I think I have been scammed by a Pro Seller on Fiverr. What can I do?

[phurray]

Few weeks before the Christmas holidays, I found a gig vendor here in Germany for product photography (7 photos + A+ content) that cost almost €2,000.

And it's hit me about an hour ago, that this vendor did not set up an order via Fiverr and asked that we pay directly to their company account instead. I'm shaking as I type this, as I don't know what to do😭

They won't respond to emails or Fiverr messaging anymore. I have secured all evidence of payment and honestly have no intention of proceeding with their sub-standard service.

KINDLY HELP....ANY SUGGESTIONS WELCOME 🙏🏼

 

[nafishasan]

Please reach out to Fiverr’s customer support immediately. Since the payment for the order was made outside of Fiverr’s system, their support might only be able to ban the seller from the Fiverr platform based on the evidence you provide. You should also consider exploring other avenues to lodge complaints in order to recover your payment. 

To all the buyers and sellers viewing this post and my comment, please refrain from contacting any buyer or seller outside of the Fiverr system. If you do so, Fiverr may not be able to assist you in the event that you fall victim to a scam by the other party.

[Lena]

Hi @phurray 

Just like @nafishasan said, if you suspect you have been scammed, please contact our Customer Support. To do so, you can open a ticket at https://www.fiverr.com/support_tickets/new or send an email to support@fiverr.com. Explain everything to them and they will be more than happy to help you.

Thanks. 

[catwriter]

2 hours ago, phurray said:

I can't understand why Fiverr Support claims not to see them.

Because you gave them the wrong username. Their name might be the one you gave them, but the username is, and that's the username that they've been searching for (and failed to find).

If you send the correct username to the support, they might be able to help you better. It would also help if you send them the link to that seller's profile.

[catwriter]

The username is  (minus the quotation marks). The support representative probably misunderstood. It might help if you respond to the last ticket with the username (something like: "I'm sorry if there was a misunderstanding, their username is, and here's the link to their profile, too (add the link)").

That being said, I'm not sure what Customer Support can do, other than warn or ban that seller. The transaction was done outside of Fiverr, so Fiverr neither has your money nor can they return it to you. And since there's no order in place, the seller can't be punished by a cancellation or a bad review, either.

[ana_tomy]

Hi @phurray,

We're truly sorry about this experience and all the inconvenience it has caused you.

We do encourage all our members to carefully read the Terms of Service along with all the Policies we have here at Fiverr, and our Forum Rules in addition to that.

Posting content from private messages and displaying that subject matter on the public forum is prohibited, as well as any interaction outside of the Fiverr platform.

Our Customer Support team will do their best to help you out and resolve this, so at this point, I'd recommend focusing on that, as sharing the screenshots, evidence and so is strictly prohibited here and we cannot have it happen again.

Thanks so much for understanding and good luck with this 🍀

[edc_lab]

59 minutes ago, phurray said:

Few weeks before the Christmas holidays, I found a gig vendor here in Germany for product photography (7 photos + A+ content) that cost almost €2,000.

And it's hit me about an hour ago, that this vendor did not set up an order via Fiverr and asked that we pay directly to their company account instead. I'm shaking as I type this, as I don't know what to do😭

They won't respond to emails or Fiverr messaging anymore. I have secured all evidence of payment and honestly have no intention of proceeding with their sub-standard service.

KINDLY HELP....ANY SUGGESTIONS WELCOME 🙏🏼

 

Hello @phurray, I'm sorry to hear that.

Reading about this behavior made by a TRS seller is concerning because payment outside of Fiverr isn't allowed and he/she can be banned for that.
Also, the system will detect when people are talking about making a payment outside the platform and it will be auto-reported, how did you do that without triggering the system? Did you have all the communication always on Fiverr?

I think Fiverr will only verify if he/she got the payment outside the platform and ban the seller, so if you want to recover your funds and you've used PayPal for this payment try to reach their support and ask for a refund because Fiverr will not refund anything that happened outside the platform, of course. 

[phurray]

32 minutes ago, edc_lab said:

Hello @phurray, I'm sorry to hear that.

Reading about this behavior made by a TRS seller is concerning because payment outside of Fiverr isn't allowed and he/she can be banned for that.
Also, the system will detect when people are talking about making a payment outside the platform and it will be auto-reported, how did you do that without triggering the system? Did you have all the communication always on Fiverr?

I think Fiverr will only verify if he/she got the payment outside the platform and ban the seller, so if you want to recover your funds and you've used PayPal for this payment try to reach their support and ask for a refund because Fiverr will not refund anything that happened outside the platform, of course. 

In retrospect, I know see how exactly this seller did this. They offered a free consultancy call (to gather ideas and proposals) then asked for an email to send confirmation for the call appointment. After I sent this to them, they simply limited all subsequent exchanges to email 😪 Negatiations, Concept note, payment links and the sub-par job were only shared via email. 

It was my first Fiverr order and it only occurred to me today after they delivered a revision, and it dawned on me that in the time that passed since this fraudulent order, other orders were set up only here on Fiverr. 

[phurray]

I've now raised a ticket and attached as much evidence as possible, including for the Bank transfer we eventually made. I couldn't find any othe way of reporting the seller, unfortunately.

