Important! Education on spam and phishing

[Lena]

Hello, amazing people! 🙂

We are launching an account safety educational campaign for Sellers due to the surge in phishing and spam we’ve had over the past few months. The campaign will include:

• A pinned flash
• An email
• Updated education and instructions on the chatbot
• Mandatory update in both apps for security

The mandatory update will have to be done in both apps for security. This applies to users who are using:

1. Android - lower than 7.1.1
2. iOS - lower than 15.x.x

These users will not be able to continue using the apps and will see the following message:

Your device is running an Android/iOS version we no longer support. Please update your device to the latest Android/iOS version or continue by using your browser.

The update must be done via browser because the versions are no longer supported by the updates on the app stores.

Thank you All for your attention! 

[creative_howl]

This is great. Glad to see the team taking some much-needed action! ❤️

My 2 cents:

I got the email as well as the notification on the app yesterday.

The support article pushed via the mobile app was thorough and covered mostly everything one needs to know to avoid getting hacked. Which is great!

But the email felt disconnected from all that since it just covered some basic safety tips that people would ignore anyway. It could've had a better subject and helpful body text in my opinion. It can even deter people from going through the support article assuming that's generic advice too.

Wish there was some kind of a mandatory account safety guide thing-a-mah-jiggy (pop-up) on both the app and the browser for all sellers. 

Educating is the best way to prevent these kinda things and I'm glad you guys have taken that approach. 👏

 

[Kesha]

On 7/18/2024 at 8:08 AM, creative_howl said:

My 2 cents:

I got the email as well as the notification on the app yesterday.

The support article pushed via the mobile app was thorough and covered mostly everything one needs to know to avoid getting hacked. Which is great!

But the email felt disconnected from all that since it just covered some basic safety tips that people would ignore anyway. It could've had a better subject and helpful body text in my opinion. It can even deter people from going through the support article assuming that's generic advice too.

Wish there was some kind of a mandatory account safety guide thing-a-mah-jiggy (pop-up) on both the app and the browser for all sellers. 

Educating is the best way to prevent these kinda things and I'm glad you guys have taken that approach. 👏

@creative_howl Thanks for this feedback! Our product managers were please with your suggestions and will be keeping them in mind. 

[andywarburton]

With all of your extensive "AI" knowledge how are you not able to automatically catch and ban these people sending the spam messages? Surely there are some common patterns you can use to catch them out? 

[sparkbrain23]

I saw a message from a client and Fiverr informed me after some time that person would not be able to give me any message again after a few minutes. I don't know what it was.

Edited September 16 by sparkbrain23

[dereck_s]

I still feel like this problem would vanish or be mostly fixed overnight if you just made creating a new Fiverr account cost $1 dollar. The reason why Fiverr has all of these scammers is there is literally no barrier to entry.

[emrealtaypro]

Fiverr downgraded it from level 1 to level 0 following a recent update.

I changed my profile. I've uploaded professional videos. I get five-star ratings from my customers, but it does not function. My profile score is 4.9, and everything is perfect; I'm going to advance to level 2. Despite the five points I received, it did not return to level one. I believe there is an issue or confusion. Please fix this problem.


Thank you. Best regards.

[agonza1101]

12 hours ago, dereck_s said:

I still feel like this problem would vanish or be mostly fixed overnight if you just made creating a new Fiverr account cost $1 dollar. The reason why Fiverr has all of these scammers is there is literally no barrier to entry.

Fiverr already implements this by charging a $3 fee to verify new accounts

 

[dereck_s]

21 hours ago, agonza1101 said:

Fiverr already implements this by charging a $3 fee to verify new accounts

 

I wonder if this is only in the EU or everywhere as they keep referencing EU laws in the fiverr information about it. None of the top scamming countries are in the EU so this would do very little to stop scammers if it's just the EU.

[seo_sharminrt]

On 9/13/2024 at 4:02 PM, andywarburton said:

With all of your extensive "AI" knowledge how are you not able to automatically catch and ban these people sending the spam messages? Surely there are some common patterns you can use to catch them out? 

Exactly, how does one get a chance to spam on an established platform.

[dereck_s]

On 9/17/2024 at 5:03 AM, agonza1101 said:

Fiverr already implements this by charging a $3 fee to verify new accounts

 

Keep in mind the fee is for sellers. The scammers on here are buyers and they're the group that has literally zero barriers to entry. The can even become listed as a "pro buyer" without having ever purchased a single order.

[agonza1101]

On 9/21/2024 at 5:32 PM, dereck_s said:

Keep in mind the fee is for sellers. The scammers on here are buyers and they're the group that has literally zero barriers to entry. The can even become listed as a "pro buyer" without having ever purchased a single order.

True — the fee is for sellers

I still think it is a good idea to charge sellers. New sellers often "spam" the forum, flooding it with unnecessary content. It is like a swarm of freelancers, all believing they need to be online 24/7 to get orders. No matter how many times you tell them it is a myth, they keep repeating the same behavior — I honestly do not know where they are getting this idea from. They frequently post just to say "welcome" to other new sellers or create repetitive threads with generic "selling tips" often copy-pasted from ChatGPT. Also, many of them wrongly believe that frequent posting on the forum affects their seller metrics