Seller Beware

[holledolce]

Putting this in Tips rather than Rants because for new Sellers, this might be important.



I got a message from a “potential buyer” asking if I would rewrite articles they found on a site devoted to a popular online game app. They attempted to provide a link, which did not come through, advising me I would have to answer a survey first. The PB informed me that they attempted to copy the noted articles, but the page did not allow him/her to do so.



It smelled as scam, and I treated as so. I wanted to put up the warning for new sellers, or sellers who might not be aware of the red flags present. Sites that copy protect pages do so because the info is proprietary. Doing this gig would have been against TOS for Fiverr, and whatever site these articles (if they actually exist and the link was not loaded) were on. It probably would have gotten me in a lot of trouble.



Hopefully this story help you stay out of trouble too.



Sell on!

[stevoid]

Yes I’ve experienced this as well… sometimes the people i get solicited by have “you cannot reply to this seller due to privacy settings”… very odd.

[phoenix7813]

As far as this particular example, you would have likely never received an order anyway. They wanted you to fill out their survey which would earn them money.



I’ve encountered this a lot working through Craigslist. People will send you links to things and tell you you have to download particular files etc etc. Beyond the risk of downloading viruses they have absolutely no intention of purchasing any services.



Beware of ever having to do something in order to get the information you need to do a job.