Filter to prevent fake buyers and fake feedback sellers

[macster]

Hi there friends,

Once again i had to go back to Fiverr team to remove a fake feedback from a buyer who clearly ordered to damage my reputation.

“
Simple, i have 5 years SEO experience and own a legal license of SEO Power Suite and Long Tail Keywords Pro… received a request to research the best keywords and wit good faith i even offered 50% discount to the buyer on the Standard packages + i offered a list with all the keywords for his website a niche using the tools i mentioned above and my experience… yet without any warning and any decency from the buyer to contact me he gave me a negative feedback in just minutes after i delivered the report.
”

Now, honestly, not only that this is discouraging and disappointing, but c’mon, i understand to receive a bad feedback from a painting or an article that i did wrong, but to receive a bad feedback from a report done with the best SEO tools in existence is pure fake.

I am a member of most major black-hat forums to know that lots of Fiverr sellers buy and sell “fake” feedback and ratings to boost their gigs and reputation or, unfortunately worse, they request services from others to buy and give negative feedback to their competition.

Not to mention that even here on Fiverr i received spam messages with services offering to buy my gigs with fake accounts if i “make 50% with the buyer”…

In my 5 years of experience and as a seller here on Fiverr to be honest i am now sick of receiving buyers fake feedback without any decency of at least receiving any questions or complaints from the buyer.

I believe it is time that Fiverr adds a filter to help us prevent buyers based on certain characteristics.

Block buyers from ordering:

• if the buyer account is new i.e 1 month, 2 months, 3 months… 1 year.
• if the buyer account has less then 3 or 4 or 5 stars as a buyer.
• prevent the buyer to give feedback without seller consent or previous after-sale conversation

I believe this type of filter would not only help and protect all sellers, but would also help new sellers and buyers to sell more.

i.e i personally want to work with serious buyers and let’s say that if i block buyers who create an account now, and there are new sellers who want to work regardless, then they would now have a bigger chance to sel and startup their Fiverr business.

PLEASE vote and like this thread to help promote this feature as i believe is a missing link and a power full feature that would not only help Fiverr staff but also all of us to better work and better connect with the right buyers and sellers.

Thank you!

[fonthaunt]

I followed you from your other post to here and will copy what I wrote there, but at the end I’ll add some questions for you. You may have received a poor feedback for nefarious reasons or someone may have been in a bad mood, but bad reviews do happen no occasion. As far as the “Black Hat” forums, you can find lots of stuff there including ways to spend a lot of money on fake reviews although you can’t buy skill, so the purpose is limited. There is also a lot of talk on those forums that isn’t based on fact. Fiverr removed it for you which is great, end of story on that.

Here is my response to the “purchase reviews” issue:

While there are certainly ways to purchase reviews, there are a few points to keep in mind.

1.) It’s already against the Fiverr ToS and if a seller is caught, they are banned.
2.) See #1 and if you have proof that someone has done this, report it to Customer Support so they will ban the offender.
3.) Purchasing fake bad reviews to mess up a competitor sounds bad, but it sounds a lot worse than it actually is. There are level 2 and TRS with thousands of good reviews, so it would take hundreds of bad ones to bring them down. Most of them already have some 1 star reviews because of unavoidable emergencies that may make them late or just mean buyers who aren’t fake. Because their ratio of positives is so high, it doesn’t hurt them much at all.
4.) Because of #3, there are only 2 ways to damage a seller much by purchasing bad fake reviews.
A.) You could spend thousands of dollars to buy enough fake reviews to take down a highly rated seller and that seller would also earn $4 profit from all the money you spend so you’d be giving them a huge financial benefit as you tried to hurt them, while costing yourself a great deal of money. Who can really do that and why would they just to damage a single seller at a time? Plus, if you got caught you’d lose your money, your own account, and the seller you tried to hurt would be restored and get to keep their profit.
B.) You could easily spend just a little money to seriously damage a new seller with less than 25 reviews. That seller would also receive profit from every one of those. The seller could have Fiverr close their account and open a new account and start over. To repeat this you’d have to find them and spend more money (giving them profit again.) As in point A - this has no real purpose except to waste your money, benefit the competition financially, etc.

So, that said, the purchase of fake reviews to build up a seller account does happen sometimes and the way to fight it is to report it if you see it and to build up your own account. The fakers cannot fake having real skill, so sooner or later they will either fail or stop bothering to buy reviews. You combat them by getting reviews honesty with real skill and not spending your profit on fake reviews that you won’t need anyway.

The purchase of fake reviews to hurt someone is primarily a myth except in very small numbers since it profits the target and does not profit the person trying to do the sabotage.

Finally, as to your post in Suggestion Box, I’d love to clarify what you mean before I decide if I agree with your suggestions for Fiverr. So, this is what I focused on in reading your post. You suggested:

I believe it is time that Fiverr adds a filter to help us prevent buyers based on certain characteristics.

Block buyers from ordering:

– if the buyer account is new i.e 1 month, 2 months, 3 months… 1 year.
– if the buyer account has less then 3 or 4 or 5 stars as a buyer.
– prevent the buyer to give feedback without seller consent or previous after-sale conversation

I believe this type of filter would not only help and protect all sellers, but would also help new sellers and buyers to sell more.

