create a new account at their workplace, rinse and repeat. The reason why I brought this up is because I see a lot of people even on the forum that try to game the system. And if that's the case, I am sure some buyers and even ruthless competitors will try to take advantage of the new rules. 

Those cancellation reviews affect your buyer satisfaction rate, they also affect your general rating, so having proper, heavy protection against bad actors is crucial here. As far as I saw, those messages and what was said here relates to buyers, and the seller protection leaves much to be desired. I mean, if they open the can of worms and buyers can do whatever they want, as a seller I expect heavy protection here. And I think the most expensive sellers might be the most affected, since the buyer can easily refund a $300 order for example and still use the work. I hope I just exagerated a little, but the truth is that we have to think about the good things, along with the worst that can happen as well.

Edited July 18, 2023 by donnovan86

[uk1000]

1 hour ago, smashradio said:

Fiverr can track you by device, IP, location,

In the privacy policy they say things like:

Quote

We also, collect, use and process the information relating to such usage, including geo-location information, IP address, device and connection information, browser information and web-log information

but they don't always seem to be able able to track the device. eg. see screenshot from a support ticket. Maybe it's only certain devices they can track (eg. not PCs):

Edited July 18, 2023 by uk1000

[donnovan86]

6 minutes ago, uk1000 said:

but they don't always seem to be able able to track the device. eg. see screenshot from a support ticket. Maybe it's only certain devices they can track (eg. not PCs):

 

Even if they track some things, they can't track everything and there will be people to take advantage of that. The reason why I am saying this is because I am sure some maleficent sellers will try to harm competitors this way. And they can do genuine harm to a person's income for months, while also getting their money back. This is the only reason why I think this the cancellation reviews are bad. Sure, they are offering transparency, but they also open a can of worms for people that want to harm someone else's account willingly.

Edited July 18, 2023 by donnovan86

[engshimul]

Fiverr's product and retention managers are trying hard to improve buyers' experience. And yes, buyer's satisfaction is definitely the key of business for all. I believe, we sellers and the Fiverr marketplace itself will have more buyers (more business) after implementation of Reviews for Cancelled Orders. But I'm really curious to know about, if Fiverr's product and retention managers have any specific plan to increase/ensure buyers' quality in next.

[smashradio]

1 hour ago, donnovan86 said:

True, but what if a buyer asks a friend to buy a $5 gig from someone, and then they go and harm the target seller? That person is not a first time buyer anymore. And how would the seller have any protection? I mean, I am a writer so I have a wild imagination, so maybe I exaggerate, but who will protect the seller then? There's no way to know a new buyer with 2 orders wants to do harm, so.. 

This is like asking: if you allow people to have a kitchen knife, they might use it for something other than cutting beef. Keep in mind that the seller also has to be 1) ghosting the buyer 2) delivering something not up to par with the gig description, or 3) being late on their delivery. 

So, if and when this happens, the seller will have to help the buyer in question to do that. 

1 hour ago, donnovan86 said:

 

I didn't say at scale. Just a single person. They don't need to do this at scale to damage a person's livelihood. Just a single, targeted attack that's well-thought towards a few top rated or best selling gigs, and no one knows who was behind the bad review. Not sure if the cancellation appears on the "buyer's" page with a reply from the seller, I bet it doesn't.. It would appear just on the seller's page.

Anyway, as I said, I don't see this done at scale, but I don't care if it's at scale or not if it harms a genuine seller that did nothing wrong. 

The idea is, I didn't see anything specific last time when they tried to introduce this.. I am not sure what they changed this time around, but I would expect them to heavily focus on protecting sellers, because this opens a door to the Wild West. Any buyer can buy a $5 gig and then start asking for a refund a few times. Then they just create a new account at their workplace, rinse and repeat. The reason why I brought this up is because I see a lot of people even on the forum that try to game the system. And if that's the case, I am sure some buyers and even ruthless competitors will try to take advantage of the new rules. 

