Official feedback thread re: the new leveling system

[priyank_mod]

In other news, my gig is having voluntary mood swings 😏

 

[smartdezigns]

9 minutes ago, priyank_mod said:

In other news, my gig is having voluntary mood swings 😏

Just believe in yourself, that's what matters.  

[emmaki]

I'm not making any sales, so I'm a perfect 10, still. This has been noted by my SM as a "success". 

So chaps, if you want to keep your scores nice, don't sell. 

[catwriter]

26 minutes ago, emmaki said:

I'm not making any sales, so I'm a perfect 10, still. This has been noted by my SM as a "success". 

So chaps, if you want to keep your scores nice, don't sell. 

I made a couple of sales, and now I'm 9.

[donnovan86]

4 hours ago, karyface1 said:

That happened to me months ago... Fiverr cancelled lots of inactive orders and it affected my account so bad... even when fiverr said it wouldn't

That's what I am afraid of myself. 

[emmaki]

I remember when Fiverr introduced the levels system (2017?) that there was a 2-month period to "prepare". I had about 30 incomplete gigs (buyer had disappeared kind of thing). I contacted CS and asked them if it would be possible to remove all of them in one shot since, ya know, levels. 

They did, and I remember the CS agent telling me you really should have done this before!

This was at a time when it wasn't uncommon advice (from some sellers, not Fiverr) that it would be OK to "just deliver the gig" and take the money. (EDIT: forgot to add, Fiverr's part in this fraud was it didn't really take action on it for years)

Anyway, I still don't understand why Fiverr had CS lie to sellers for years about the impact that cancellations had on orders. They're a natural and unavoidable part of business sometimes. So why punish sellers and then lie about it? 

Honestly, the more I think about all the things Fiverr says and does, the angrier I get about the endless lies. This is such a poor company, driven by greed, lies, and a complete inability to connect and listen to its users.

Edited April 5 by emmaki

[donnovan86]

5 minutes ago, emmaki said:

They did, and I remember the CS agent telling me you really should have done this before!

 

I think it was a year or two after that, for me. I went to CS and they told me to just leave them there, maybe people come back. I even offered all the order numbers, spent time to create a list and they told me to not worry because those orders have no impact if they are inactive. Then Fiverr started auto-canceling stuff on their own. 

[rawque_gulia]

4 minutes ago, emmaki said:

So why punish sellers and then lie about it? 

The more I read about the experiences of other sellers on the forum, the more confusing it becomes to understand the Success Score.

1. You mentioned somewhere that you're not making any sales and are able to maintain your success score at 10. But, on the other hand, Fiverr is saying that it calculates the Success Score by comparing you with your competitive sellers in your sub-category. So, should we just assume that not even a single seller is making any sales in your subcategory, lmao! Or is the system completely flawed (and Fiverr just doesn't want to take a look and accept that it has failed somewhere while introducing this system)?

2. People with just 1 or 2 cancellations in the past two years are getting negative impacts, but I personally have 18 total cancellations. Still, my Success Score was 10 when this new level system was released (with all positive impacts). Now, it's 9, though. I think Fiverr is disappointed in me because I am making good sales. 🙂

[emmaki]

My gigs look cheap, but I (probably) have much higher order values than the average seller in my category with custom offers. It probably also helps that I know the TOS like the back of my hand, have an excellent red flag detector, and currently reject 99% of of buyers (mostly because at the moment they all want academic work/are furious at their Fiverr experience/don't like my pricing). 

It probably also helps that I spent most of 2022/23 actively trying to avoid dying from my wonderful new disease that nobody could diagnose, so was OOO (while still paying $19 a month loyalty pricing to Fiverr to retain their lifetime discount. I admit the source of my anger is probably more niche than most people's). But being OOO means that I don't really have anything but glowing 5-star reviews from what's left of my repeat clients (er... 1 person, maybe 2? Used to be in double figures).

The Success Score is junk nonsense as far as I am concerned. It has been 2 months since it was introduced, nobody knows how it works, it doesn't provide any useful insights, and it doesn't reduce the pressure to get 5 stars. If anything, it made it worse.

I really can't begin to describe just how disgusted I am with Fiverr at the moment. I'll get over it, but they will never again have my trust or goodwill. They can keep their filthy money. It won't save them on judgment day. 

[emmaki]

20 minutes ago, donnovan86 said:

they told me to not worry because those orders have no impact if they are inactive.