Perhaps I don’t understand what you wrote, so maybe you can help me. If Fiverr did what you ask:

Block buyers from ordering:

– if the buyer account is new i.e 1 month, 2 months, 3 months… 1 year.

My question: If new buyers were blocked from ordering, how would they ever gain experience and reputation as a buyer? A buyer who cannot order never becomes a buyer. How does that work?

You suggested:
– if the buyer account has less then 3 or 4 or 5 stars as a buyer.

In my opinion this one has some merit, but not if they were just blocked. I mean, if I made 5 purchases on Fiverr and I got 2 good results, 1 neutral and 2 bad ones, I might leave 2 5 star reviews for the seller, none fo the neutral, and 2 1 star reviews for the bad ones who also did not offer me a refund. Let’s say that 1 of the good sellers didn’t review me in return and the other one gave me a 5 star review. Then let’s say that the 2 poor sellers gave me 1 star reviews in return. Now my buyer rating would be low. If I were blocked from buying and it was the fault of a couple of bad sellers, how would that be fair to me as a buyer?

The only merit I see in something being done with buyer ratings is if Fiverr took a closer look at buyers with a long history of leaving poor reviews. Also, I would like sellers to be able to see buyer ratings in exactly the same way buyers see theirs.

You finally suggested:

– prevent the buyer to give feedback without seller consent or previous after-sale conversation

This one I just don’t follow. A seller is never going to WANT to say a lower review is a great idea. I can’t see how this would work.

So, that’s my take on all of this but feel free to explain. Sorry for the length here, I tried to tackle all your ideas in one go!

[macster]

Glad and surprised to see your reply though i see you’re not very familiar with the blackhat forums.
I strongly recommend you to watch blackhat forums and the “clones” where people sell/buy Fiverr reviews, and even split revenues.

Also, i’ve see people offering “Top Rated” status on blackhat forums, this is a fact and higly discuseed in various places.

i.e BlackHatWorld, WarriorForums, WJunction… and not only.

I think i have beed as clear and easy to understand as possible.

Block buyers from ordering:– if the buyer account is new i.e 1 month, 2 months, 3 months… 1 year.– if the buyer account has less then 3 or 4 or 5 stars as a buyer.– prevent the buyer to give feedback without seller consent or previous after-sale conversation

My question: If new buyers were blocked from ordering, how would they ever gain experience and reputation as a buyer? A buyer who cannot order never becomes a buyer. How does that work?

It is the most basic and simplest method to prevent “spam” on i.e blogs and forums. i.e a new forum member cannot post new threads until he has a minimum 10 comments and replies to other members threads. (i don’t say Fiverr is a forum, hope you get the point)

It does not mean that everyone will block everyone and buyers can always contact the seller if they need his service. i.e i only want to be able to block new commers to buy from me based on a certaing filter, and they can always buy from somne else if they don’t fit my requirements.

• everyday fake Fiverr accounts are created for either spam or scam

• everyone can use Fiverr rules against other sellers if you know what they mean and how to use them. i.e if you order a gig and ask the seller to cancel, then according to Fiverr rules in the end the seller gig and reputation are damaged. (i.e the gig will drop in search results)

• if someone gives you bad feedbacks though you did more then an excelent work and you contact Fiverr then in the end “questions” will be raised against you and your work…

– prevent the buyer to give feedback without seller consent or previous after-sale conversation

This one I just don’t follow. A seller is never going to WANT to say a lower review is a great idea. I can’t see how this would work.

1. buyer orders2. seller delivers and closes the order3. Fiverr asks buyer if he is happy with the service

4a. if the buyer is happy then he can leave feedback and rate his seller
4b. if the seller thinks the feedback is correct and is happy with the review, if any, then he can accept and rate his buyer
4c. if the seller does not agree wth the feedback and sees is not correct then he can either refund or contact support.

5a. if the buyer is not happy then he can decline the order
5b. the seller can agree to review or refund

So my suggestion is to add a “pre” check before the buyer can leave a feedback, a simple “yes” or “no” can prevent and eliminate 75% off all undesired problems.

It’s common sense!

In my 10 year experience as developer and marketer i can say i seen the internet grow in front of my eyes to know.

Overall, my suggestions are simple and can only prevent lost time, undesired and useless tickets.

[fonthaunt]

Interesting theories. I understand your ideas better although I don’t think they are simple. I am aware of the black hat sites as well as the sites that sell fake reviews (positive and negative) as well as accounts, etc. My opinion is that while these sites exists, overall they are not highly successful in causing problems for the average seller in an average category. The SEO category may be more likely to draw this sort of influence than many others. The SEO category is a fragile and complex category.

Personally, I think there are things Fiverr could do to limit the creation and use of fake account in general, no matter what they are created for. I think to make it worth their development time it would have to be something that would cover more “fake account” issues, be more simple to implement, and reduce problems in general for Fiverr and large numbers of sellers. It isn’t really my opinion that counts, though, this was just an interesting conversation. If Fiverr staff likes your ideas and finds a way to use them, that’s great. Good luck!

[sharrondark1]

It’s 2020 and we still can’t filter fraud clients/ buyers.