WARNING: a scammer buyer with multiple accounts

[swaydesign]

I was scammed yesterday and a day before yesterday. Two buyers ordered, asked for a ton of revisions, then told me my video was bad and demanded me to cancel. I cancelled one similar user 2 days ago and today I got an order from who I suspect is that same person.

How do I know it’s one person?
Their style is similar and here is what they have in common:
They order without previous message for approval;
They have created their account the same month of order;
Their username has 3 numbers at the end;
They order express delivery ;
They order approximately 1pm European time.

What do they do?
The first one told me straight up after my delivery: “This video is not good. Refund it.” The second one wrote: ‘do immediately.’ and sent a script. I delivered within 40 minutes. He didn’t like the video and gave me an ultimatum: ‘Do again, or refund it.’ and he said it needed to be delivered slower. I don’t offer free revisions based on personal taste, but I thought, ok I will do this, I do care about my client’s’ satisfaction. I deliver a new file, slower, in just an hour. So then he wrote : is the microphone necessary? I don’t want it. So I did without the microphone, and then he said he wants the microphone sound, but not the microphone to show. (I know I should have figured this out, but the client kept stressing it needs to be done ASAP… So after delivering 4 videos and wasting half a day, he then sends a bunch of insults and says it’s not a good video, that if I redo it again he will accept it even if it’s bad. (I read bad review) so I cancelled.
Today I got another one, ordered same time, similar style of message, also 24 hour express extra was purchased and also username followed by 3 random numbers and account created this month. I cancelled straight away.

There was one more with similar username (username followed by 3 numbers) before yesterday but I cancelled because I found the script to be inappropriate (joke about porn). But I am not sure if he was also that person or it’s by coincidence because their account has been up longer and he has a cool youtube channel so I guess just a coincidence.

Now my cancellation rate is going up and I am very frustrated. Because I can’t be sure today’s client was also the same person who scammed me yesterday and a day before that. What do you think? Could there be such huge coincidence? I am not sure if I have done the right thing by canceling, but if I spent today filming for them to lose my time and money again I think I would have a mental breakdown. Not sure what to do about this either! I am now scared of orders!!!

Any advice is welcome 🙂

Thank you!

[cyaxrex]

I’m pretty sure I’ve had the same buyer. I delivered the work in 24 hours and got a message back saying something like “this is not the style of video I was looking for, either redo the work or I will cancel and get a refund.”

I asked what revisions they would like but didn’t get an answer. In this case, I edited the video a little and redelivered. However, the buyer then rejected the delivery again saying it was not up to him to tell me how to do the video, it was my job to get the work done right.

I had had to put myself on vacation mode due to being sick at this point and so the order cancelled itself automatically. However, if it helps, my buyer had an Indian sounding username. (No offense to any legitimate Indian sellers or buyers intended).

[swaydesign]

Oh my 😦 It does sound like the same… I saw a forum post a while back (it was one of those black hat forums for hackers etc) telling people how to get work done for free on Fiverr! Maybe that post went viral and people are coming to Fiverr to scam us?

[swaydesign]

Also: “this is not the style of video I was looking for, either redo the work or I will cancel and get a refund.” This is absolutely terrible, because we all have gig intros where the ‘style of the video’ is clear as day! If they don’t like the style, then why order???

[eoinfinnegan]

The solution to this is simple. Do not cancel orders for work you have done. If a buyer is not happy, let them leave a negative review. I have never cancelled an order because the buyer said they were unhappy. I have 2 negative reviews from 2 different $5 buyers who did not read the gig description first and then did not request any revisions despite the fact that I offer them in my message with each delivery.
This type of buyer is growing and the more they get away with it, the more it will grow and grow. New sellers have to worry about every review but not after you have more than 100 reviews. If a buyer is being threatening or unreasonable, report them. If they leave a bad review, respond with an explanation and bad review of the buyer.
I have begun doing a Google search on every new buyer I have.
To search for me type in all of the following:
site:fiverr.com eoinfinnegan
Now change my name to any buyer you want to check.
The results will show all of the reviews the buyer has left since they started on Fiverr. If they have an old account and no reviews then you should be suspicious, don’t reject them but just be careful. If they have good reviews and have given good reviews to other sellers then it is a good sign.

I am sure there are lot of posts around about how to cheat Fiverr sellers because it really is so easy to do. It will only be stopped by sellers, especially experienced sellers, not cancelling because they are afraid of a negative review.
I don’t believe I have been affected by my negative reviews.

[emmaki]

plus, customer support will delete super malicious bad reviews that have no bearing on the truth. All my negatives are either late deliveries or dribbling nincompoops who can’t read a gig description. I’d report this jerk to build up a pattern of user behavior–it will help protect other sellers further down the line.

[swaydesign]

Thank you all for your advice. I will have to harden up from now on and stand my ground. With the nature of my gig however, comments that say I did a bad job, really make me question my delivery style and skill as a presenter that is why I used to give refunds if clients were unhappy… But obviously some of them are simply abusing the situation.

[Guest heatherwrites]

This is not good. Heartless people!

[eoinfinnegan]

Your reviews are fantastic, nobody is going to care if there are a couple of bad ones now and then. If the seller makes a valid complaint then you can decide to cancel or revise it. A genuine buyer who is unhappy with an aspect of the job you do will tell you why and ask you to fix, not demand a refund with no explanation.

[shuprio]

This is very painful and I pray, this kind of buyer never come to anyone.

[Guest swedeleo]

Use your pre order page and make some sort of rules where people need to accept it? I do it and works like a charm.

Wish you best of luck mate.

Cheers

[Guest capitalquality]

I’m busy looking up all my nuisance buyers now 🙂 Though to be fair I don’t have many.