Scammer got all of my files free because of fiverr

[ozanzenir]

I got an order from the user named [***]. He asked me to do a library environment for him. My gig says i will prepare up to 3 3D models but the library had more in it. However, I still accepted and finished the library in 2 days. He asked me to make some changes on the books which i also did.

Everything was fine up to this point. As soon as i sent all the files he started talking about taking renders. We absoulately did not agree on making any renders at all. The price of the gig was not meant for taking big environment renders. So rightfully i refused to  do it.

Buyer with the username [***] refused to pay until i prepared the renders even though he downloaded all the models that we agreed on in the beginning.  I reported him to fiverr and they said they would remain neutral. But that was not the case. 1 day later they canceled my order without even saying anything to me and i did not get paid for any of the models that i made for him which he admited that he liked in his comment.

Something has to be done about this. I reccomend no one to take any orders from this person because he is an obvious scammer. Fiverr was supposed to protect us against scammers and even they did not do anything about it. This is a shame for Fiverr.

[ozanzenir]

I don't know if anyone who reads this also read my previous posts about 3-4 days ago. I was basically talking about a scammer on fiverr which was literally being protected by fiver.. They are now literally deleting my comments on this forums about this topic. What happened to freedom of speech? Also I still had no response from the customer service about the situation either. They literally stole my money and ignoring my comments/messages to make me forget about it. I don't know if i should explain the situation again. Long story short there was a scammer who expected me to do things that we did not agree on when we first started working together. It was supposed to be a 3D model only but he expected renders in addition to that in the last day of the order. So rightfully i refused to do it and he refused to pay me but for some reason fiverr sided with him instead of being neutral as they promised to be. This is totally unfair how they treat their sellers. Obviously there are more sellers than buyers so they valua the buyers way more than the sellers and they are never totally neutral. I want my money back and I want a fiverr employee to explain why my comments /even tho they don't include any insults at all) are getting deleted. Why do you even have a forum if you don't want us to talk about anything we want? There is no freedom of speech in fiverr. Also  no equality in fiverr either. I want a respond from the customer service as soon as possible. It has been 4 days without any reply at all.

[melanielm]

I'm not a Fiverr employee. If your forum post mentioned the user by name, that's why it was deleted. That's against forum rules.

Customer service people don't hang out on the forum, so you'll have to wait for you ticket response.

[newsmike]

14 hours ago, ozanzenir said:

What happened to freedom of speech?

You certainly have freedom of speech. The common misconception is that people feel they deserve freedom of speech in a venue that someone else owns and pays for. For example, The New York Times can print whatever they wish, and exclude whatever they wish because they pay for the printing presses, paper and digital assets. Freedom of speech does not mean you get to say what you want in the New York Times, it means you have the same right to start your own newspaper and take whatever opinions you like at your own expense without government censorship. Plus you can tell the New York Times to kiss your behind if they demand space in your paper. 

[ozanzenir]

1 hour ago, newsmike said:

You certainly have freedom of speech. The common misconception is that people feel they deserve freedom of speech in a venue that someone else owns and pays for. For example, The New York Times can print whatever they wish, and exclude whatever they wish because they pay for the printing presses, paper and digital assets. Freedom of speech does not mean you get to say what you want in the New York Times, it means you have the same right to start your own newspaper and take whatever opinions you like at your own expense without government censorship. Plus you can tell the New York Times to kiss your behind if they demand space in your paper. 

This is not the New York Times tho. This is a forum. Where people are supposed to write their opinions. What is the point of having a forum if you will delete negative comments? We are not paid by fiverr to write whatever they want us to  write.

[ozanzenir]

1 hour ago, melanielm said:

I'm not a Fiverr employee. If your forum post mentioned the user by name, that's why it was deleted. That's against forum rules.

So where is the warning in that regard? I got no warning. I only got a warning for sharing screenshots of my dm with that user. Not a single warning about mentioning his name tho. Besides, how are we going to warn people from scammers if you can not mention any names? Fiverr definately values their buyers way more than their sellers. They are definately not neutral.

[ozanzenir]

1 hour ago, melanielm said:

Customer service people don't hang out on the forum, so you'll have to wait for you ticket response.

They appereantly don't hang out in the customer service either because it has been almost a week without a reply. It did not take them this long to take side of the scammer and decide to give him my work for free. These customer service employees should be investigated if they have any contact with the buyers in other medias.