I don't blame CS here. They're just passing on the message. But that's the thing, isn't it? While the people who make all these atrocious decisions get to avoid any repercussions and rake in the dollars, sellers, buyers, and frontline Fiverr staff have to deal with the fallout. 

Head should be rolling. 

 

[cucinavivace]

On a somewhat unrelated topic, though still on the subject of changes, has anyone ever successfully bid on a brief? Or for that matter, even gotten a decent one that actually matched their skills?

I'll ask here because there seems to be a big push on them since these other changes.

As background, I do financial work in a lot of areas, but on Fiverr I only market answering individual tax and finance questions and small business startup financial/setup questions. (Because I don't expect Exxon/Mobil to have a Fiverr account, of course). Fiverr just moved my startup consulting from Startup Consulting to Business Strategy & Innovation for some reason. I am 90% sure they don't even know what that means, but whatever. Both gigs are from one question for $25 to $75 per half hour of my time for video consults.

My most recent selected briefs:

"Experienced in projects for Amazon Payment Services in APAC and broader markets like India US with named clients expertise in managing RFP/RFI/RFX/RFE for banking and Fortune 50 clients." $63

"20 page single space business plan including marketing plan and venture capital funding presentation plan." $85

"Design 5 page maybe website with many form for submit data plus market consult for one to two month." $100.

Just a few of the many $5 per hour (ok $4 after Fiverr's cut) ridiculously off-target briefs Fiverr now nags me with every day. Honestly I waste more time clicking on BS Fiverr briefs and inquiries than I do in this forum.

Anybody else seen a change in this where since the new rating system went up you get a stream of consistent "bid on stuff you don't do for no profit" requests?

[emmaki]

I won a thing once. I ripped their current website to shreds and offered suggestions on how to fix it with a price. He went for it.

99.99999% of the listings are bad though. I saw one yesterday from "the founder of Karrimor" (they make backpacks). Unfortunately, he had a different name to "the founder of Karrimor" and his name doesn't appear anywhere in the history of Karrimor. 

I was going to send a probing question about that, but then they cancelled their brief (which is how the majority of briefs end). It's pointless increasing your minimum price, since that means you only see the scam offers. 

B&M, of course, is driven by "AI" and has virtually no oversight. When it launched, I sent several long emails to the team developing it with suggestions on how to improve it. Did they listen?

Take a wild guess. But B&M was only introduced to get rid of the free-for-all scam fiesta that was BR and replace it with a slightly less free-for-all scam fiesta that new sellers can't use. 

I'm sure Big Oil is on Fiverr. They're probably in the very popular Enterprise program. By the way, shortly after they sent that email to invited Pros, I sent my contact in FE an email asking whether Fiverr's sellers were subject to fees or not, since the documentation, while clear, was not 100% clear.

I have still not heard back. I can only conclude that the answer is "yes, buyers on FE pay for everything, but as a Fiverr seller in the FE program, you will also need to pay 20%. Non-Fiverr sellers won't have to pay. But we don't want to mention this because we're tired of all the screeching from outraged people about our outrageous decisions".

Or maybe not. But hey, this is the company that claims to be transparent. 

[cucinavivace]

8 minutes ago, emmaki said:

But B&M was only introduced to get rid of the free-for-all scam fiesta that was BR and replace it with a slightly less free-for-all scam fiesta that new sellers can't use. 

I suppose it's better than an overrun inbox where I have to reply or get my metrics kicked. It's just a little surprising that AI driven or not (or perhaps especially since it's AI driven) I have not had a single on-target brief. I get them for software development, marketing and advertising, all things that are actually top level categories on Fiverr that don't match any of my gigs or declared skills. In fact now that I think about it, I don't think I've ever had one that was about taxes and that's my number one volume thing.

Oh well. Just curious if the sudden influx of them was coincidental to me being moved to the bogus Business Strategy & Innovation category or might have part of another suite of changes. The influx seemed to start after the ratings changes went live and before the category move, but I guess it could just be coincidence.

Edited April 5 by cucinavivace

[emmaki]

Try making your own brief (I think there's a link on the buyer home page, although that may have been displaced by Neo's dementia). Pretend you're not a regular buyer on Fiverr. You'll quickly understand why everything is such a mess. 

