Ratings from a buyer who is also selling a gig similar to my own

[rickalarcon]

I recently had a client place an order for my gig, a photo session. I could also see that the buyer was selling a gig that was virtually in direct competition to my own. When we discussed the gig, they even provided photos from their own gig to show as examples for what they would have liked. We all agreed and the gig was scheduled and delivery was made on time and the client said they were satisfied. 

The client gave a rating less than five stars, which though is certainly their right to do so, this is the first rating I have received less than 5 stars for any order on any of my gigs and I understand that even a 4 star rating has an affect in the end, as in the case with Fiverr and with other platforms I have used in the past. The areas of criticisms I found to be a bit strange and no mention was made by them concerning what could possibly be a problem. I found their responses before, during and after the gig to be positive, save for their rating, so I am a bit perplexed.  

I'm not one to leap to the conclusion that this person merely hired me with the intention of giving me a poor score, and so indirectly help their own gig profile, but I would like to know if anyone has encountered this before and what Fiverr has maybe done in the past to prevent this kind of thing to occur. I know that this kind of thing actually has happened before on other platforms but again, I do not want to believe this is the case and would just like to know what has been done and to prevent the possibility of something similar happening in the future. 

Any comments or advice would be most welcome. Thank you. 

[vickiespencer]

3 hours ago, rickalarcon said:

I'm not one to leap to the conclusion that this person merely hired me with the intention of giving me a poor score, and so indirectly help their own gig profile,

Whenever a competitor asks to place an order with me, I turn them down for this very reason. I have even had sneaky competitors who paused their gigs, so I did not realize they were my competitors when I checked their profiles. However,  when I returned to their profiles and discovered their shenanigans, I always canceled the order before delivery. Then I would contact CS, explain the situation, and ask that the cancellation not affect my stats. I have never had any issues handling things in this way. 

[rickalarcon]

I'll take note of this in the future, thank you. Have you seen how this has affected the person who tried to do this? It's good that Fiverr was able to rectify the situation on your end, I'm curious if the person was flagged for doing that, though I can imagine that can be disputed. 

[vickiespencer]

21 hours ago, rickalarcon said:

I'm curious if the person was flagged for doing that,

I do not know if they were flagged, but I was told that Fiverr frowns on this behavior.