[newsmike]

1 hour ago, ozanzenir said:

This is not the New York Times tho. This is a forum. Where people are supposed to write their opinions. What is the point of having a forum if you will delete negative comments? We are not paid by fiverr to write whatever they want us to  write.

Are you seriously not able to comprehend an example? Let's try this.

Their forum, their rules.

Otherwise, you can stat your own platform and forum and write anything you want.  This is fairly simple stuff. 

Edited September 12, 2023 by newsmike

[catwriter]

3 hours ago, ozanzenir said:

This is a forum.

Owned by Fiverr. They decide what the rules are, what's allowed, and what isn't.

2 hours ago, ozanzenir said:

I only got a warning for sharing screenshots of my dm with that user.

Sharing screenshots of DMs is only allowed if you blur the name of that user, and if there's no identifying information in them.

2 hours ago, ozanzenir said:

how are we going to warn people from scammers if you can not mention any names?

As per the forum rules, naming and shaming isn't allowed, otherwise anyone could say anything about you, or your mother, or your mom's dog. If you have an issue with someone and if you think they're abusing the system, you report that person to customer support (trust & safety team). And then you give them time to investigate; your request is not the only one they're working on.

[vickiespencer]

4 hours ago, ozanzenir said:

So where is the warning in that regard? I got no warning. I only got a warning for sharing screenshots of my dm with that user. Not a single warning about mentioning his name tho.

At the top of every Forum page is a link to the rules, which it appears you have not read. https://community.fiverr.com/forum_rules/

#2 Clearly says: Keep posts courteous. Controversy or entertainment is okay, but attacks on other members, staff, and support will not be tolerated.

# 4 Says: Posting content from private messages and displaying that subject matter on the public forum is prohibited.

 

[ozanzenir]

21 hours ago, newsmike said:

Are you seriously not able to comprehend an example? Let's try this.

Their forum, their rules.

Otherwise, you can stat your own platform and forum and write anything you want.  This is fairly simple stuff. 

Its not about their rules. You should not or never accept the fact that a website can just block your freedom of speech. If you are okay with that change your mindset.

[ozanzenir]

17 hours ago, vickiespencer said:

At the top of every Forum page is a link to the rules, which it appears you have not read. https://community.fiverr.com/forum_rules/

#2 Clearly says: Keep posts courteous. Controversy or entertainment is okay, but attacks on other members, staff, and support will not be tolerated.

# 4 Says: Posting content from private messages and displaying that subject matter on the public forum is prohibited.

 

I already told you they warned me about sending screenshots of my private messages. They did not warn me about my other comments tho. They just removed them. They contained no attack at all to anyone. Just warnings of a scammer. I know what you are implying and what you are trying to do but it is nothing to do with that. So try something else.

[ozanzenir]

19 hours ago, catwriter said:

Owned by Fiverr. They decide what the rules are, what's allowed, and what isn't.

That I would accept only if they don't block my freedom of speech. If that happens I object it. Just because you own a website that does not mean you can do whatever you want with it.

[melanielm]

On 9/13/2023 at 8:00 AM, ozanzenir said:

You should not or never accept the fact that a website can just block your freedom of speech.

In the US, if this was a public federal government website, this might make sense. I'm not up on the freedom of speech laws of other countries. There is no 'freedom of speech' that governs what private companies allow on their platforms. Every single website you go to that allows posting has rules about what people can and cannot post. 

[coerdelion]

Freedom of speech applies only towards speech or writing aimed at government or other public figures in the USA. Even then, there are limits.  There is some debate about whether or not the US Constitution covers foreigners even when they are on US soil. 

In Europe there are no written constitutional rights about freedom of speech, although there are rights that have developed by convention over time.  No idea what the rules are in your country - do you?

Fiverr is not a government or public figure.  It is a company with its own rules about how we behave both here on the forum and on the main site. 

To your point: CS are in a difficult position - they are paid to behave in a certain way and to communicate certain thiings; there are also not as many of them as there used to be. 

No matter how frustrated you feel, be polite.  It's not their fault Fiverr has its little ways.  If you're polite and understanding of their position, you may be able to persuade them to pass you up the hierarchy until you reach someone who can say "yes" to you. 