I told Fiverr team building this at the time about these issues through email since they were doing the whole "tell us your thoughts, we're listening!" nonsense. And. Nothing. Has. Changed (granted, a few minor tweaks that didn't fix the main issue, a la Fiverr). Badly designed forms = bad results. I'll bet you most buyers a get a ton of lowballing meksell GPT gibberish too. That's gotta lose buyers as well. The mind boggles at how badly Fiverr is dropping the ball lately. 

Just had a look on the home page and I have no idea how to find the form. It's all about senile AI now. God knows how buyers are finding it. Anyway, from memory, the categories (fiverr) and industry (buyer's actual niche) is confusing enough that buyer click the wrong things, putting their stuff in the wrong category. Fiverr also sometimes decides for you and won't let you change your mind in a classic computer says no scenario. 

Luckily, buyers can now wait 5 hours for Neo to give them a new seller in Indonesia when they specifically ask for a TRS in the United States instead. 

EDIT: The fact that Neo seems to have a hard time getting locations correct makes me suspect non-AI algorithmic manipulation with an agenda, too. Then again, since it can't even do levels, maybe it's just.... what's the word? I can't say it, so I'll settle for "not very good" instead. Feel free to add your own choice of expletive. 

EDIT 2: I asked Neo to find me a TRS article writer in the USA. I got this: 

 

South Africa. One has to wonder. Every other AI program I have ever used seems to have a remarkable ability to understand what the US is and find relevant information from it. So why can't Neo? Another tough question for transparent Fiverr, perhaps?

Oddly enough, Neo got the other stuff right. Do we think that there are no TRS article writers in the United States, forcing Neo to grasp across an ocean to an ESG-friendly continent to find a... well, close enough. 

Do you think Fiverr will listen to any recommendations on how to improve Neo in this respect? 

EDIT: No shade intended to the actual seller.

Edited April 5 by emmaki

[cucinavivace]

49 minutes ago, emmaki said:

Nothing. Has. Changed (granted, a few minor tweaks that didn't fix the main issue, a la Fiverr). Badly designed forms = bad results. I'll bet you most buyers a get a ton of lowballing meksell GPT gibberish too. That's gotta lose buyers as well. The mind boggles at how badly Fiverr is dropping the ball lately. 

My mind does not boggle at all. This is historically par for the course, just in a more complex environment, so more obvious. We have to remember that Fiverr started as a Woocommerce/(insert packaged e-commerce plugin/theme of your preference here) style "shop." It was literally "buy this one thing for this one price." All this stuff with more complex forms and extras and order add-ons and a more sophisticated multi-tier rating system is just piling more c**p on top of poorly thought out c**p to start with. This was never a real workflow product designed from scratch, so it still isn't.

Which is perfectly sensible and perfectly in support of the real underlying problem when you know that problem: They don't know what we do at all, and they therefore don't know what they're doing. They don't know what's important in freelancing or what makes freelancers good or what's likely to be something a buying newbie would complain about that is 98% of the time the usual way to do things and not the freelancers fault. Nothing is custom-fit to actual freelancers, just the retail "buying experience" because to this day we might as well be selling t-shirts.

And support is the same paradigm as the software. They're in Israel, where English is a commonly spoken language but does not ensure their support reps are going to get all the communication nuances of dealing with people in the US and UK an AU and wherever else when it comes to freelancer/client issues they have never experienced themselves. And that's even though they started out insisting we speak English on the platform and they therefore provided all support in English when many of them had horrific English communication skills.. Now of course it's worse because it's been flung off mostly to AI, but it's never been great or even sensible. It's always been t-shirt sale level support. "Mr. Buyer, are you unhappy with your purchase?" "Mr. Seller, as a vendor on our platform it's your job to ensure Mr. Buyer gets a t-shirt that fits." "But he ordered pants ..." "Irrelevant."

So if you shine that "selling t-shirts software and a bright idea to sell $5 gigs on it instead" light on things, then toss in the fact that all these years they somehow believe they've been doing everything right just because they're making more money so there's no need for them revamp their culture-think ( ... believe they're doing things right .... not the reality that we did things right despite their horrors so buyers got deliveries and they grew anyway), then everything makes a little more sense.

They're just trying to grow into into their own growth with the same outdated tools and no willingness to break their own mold.
 

49 minutes ago, emmaki said:

Feel free to add your own choice of expletive. 

^$^@(*(!!!!! **@&&!!*$ %$$@##!!

