Restricted account advice

[Guest bradengelbrecht]

Hello Community,

I hope this message finds you all well. I'm still relatively new to Fiverr, having joined the platform about a month ago. I'm still getting the hang of how everything works here, including navigating this forum. I would greatly appreciate any guidance and insights from experienced members regarding this situation that I unfortunately find myself in.

Apologies if a similar question has been asked before and if this might be the incorrect place to ask, but like I mentioned before, I am still new here and not quite sure of everything yet. So about a week ago, my Fiverr account got restricted due to the platform's inability to verify my ID. I simply opened Fiverr via the Chrome browser and saw a banner requesting me to verify my identity. I went ahead and tried to fulfill that request after thinking it would be no hassle. However, I could not have been more wrong...

I attempted to verify my identity twice, and then made one final attempt where I encountered a loading issue with the selfie upload button. I successfully uploaded my selfie but the button only kept loading and it didn't accept the photo. To my dismay, after hitting back on my phone, I received a message stating that Fiverr was unable to verify my ID, which resulted in my account now being temporarily restricted. 

What troubles me most is that I wasn't aware of any potential consequences of failing to verify my identity within three attempts, so I do find that this was a bit vague and unfair in my opinion. On 28 Aug, I did have a response from customer support after inquiring about this but I was left with little clarity. They mentioned that they as customer service representatives are unable to provide feedback on this matter and that they have no control on what would happen to my account. They informed that my case was forwarded to the relevant team for review and that I should expect a response within a timeframe of up to 120 days... 

Given this situation, I'm left wondering about the following:

(1) Should I consider opening a new account and close this one? I believe I came across an instance where someone else faced something similar. Some members pointed out that the Fiverr team does not really care and review any such cases, and that they almost always permanently close your account. Is this indeed the case? Also, I still have funds from my first order that are still in the process of being cleared, so I of course do not want to close my account and potentially lose my earnings.

(2) If opening a new account is recommended, can I still maintain the exact same Gigs and details from my old account, or should I start fresh with a new niche or specialization? I am not sure about the implications that can arise by doing so and would therefore appreciate any guidance. 

(3) Could this possible be due to technical issues as well? I feel that it is worth noting that I did face some past issues with the platform. The very first time I created a Fiverr account, I was unable to do so on my pc as well as on my iPhone. I had to download the app and create my account on there. Secondly, I was also not able to log into my account on Chrome on my phone when I tried to verify my ID. This resulted in me having to reset my password before I could access Fiverr, but I switched to the app anyway where I attempted to verify it. By saying this and according to my experience, it seems that there are some errors when trying to access Fiverr on the Chrome browser. I thought that this was important to mention because of the issue I faced with the selfie button in my last attempt.

In summary, I genuinely appreciate your time and willingness to share your experiences and advice on this matter. I understand that many of you have been on Fiverr for much longer and may have encountered various situations, and your insights will be incredibly valuable to me.

Thank you in advance for any applicable advice you can provide, and I'm grateful for all the support.

[idreamofekom]

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