If you are tetchy with them, they will get fed up with you and start to ignore you - or even block you, so you'll get nowhere.

 

Edited September 13, 2023 by coerdelion

[ozanzenir]

1 hour ago, coerdelion said:

Freedom of speech applies only towards speech or writing aimed at government or other public figures in the USA. Even then, there are limits.  There is some debate about whether or not the US Constitution covers foreigners even when they are on US soil. 

In Europe there are no written constitutional rights about freedom of speech, although there are rights that have developed by convention over time.  No idea what the rules are in your country - do you?

Fiverr is not a government or public figure.  It is a company with its own rules about how we behave both here on the forum and on the main site. 

To your point: CS are in a difficult position - they are paid to behave in a certain way and to communicate certain thiings; there are also not as many of them as there used to be. 

No matter how frustrated you feel, be polite.  It's not their fault Fiverr has its little ways.  If you're polite and understanding of their position, you may be able to persuade them to pass you up the hierarchy until you reach someone who can say "yes" to you. 

If you are tetchy with them, they will get fed up with you and start to ignore you - or even block you, so you'll get nowhere.

 

I don't know why this has turned into a debate about freedom of speech or whether or not it is legal or not to remove negative comments on a forum that effects your business directly.

Let me ask you a question. What would you do if Amazon suddenly starts removing all of the negative comments in their website? Not asking if it is legal or not I am directly asking what would you do? If they remove all of the negative comments of all of their products, no one will know if a product is good or not. Now that might sound like an insane comparision because it will never happen. Amazons entire point is to see the comments about a product. Fiverr is basically the same thing. If you are not allowed to post your negative opinions/experiences on their website, maybe you should consider whats wrong with that and realise that  fiverr is doing a bad thing for its sellers. Not that if its legal or not.

For the last part; It did not take them this long to cancel the order. It took them about 5-6 hounrs to cancel the order after he reported it. However, it took them 6 days to even reply to me at all. If you don't see anything wrong with that i don't see any reason to convince you. They did not even solve my problem. They just told me another team will investigate the situation. After 6 days...

[sripra9007]

Let's keep the "freedom of speech" and the legal aspects aside.

I was looking at your Fiverr profile, and it seems this order was your 1st order. If such a thing happens on the 1st order itself, I can totally understand your frustration and the questions about the platform. No one wants to get into such a situation, however, this world doesn't work according to our own wishes, and such things do happen.

One thing that you could do (even now) is to "politely" ask Fiverr support to assist you. Looking at the people who have responded to your posts, I know many of them have completed thousands of orders here on Fiverr, so they definitely know the platform much better. If they are guiding you & suggesting a way, there is no harm in trying that path (of being polite in your interactions).

This forum and the Fiverr website is owned by Fiverr, and whether we like it or not, there are specific rules defined by them which all users have to follow.

One question : Was your order even delivered? Or was it cancelled even before the delivery was made?

Customer Service "does" help people. I have heard about instances wherein order got cancelled by the buyer for some reason, and still Fiverr gave compensation to the sellers (in some cases full, in some cases partial). The key is to seek for help in an appropriate way.
 

Edited September 13, 2023 by sripra9007

[melanielm]

4 hours ago, ozanzenir said:

If you are not allowed to post your negative opinions/experiences on their website

You absolutely are. You can leave negative reviews, feedback, and low ratings for the sellers or buyers you interact with through orders. Same as Amazon (although the comparison is a bit wild as they're very different types of platforms.)

[catwriter]

On 9/13/2023 at 2:08 PM, ozanzenir said:

Just because you own a website that does not mean you can do whatever you want with it.

Actually, it's exactly what it means. If you own a website, you can do whatever you want with it, as long as it's not illegal, like selling drugs. Removing comments that violate the forum rules is not illegal.

22 hours ago, ozanzenir said:

I don't know why this has turned into a debate about freedom of speech

You're the one who brought freedom of speech up. And kept complaining about it.

 

22 hours ago, ozanzenir said:

What would you do if Amazon suddenly starts removing all of the negative comments in their website?

Amazon did that on Goodreads when they bought it. They removed a whole lot of negative reviews. People complained about it, some of them left Goodreads, but in the end, nothing big happened. Goodreads is still there, live and well, and so is Amazon.