Edited April 5 by cucinavivace

[emmaki]

1 minute ago, cucinavivace said:

My mind does not boggle at all. This is historically par for the course, just in a more complex environment, so more obvious. We have to remember that Fiverr started as a Woocommerce/(insert packaged e-commerce plugin/theme of your preference here) style "shop." It was literally "buy this one thing for this one price." All this stuff with more complex forms and extras and order add-ons and a more sophisticated multi-tier rating system is just piling more c**p on top of poorly thought out c**p to start with. This was never a real workflow product designed from scratch, so it still isn't.

Which is perfectly sensible and perfectly in support of the real underlying problem when you know that problem: They don't know what we do at all, and they therefore don't know what they're doing. They don't know what's important in freelancing or what makes freelancers good or what's likely to be something a buying newbie would complain about that is 98% of the time the usual way to do things and not the freelancers fault. Nothing is custom-fit to actual freelancers, just the retail "buying experience" because to this day we might as well be selling t-shirts.

And support is the same paradigm as the software. They're in Israel, where English is a commonly spoken language but does not ensure their support reps are going to get all the communication nuances of dealing with people in the US and UK an AU and wherever else when it comes to freelancer/client issues they have never experienced themselves. And that's even though they started out insisting we speak English on the platform and they therefore provided all support in English when many of them had horrific English communication skills.. Now of course it's worse because it's been flung off mostly to AI, but it's never been great or even sensible. It's always been t-shirt sale level support. "Mr. Buyer, are you unhappy with your purchase?" "Mr. Seller, as a vendor on our platform it's your job to ensure Mr. Buyer gets a t-shirt that fits." "But he ordered pants ..." "Irrelevant."

So if you shine that "selling t-shirts software and a bright idea to sell $5 gigs on it instead" light on things, then toss in the fact that all these years they somehow believe they've been doing everything right just because they're making more money so there's no need for them revamp their culture-think ( ... believe they're doing things right .... not the reality that we did things right despite their horrors so buyers got deliveries and they grew anyway), then everything makes a little more sense.
 

^$^@(*(!!!!! **@&&!!*$ %$$@##!!

Fiverr does have a CS office in the USA. It's in the wonderfully named Plantation, FL. (I think they have a lot of WFH reps around the world as well, but don't quote me on that)

I've always had a little chuckle at that. Minimum wage is 12/hr in FL, if anyone was wondering. 

[cucinavivace]

21 minutes ago, emmaki said:

Fiverr does have a CS office in the USA. It's in the wonderfully named Plantation, FL. (I think they have a lot of WFH reps around the world as well, but don't quote me on that)

I've always had a little chuckle at that. Minimum wage is 12/hr in FL, if anyone was wondering. 

I'm not wondering. I live in this heat bath. LOL

I have never had a support experience inside the US. Not once. Or at least not once that I could discern from the names involved or their communication skills. Perhaps that's buyer support or what you monthly-fee folks get, but I get AI or a person who talks like AI with decided English-as-a-second-language markers.

Although however many of these they've got and whenever they started it, it's new. It's still a contributing factor to their growth history in the t-shirt paradigm. And I must say having lived here for the last four years, I don't expect entry level support in Plantation, FL to be any better, regardless of language skills. Like you chuckle at and to confirm, you can't even get a studio apartment by yourself for $15 an hour in that area.

Edited April 5 by cucinavivace

[emmaki]

Don't worry, priority support also makes use of AI templates, although they're generally better after you follow up to correct everything they just said. 

The Glassdoor reviews are quite fun - although like LinkedIn, they suffer from being infested with disgruntled seller reviews. I'll start with one from a former CS (allegedly).

There are plenty more where this comes from if you want to trawl through the spammy seller reviews. Like I've said many times recenty, Fiverr has serious internal issues and they all start and end at the top. Until the leadership is replaced, Fiverr is going to continue its long and greedy slide downhill. 

EDIT: I forgot to highlight the "positive discrimination" one former employee highlighted. Again, consider what Neo is doing. 

Edited April 5 by emmaki

[cucinavivace]

5 minutes ago, emmaki said:

Don't worry, priority support also makes use of AI templates, although they're generally better after you follow up to correct everything they just said. 

The Glassdoor reviews are quite fun - although like LinkedIn, they suffer from being infested with disgruntled seller reviews. I'll start with one from a former CS (allegedly).

