Dealing with demanding buyers

[sydneymorgan]

The majority of the buyers I deal with here on Fiverr are awesome, but there have been some who are just downright greedy or demanding. I’ve found that the “bad” buyers often come in spurts, and now that I’ve been here awhile, I realize the tough times will blow over soon enough, but here is one of the more recent incidents:



I offer to edit and proofread UP TO 5000 words for $5. Some buyers take full advantage of that and send multiple short stories to meet the 5k mark (which I’m totally fine with!) and others choose to send short articles since that’s all they need edited. Well, this guy thought he deserved his full money’s worth and then some.



He sends me a document of about 4,900 words (just 100 short) and says that I can “make up for the missing 100” by formatting his document. What? I simply (and politely) told him that I don’t offer formatting (something I clearly state in my gig), but if he had another 100 words to send then I’d be happy to edit/proofread them. He seemed perturbed since I wouldn’t offer him that much more work on his $5 order, and ends up typing about 110 words that are totally unrelated to the book. Not sure if he even needed them proofread or if he was simply that determined to meet the 5k mark. I delivered early and he never left a review (probably good news for a buyer like that as he was someone who needed updates on the hour, even though he knew about forty people were in front of him).



Have you guys dealt with any crazy/demanding buyers (and how do you handle them, just cancel)? If someone seems like they’re going to cause a lot of trouble and will never be pleased, I typically send them off. Originally, I took everyone who messaged as I wanted to build-up reviews, but a lot of buyers will try their darndest to get free work and drive you insane 🙂



Sydney

[mrtimthewriter]

I had a customer once that continued demanding revisions in circles, this happened five times, until I said I would have to charge for another large revision. Note, this was on a grant application, and these revisions would take around two hours to finish. I would follow the request, only to have a redelivery request a few hours later, requesting that it be reset to how it was before, with a few changes put in, just to make sure I couldn’t recycle anything back in. I was beginning to think that someone was trying to pull a prank on me, but, at the price of a grant writing gig, I don’t think they would have. They eventually accepted it and skipped reviewing. A few weeks later they messaged me asking to work with them. I was suddenly very busy and couldn’t help them.

[lunabea]

You handled that really well. Formatting a document in lieu of 100 words is not the same thing! I charge $10 per document (unless it’s really small) to format so I don’t know what he thinks he was asking.

I’ve fortunately not had any buyers be like that with me (I offer 2,000 word editing) although a few have said “oh, it’s only 6,000” then give me the doc and it’s more like 7,500. I don’t nit-pick unless it’s 3,000 over because that’s like a gig and a half.

[tictac7]

lol, that’s funny! you should tell him “it clearly states UP TO, and it’s not necessarily have to be 5k!”… yes it’s insane and I have dealt with that kind of buyers who keeps asking for modifications (sometimes almost 10 times) for things that they never asked for!
"I want you to draw a blue shirt, after delivering no I think the red one would look better!"
Sometimes I wish I can press that cancellation button but no they are not going to get away with a free product!

[hudsonmediaroom]

Well, I don’t about you guys but when I can’t handle their attitude I can’t be nice.
I’ll try. I really will try. But once in a while I lose it.

In fact, it happened today. Sorry, but I don’t need his $15. It’ll probably kick me in the booty… but oh well. The message in my request to cancel wasn’t nice either. OMG! I hope I don’t get in trouble for that. I don’t understand how we can have so many nice Buyers who are courteous (even when I make the error) and simple ask for a modification… then have those few rude f*ckers. (sorry to be graphic).

I have no suggestions. I just wanted to get this off my shoulder.

[landongrace]

Reply to @mrtimthewriter: I have been “not able to provide what they need” before also.

[misscrystal]

Occasionally someone is terribly bitter, hateful and angry in general and looking for someone to take it out on.