 

Okay, so you could do this to one person. But then that one person would have to help the person doing it by being a bad seller. 

I'm also a writer, and in my novel, Fiverr has all the cool gizmos they need to catch bad actors and put them in my imaginary Fiverranamo Bay. It doesn't open the door to the wild west unless the seller acts like a cowboy. 

 

[smashradio]

48 minutes ago, uk1000 said:

In the privacy policy they say things like:

but they don't always seem to be able able to track the device. eg. see screenshot from a support ticket. Maybe it's only certain devices they can track (eg. not PCs):

The support system doesn't use the same tracking as behind-the-scenes anti cheat systems, though. It might also be dependent on information you input, but that Fiverr doesn't ask for. The two systems are not even related, as the support system is third party. 

26 minutes ago, engshimul said:

Fiverr's product and retention managers are trying hard to improve buyers' experience. And yes, buyer's satisfaction is definitely the key of business for all. I believe, we sellers and the Fiverr marketplace itself will have more buyers (more business) after implementation of Reviews for Cancelled Orders. But I'm really curious to know about, if Fiverr's product and retention managers have any specific plan to increase/ensure buyers' quality in next.

It all ties in with moving up-market, which is what Fiverr wants to do. But in the end, you're responsible for attracting great clients, too. One way to do that is to price yourself at a premium. 

[uk1000]

9 minutes ago, smashradio said:

The support system doesn't use the same tracking as behind-the-scenes anti cheat systems, though. It might also be dependent on information you input, but that Fiverr doesn't ask for. The two systems are not even related, as the support system is third party.

It's also probably the case that the device name can't be sent without an app (not just a browser) running on the device (ie. there may be no option to send it through a browser). Like if Fiverr had an app running on PCs they could probably check the device name and send it, but since they don't, maybe they can only do that currently with mobile phones.

[smashradio]

Just now, uk1000 said:

It's also probably the case that the device name can't be sent without an app (not just a browser) running on the device (ie. there may be no option to send it through a browser). Like if Fiverr had an app running on PCs they could probably check the device name and send it, but since they don't, maybe they can only do that currently with mobile phones.

From what I know, a browser can send a lot of data about the host device, including browsing history, trackers through cookies, device fingerprinting, hardware and software info like OS, IP, add-ons, information about your connection, ISP, where you are, how you move around a website (heatmaps), device orientation, social media logins, what fonts you have installed, system language, screen resolution and so on. All of these combined can be used to identify you and track you. Even if you manage to hide some of this info, you can still use browser fingerprinting that collects the other info here to identify you. Tracking is scary stuff. 

[charlsmcfarlane]

I just had my meeting with them today and feel reassured now. Obviously, it remains to be seen how it will play out, but I have more faith that this will only largely affect sellers of questionable quality.

[donnovan86]

15 hours ago, smashradio said:

However, I don't think it should be free, and this ties in with me wanting the entire platform to be behind a paywall.

I agree, it shouldn't be free. Fiverr offers extra features for a price, and honestly those prices are fine if you want extra stuff. If not, then you use what's already available. 

[smashradio]

4 hours ago, charlsmcfarlane said:

I just had my meeting with them today and feel reassured now. Obviously, it remains to be seen how it will play out, but I have more faith that this will only largely affect sellers of questionable quality.

Happy to hear you had a similar experience as I did after your meeting! And it's great that they're collecting feedback and taking the time to speak to more of us. I think we're going to be needed by Fiverr when they launch this (again) because the unreasonable "This will not give me fast rank!"-people will go nuts (again). So I think it's great that regulars are brought on board to be a voice of reason in all of this. 

[nicks_voice]

On 7/18/2023 at 10:37 AM, imagination7413 said:

Aside from the gig-multiples issue, the only other UX points that really bug me is 'unlimited revisions' and no notification to Buyers when the soft-limit is reached that further revisions might/will cost.