22 hours ago, ozanzenir said:

For the last part; It did not take them this long to cancel the order. It took them about 5-6 hounrs to cancel the order after he reported it. However, it took them 6 days to even reply to me at all. If you don't see anything wrong with that i don't see any reason to convince you. They did not even solve my problem. They just told me another team will investigate the situation. After 6 days...

If I remember correctly, CS can cancel orders, but they can't reimburse sellers. They had to send your case to the relevant department. And the whole case can take time.

[ozanzenir]

4 hours ago, catwriter said:

 

Amazon did that on Goodreads when they bought it. They removed a whole lot of negative reviews. People complained about it, some of them left Goodreads, but in the end, nothing big happened. Goodreads is still there, live and well, and so is Amazon.

So why do you think a lot of people complained about it? You seriously don't see the problem with that? If you honestly don't see the problem with removing negative comments there is nothing i can explain to you. Don't bother replying with things like "oh well actually they can do that because it is legal" or something similar to that. Thats why I was criticising it. I have no intention to debate about the legality of the situation thats not why i mentioned freedom of speech. The whole thing is just simply wrong and it is most definately a legit thing to criticize. I don't see how anyone can support that action by any means. If you support companies removing negative comments/experiences, what will you do when you get scammed yourself? Nothing as it seems. You will probably mention reporting them. Which appearantly does not work either because they just simply don't care to even reply.

[ozanzenir]

On 9/13/2023 at 8:48 PM, sripra9007 said:

Let's keep the "freedom of speech" and the legal aspects aside.

I was looking at your Fiverr profile, and it seems this order was your 1st order. If such a thing happens on the 1st order itself, I can totally understand your frustration and the questions about the platform. No one wants to get into such a situation, however, this world doesn't work according to our own wishes, and such things do happen.

One thing that you could do (even now) is to "politely" ask Fiverr support to assist you. Looking at the people who have responded to your posts, I know many of them have completed thousands of orders here on Fiverr, so they definitely know the platform much better. If they are guiding you & suggesting a way, there is no harm in trying that path (of being polite in your interactions).

This forum and the Fiverr website is owned by Fiverr, and whether we like it or not, there are specific rules defined by them which all users have to follow.

One question : Was your order even delivered? Or was it cancelled even before the delivery was made?

Customer Service "does" help people. I have heard about instances wherein order got cancelled by the buyer for some reason, and still Fiverr gave compensation to the sellers (in some cases full, in some cases partial). The key is to seek for help in an appropriate way.
 

Thank you for trying to make an honest and helpful reply. However, I already tried your advices before you mention them and it did not really work. Thats why i keep saying they value the buyer more than the seller. As  i said before it did not take them this long to cancel an order.

For your question: Yes i did deliver the files and he admitted he liked them in the dm. However he expected more than what we agreed on and refused to pay me when i rejected doing something that i did not agree on. Fiverr employees said that they would remain neutral but they immediately took his side and decided to cancel the order and give him all the files for free.

I can't imagine any appropriate way other than reporting the order to the help center. Which i did. But got no reply in 1 week.

[sripra9007]

4 hours ago, ozanzenir said:

it did not take them this long to cancel an order.

 

4 hours ago, ozanzenir said:

Fiverr employees said that they would remain neutral but they immediately took his side and decided to cancel the order

Since you are new on this platform, let me try to guide you on a few things. 

There are certain things which Fiverr Customer Service can do, and then there are lot of things that they cannot do (because that is beyond their scope of job).

Customer Service (CS) cannot force a buyer to accept/approve a delivery. If the buyer is somehow able to convince CS that the job done by Seller was not as described in the gig, CS has all the powers to cancel the order immediately. Such cancellations do happen. 

However, if the Seller feels that they have done the job appropriately, and has the relevant proof (screenshots etc), the Seller can raise a ticket with Fiverr CS & write their side of the story, mentioning that they have done an appropriate job and they be reimbursed for the job (attaching the proofs as well helps). 

Please note that CS is NOT authorized to grant you a reimbursement/compensation. There is a separate team for such things and they take their own time to check/address the concerns. Once you request CS and if you are able to convince them, they can forward your case to the appropriate team that looks into the proofs and your delivery/chat etc and then take a decision whether to grant the compensation to you or not. This action could take several days to a few weeks.

You may want to do a followup on the ticket after a few days.

Hope this helps.