Fiverr cancelled an order from TWO MONTHS AGO worth $215 with no explanation

[livefreeretiree]

I’ve been selling on Fiverr for almost three years with almost universally positive reviews. I’ve always had problems with their support staff, despite doing a couple thousand dollars in business every month on here. Recently, I was contacted by a bot saying they had chosen to refund a $215 order from a buyer that was completed two months ago (well past the two-week fund clearance time), and which the buyer had been very happy with. Fiverr, you got some serious 'splaining to do. How long do you think sellers will stay on here when their money can disappear at any time? My account balance is currently -$172.



Has anyone else experienced this insanity?

[Guest deemee46]

Hi fiverrs!

what I read it sounds awful. How did they can do this? And what support says in this case?

[willpower_hk]

Paypal dispute time limit:180 days

[lunabea]

Would this be because the funds didn’t clear from the buyer’s bank account/Paypal etc.? Support will definitely need to answer your problem with this as it’s a lot of money to refund the buyer with no explanation.

[Alex.M]

This is how Fiverr works 🙂 you can’t do anything about it. I stopped caring about problems like this or negative reviews from 5$ people that can’t even read.

[Anna]

Wow that really stinks! I am curious what the outcome will be and what the reason was?

[logoworld07]

This is reality. You have to live with it. It happened 2 times with me.

[omniversal]

You should probably try to get a hold of support… (which you probably are) If it were me I wouldn’t shut up until they at least explained /why/. Whether it’s how Fiverr works or not, they owe you an explanation.

[Guest ntr0311]

Lots of incidents happened past days to me and my friends like I have lost $183 from my account. still now no solutions !!!

[johnt707]

That’s horrible. I had no idea they could just take money you already earned out of your account. That’s kind of scary to me — I thought once I withdrew my money it was mine. I didn’t realize months later they could come and take it back. I guess it’s never really yours then?

[sincere18]

Reply to @johnt707: But that is like any business…if you pay by credit card for something in a store, if something isn’t right a few months later, you can still try to dispute it with your credit card company. Remember that some people do not get their credit card bills until a month later.

[sincere18]

May I ask what kind of a gig this buyer bought from you?



Also, if you earn thousands of dollars each month off of Fiverr, how would your balance be anything negative? Something isn’t adding up.

[buzzkillington]

sincere18 said:

• Also, if you earn thousands of dollars each month off of Fiverr, how would your balance be anything negative? Something isn't adding up.

 

If you withdraw all your earnings today, and in 3 days Fiverr refunds a buyer, they are taking $215 from your current balance. If your current balance is 0, then you go into the negative.

[captainshrink]

Ouch. That must really stink. It actually kind of scares me. Curious about the outcome.

I hope the support system helps you with it, and this works out for you.

[johnt707]

@sincere18 Most businesses have return policies that the credit card company would look into before simply letting you keep BOTH the product and money.



In my online newsletter (on my own website) someone tried to dispute a $49.95 purchase that I delivered. But, PayPal gave me the opportunity to say that his dispute was inaccurate and I got to keep the money.



It seems with Fiverr, someone can dispute it and you don’t have an opportunity to show that you delivered said merchandise or product.



@sincere18 It’s possible that he recently withdrew his money so there was not money for Fiverr to take — causing a negative balance.

[sincere18]

Reply to @buzzkillington: yes, but I would think it would not be that big of a deal to be negative 217 if you earn thousands as surely in a day or two more someone who earns thousands would be back in the positive.



I can understand the OP here is concerned about money being refunded a significant amount of time after the fact, but we do not know what kind of gig it was for, and in general this is just part of running a business. A customer can always file a dispute with a credit card company, or come back to sue for something, etc., etc. And when you get into very high earnings, thousands per month, there are always going to be a refund here or there. It happens, you write it off as a loss and move on with business life.

[thepromogirl]

livefreeretiree said: Recently, I was contacted by a bot saying they had chosen to refund a $215 order from a buyer that was completed two months ago (well past the two-week fund clearance time), and which the buyer had been very happy with.

 

From the context of what your post says, it sounds like the Buyer filed a disputed on PayPal. I'm really sorry to hear about this, but all you can do is bring it up to Customer Service.

 

On the bright side, this is pretty much an automatic banning of the user from Fiverr all together. They don't tolerate user's filing disputes because that means they don't get paid either.

[livefreeretiree]

I tried to contact the buyer, but he account is no longer active. The last contact I had was shortly after the order was complete and he told me he would be returning to me soon for another order. It was for a very straightforward writing gig. This happened once before with a $5 gig that was still in progress, but I ignored it because it technically wasn’t my money yet and it was so low. This is completely unacceptable.



This is the response I just got from support:



“Greetings,

We did not cancel those orders it seems that your buyer or PayPal files a dispute and your point is well taken. We will address these issues with the buyer. Please keep in mind that when you don’t get paid, neither does Fiverr, and that we want every gig order to be successful. If a buyer abused his PayPal privileges, it is something literally beyond our control, but our editorial team is already reviewing this buyer’s actions. Please note that we do not reply to disputes as its in clear violation of our terms of service. Buyers who do file disputes on their payments made to Fiverr, whether intentional or purposely held by Paypal for security screening must resolve those disputes in order to participate again in the Fiverr community.

Regards,

Eddie - Fiverr Customer Support”

[sincere18]

Reply to @livefreeretiree: so you are asking Fiverr to take the hit then? IF they do not get paid, you do not get paid.



NOw a good company would eat the profits on it to keep the customers happen (in this case the sellers). However if you think about the sheer numbers of how much this probably happens, I am sure there were some conscious decisions as well as legal ones, made to work the way that Fiverr does. But if you don’t like them, you certainly can choose to run your own freelance business with your own website and be able to respond to any dispute personally. Sometimes there is a price to pay in using another system. What percentage is $215 of the thousands, closet to what $75-100K you have made over the 3 years?