The vendor initially sent a stripe link (for the main order and 3D rendering add-on) but our accountant used the bank details on their invoice instead. Between beating myself up for falling for a scam on an established platform, by people who I last expected this from, and having to wait for Fiverr to try to do something, I feel like i'm slowly falling apart.

For goodness sake all we wanted to do was try to boost sales for our new FBA business here in Germany😭

In the meantime, can I reach out to CommerzBank (the Vendor's account is domiciled there)?

[strategist_ceo]

35 minutes ago, phurray said:

having to wait for Fiverr to try to do something

There's very little Fiverr can do for you. However, submitting all the evidence can help Fiverr ban a fraudulent seller. It'll help prevent frauds from happening.

If you report a fraudulent transaction on your credit card, it *may* work.

[edc_lab]

40 minutes ago, phurray said:

In the meantime, can I reach out to CommerzBank (the Vendor's account is domiciled there)?

I think you can reach the bank right away, because Fiverr will not refund money never transitioned by the Fiverr system, give 'em as much info as you have and hope for a good solution.
With the proper evidence, Fiverr will ban this seller.
It's sad to read about TRS doing that, really.

[oymusafir]

3 hours ago, phurray said:

KINDLY HELP....ANY SUGGESTIONS WELCOME 🙏🏼

According to your evidence, Fiverr can put a seller account under review. After 60 days, they may suspend it or allow the seller to keep using it. However, they cannot return the money you transferred. In such a case, you can simply visit your bank or connect with your local police if you are certain that you were scammed. If you're just thinking and not sure, there might not be any use in taking action. Alternatively, if the seller is busy, it might be best to wait for a day before initiating any action.

[strategist_ceo]

12 hours ago, edc_lab said:

it's sad to read about TRS doing that, really

I don't think TRS sellers will risk that. It takes too much effort to get promoted.

As the OP said, a Pro Seller, probably a newly minted Pro Seller who hasn't realise the potential of the program yet.

Edited January 11 by strategist_ceo

[phurray]

Fiverr has just responded to me, saying that they can't find this vendor here, and thy leave me with no choice but to mention names:

The vendor in question is still online (possibly luring other unsuspecting users like me, to strategy calls), so I can't understand why Fiverr Support claims not to see them. The vendor is ignoring my Fiverr messages and only responding via gmail at the moment. Our last gmail exchange yesterday where I called them out on a possible Fiverr violation is attached here. 

I am now putting together the entire email trail starting (Dec. 7th) which I will share soon.

At this point, they are probably also genuinely ignorant of Fiverrs standards (as I was), in which case it will be unethical for Fiverr to let them keep destroying the Fiverr experience for innocent users while our new business counts its losses.

 

 

[phurray]

 

The title of my Support ticket is " HELP! I have been scammed by a Pro Seller and you see both names in there. Or is there another username outside public view?

[phurray]

On 1/10/2024 at 3:09 PM, edc_lab said:

Also, the system will detect when people are talking about making a payment outside the platform and it will be auto-reported, how did you do that without triggering the system? Did you have all the communication always on Fiverr?

 

They are clearly skilled at this.....they expertly avoided using the word 'email', so the system couldn't flag their attempt😭. 

[edc_lab]

Definitely skilled, of course, they didn't mention the word "email" so maybe they didn't break any rule, but if Fiverr's team reviews other conversations made with other buyers, or if you have other evidence, they could spot a kind of modus operandi and ban their account.
Reach your bank account and their bank account and try to give as much info as you can to them as well, so you can hope for a recovery of the funds.
Good luck!

 

11 hours ago, strategist_ceo said:

I don't think TRS sellers will risk that. It takes too much effort to get promoted.

As the OP said, a Pro Seller, probably a newly minted Pro Seller who hasn't realise the potential of the program yet.

Oh sorry, you're right, I meant Pro Sellers!
Anyway, it's still sad, especially because they are handpicked by Fiverr's team, but I can understand that it's not easy to control their behaviors when communication is done outside the platform.

[phurray]

On 1/11/2024 at 4:04 PM, catwriter said:

The username is  (minus the quotation marks). The support representative probably misunderstood. It might help if you respond to the last ticket with the username (something like: "I'm sorry if there was a misunderstanding, their username is, and here's the link to their profile, too (add the link)").

That being said, I'm not sure what Customer Support can do, other than warn or ban that seller. The transaction was done outside of Fiverr, so Fiverr neither has your money nor can they return it to you. And since there's no order in place, the seller can't be punished by a cancellation or a bad review, either.

You're right @catwriterand i've already responded with the vendor's page link and clear username. Fiver has now escalated the issue, so i'm hoping for a favorable outcome.

To top off the sad reality of my case, the banks can't do anything either as there's no contract on ground - an offer was made and accepted, and money simply changed hands.

It appears that I have been blocked from getting in touch with them though https://www.fiverr.com/inbox/amz4you1 as I see a message "amz4you1 is not accepting messages at this time". I had started copy-pasting all the emails in our Fiverr chat and then probably got blocked.

 

[imamiopial]

It’s extremely difficult to be a pro seller (at least for me). 

To risk that for 20% is appalling.