There are plenty more where this comes from if you want to trawl through the spammy seller reviews. Like I've said many times recenty, Fiverr has serious internal issues and they all start and end at the top. Until the leadership is replaced, Fiverr is going to continue its long and greedy slide downhill. 

Yup. That is exactly what I expect from a company bellowing down from HQ that their t-shirt selling paradigm is fine and just answer the messages and get on with it while their own reps are saying the same things the sellers are saying. Like I said, in terms of corporate culture, they are just stuck in Woocommerce land. To me this is all symptomatic of that same issue. Earn more, pay less, patch this, fix nothing. We're fine.

Edited April 5 by cucinavivace

[emmaki]

8 minutes ago, cucinavivace said:

Yup. That is exactly what I expect from a company bellowing down from HQ that their t-shirt selling paradigm is fine and just answer the messages and get on with it while their own reps are saying the same things the sellers are saying. Like I said, in terms of corporate culture, they are just stuck in Woocommerce land. To me this is all symptomatic of that same issue. Earn more, pay less, patch this, fix nothing. We're fine.

Oh, it gets better, but posting some of the reviews I'd like to might negatively impact me. Let's just say that there are some very interesting insights into leadership mindset when it comes to leadership diversity. 

Anyway, here's a wall of text from a disgruntled former CS. You will notice the use of gamification, even with its own employees - and not in a fun way. 

Just think, I could be happily working on an order with a paying client now and not looking through employee GD complaints because I am furious about a broken promise from a broken company. And I bet I could find much better stuff than this, too.

As it is, I think I'll wander off and do something a bit better for my blood pressure now. 

Fiverr needs to change. 

Edited April 5 by emmaki

[cucinavivace]

6 minutes ago, emmaki said:

Oh, it gets better, but posting some of the reviews I'd like to might negatively impact me. Let's just say that there are some very interesting insights into leadership mindset when it comes to leadership diversity. 

Anyway, here's a wall of text from a disgruntled former CS. You will notice the use of gamification, even with its own employees - and not in a fun way. 

Just think, I could be happily working on an order with a paying client now and not looking through employee GD complaints because I am furious about a broken promise from a broken company. And I bet I could find much better stuff than this, too.

As it is, I think I'll wander off and do something a bit better for my blood pressure now. 

Fiverr needs to change. 

"There is only a customer support team because users on the website expect one. CS is just here to catch complaints." Nice insider confirmation of my "just answer the messages and get on with it."

Changing how a company does things is easy. Changing the culture is nearly impossible.

[emmaki]

Of course. People with a conscience who object to the way HQ wants to do things are nudged out or held back from promotion - there's a lot of talk of favoritism. The interview reviews (where people review their interviews) also indicate a few disturbing trends. 

I know that Shia Wininger, the co-founder of Fiverr, left due to what he described as "office politics". Wininger wanted Fiverr to grow more slowly and focus more on UX and building a "family" company.  He's never specified what "the other side" wanted, but I think Fiverr would have been a better company had Wininger won the day. 

As it is... 

 

Sure, that's from 2016.... maybe they changed? 

 

And as for the marketplace? Here's someone from Boca Raton: 

Edited April 5 by emmaki

[xuancar]

Honestly, this is exhausting. From time to time some genius mind decide to make changes and sellers are always damaged in one way or another. I´ve been working the same way for years and you guys never seem happy. No matter if my clients rate me with five stars for years. There´s always something to improve. 

We are not robots. I don´t mind if I get demoted, because I will keep on doing my stuff the best I can. Not because you put pressure on us, because it´s my way. And after seeing all kind of changes in 8 years all I can say is that Fiverr will never be happy. If a seller with more than 1k 5 stars rating like me hardly makes 200 bucks a month, you can lose any hope about the future in this platform. 

 

[cucinavivace]

8 minutes ago, emmaki said:

 Wininger wanted Fiverr to grow more slowly and focus more on UX ...

Oh, the right way.
 

8 minutes ago, emmaki said:

He's never specified what "the other side" wanted ...

Seems like they wanted explosive revenue growth at the expense of quality or conscience, and got exactly what they wanted.

[emmaki]

Just now, cucinavivace said:

Seems like they wanted explosive revenue growth at the expense of quality or conscience, and got exactly what they wanted.

Exactly. Everything else is just lipstick on a pig.