I have been praying for this feature for so long, there is a surprising amount of Buyer's who are surprised when a gig extra comes in after their free revision is used and it's super frustrating to have to use the same copy-paste response to explain how further revisions will cost more yada yada yada...

If I were Fiverr, I'd overhaul the review system to work like this: If the buyer already used all revision requests included in the gig, a notification appears upon requesting another with a default message from Fiverr or a custom message from the seller explaining their revision policy.

[nicks_voice]

On 7/17/2023 at 3:04 PM, smashradio said:

While I won’t share too many specifics, as that’s up to the Fiverr team when they’re ready to launch this

I hope they'd at least add a UX element over cancelled reviews that says "Order cancelled by seller/buyer". We'll have to wait and see.

[theratypist]

6 hours ago, smashradio said:

Happy to hear you had a similar experience as I did after your meeting! And it's great that they're collecting feedback and taking the time to speak to more of us. I think we're going to be needed by Fiverr when they launch this (again) because the unreasonable "This will not give me fast rank!"-people will go nuts (again). So I think it's great that regulars are brought on board to be a voice of reason in all of this. 

I got invited to a meeting as well, I might probably just say I second the motion whatever monsieur Smash said. 🤣

[smashradio]

3 hours ago, nicks_voice said:

I hope they'd at least add a UX element over cancelled reviews that says "Order cancelled by seller/buyer". We'll have to wait and see.

They will have a notice on the reviews, yes. 🙂

 

3 hours ago, theratypist said:

I got invited to a meeting as well, I might probably just say I second the motion whatever monsieur Smash said. 🤣

Hahaha! How nice to see you again, mademoiselle! 

 

[cubefix]

As a start to this as a seller plus user i've decided to make all my gigs 'request to order'. This has really upped the quality of by buyers and stopped the barrier for people to just 'buy' my gig without talking to me first.

I would really recommend people do this too if they are worried about rogue buyers.

[nicks_voice]

I still need more info on what exactly makes an order eligible for a review after cancellation.

I literally just had an ordered cancelled on me since the buyer wasn't willing to pay the actual amount their script costed, and then requested to cancel.

Would they be able to leave a review in this case? I didn't even get a chance to deliver any work, they just simply placed an order incorrectly and assumed I'd do it at the base price of my gig... I'd put myself into request-only mode but this just creates more work for us sellers to have to vet through everybody.

[smashradio]

34 minutes ago, nicks_voice said:

I still need more info on what exactly makes an order eligible for a review after cancellation.

I literally just had an ordered cancelled on me since the buyer wasn't willing to pay the actual amount their script costed, and then requested to cancel.

Would they be able to leave a review in this case? I didn't even get a chance to deliver any work, they just simply placed an order incorrectly and assumed I'd do it at the base price of my gig... I'd put myself into request-only mode but this just creates more work for us sellers to have to vet through everybody.

I don't think so. You haven't gone unresponsive for more than 24 hours, you haven't delivered the order, and the order isn't more than 24 hours late, which are the specific cases where a buyer would be able to leave a review. 

Sellers, first-time buyers, buyers who didn't understand the service (like in your case now) and placed the order by mistake are not eligible to leave reviews.

That extra work you're talking about should be a basic first instinct when you're a freelancer. Part of the idea here is that sellers who take steps to qualify their buyers are less likely to suffer cancellations, and that's something Fiverr wants us to do. 

Edited July 20, 2023 by smashradio

[donnovan86]

1 hour ago, smashradio said:

Part of the idea here is that sellers who take steps to qualify their buyers are less likely to suffer cancellations,

Well an existing buyer on the platform can still place an order without your consent, cancel and kill your gig. Other than that, I agree with your statement my friend, if we are careful we can avoid cancellations. The problem is that without request to order (which is not ideal for many gigs), it's hard to control who randomly purchases your stuff.