Warning signs of a potentially troublesome buyer

[miiila]

Oh god bless Google. What will I do without it!!?? 😇

*insert holy music *

[details=Off-topic: On Saint Google and Automated Translation]

Oh god bless Google. What will I do without it!!?? 😇

*insert holy music *

Recently I read an ‘article’ on how far automated translation has evolved…the article had tested some of the newer programs/versions, pay-for programs even, which supposedly were better, and of course one of them was deemed the best and they all had links to follow…for fun and to see how far automatic translation has evolved, I followed those links and downloaded a trial version of the #1 program to try…

The output of that best program was so bad I didn´t bother downloading any others and, after googling a text into ‘German’ for more confirmation, once more felt quite reassured about human ‘manual’ translation still being a thing until I´m dust. There are people who claim wondrous things about automated translation and tell translators to go change their career now, but frankly, they must all be software developers or paid naysayers or something. There are cool programs and a lot of things they can be used for, sure, but no matter which program I feed a ‘real world’ text into, all I can see is a target text that would take me longer to correct than it would take me to translate the source text.[/details]

For the sake of on-topicness I would argue this one:

11. messages are short, and abrupt. (They’re treating you like a commodity and won’t hesitate to decline delivery/they’ll rarely be satisfied/may just go silent on you)

Short and abrupt messages or even no messages probably can, but don´t have to forebode bad things.

While I do like to talk to some buyers, I´m quite fine with no, short , abrupt and timesaving communication, too, as long as they’ll accept the delivery of course, I didn´t have any problem with that yet, of course it might just be a matter of time, but then I guess it depends a lot on what kind of things your gigs are about as well.

ETA:

Interesting, when I saw the post shows 1. instead of 11. I went to edit it, but in the edit window it is 11., not sure what´s going on there with the quote function, but anyway: this is #11 in capitalquality’s list, not #1.

[mrproofreading]

I tend to disagree with:

1. Customers often ask me to fix the work of others. I suppose this is because my domain is pretty “black and white” - there are few subjective or grey areas.
2. A customer trusting me to do the work, as advertised, is never a problem for me.
3. This just seems like paranoia. A person ‘being friendly’ and ‘trying to make a good impression’ shouldn’t be misconstrued as ‘I want free work’.
4. The majority of my customers are busy professionals looking for an inexpensive/efficient service. Unless they don’t provide the order requirements, I have no problem with short/concise messages.
5. Similar to the above reasoning.
6. They can promise a million additional orders, but they’ll only receive the same work/price as every other customer.

[dangeorgescu]

I just got one… and he is crowned buyer… still asked 26 questions in one hour before purchasing, then rejected 6 times the delivery for reasons like “where do I find the icon from the program?”, still after a teamviewer session when I did installed and tested the program right under his eyes, he is rejecting again the delivery just because he did not remember how. On top of that, I delivered also a video file with instructions. Still after all these I had to cancell the order to escape… bad experience…

[emmaki]

Getting an inbox message that looks suspiciously like an order, responding to it with “plz make an order” to get the response of “I thought this was the order”.

http://imgur.com/gallery/HoYp1cA

[matteo_7355]

I have had many of them buyers before and now I tell them I cannot do your order.

It’s best to lose out $5 then get a negative rating for sure!

[ibraryunus]

http://i.giphy.com/5wWf7GR2nhgamhRnEuA.gif

 

[cheesecake1]

Hi,
I am a buyer and know exactly what I want i given drawn roughs photos, details and always stay available for further request.
and after 4 sellers who pretend to be professional and understand the request deliver something out of the remit
They never read the brief. and ask questions where i have already briefed them.
Seriously beginning to think fiver is a place for anyone can join, with not legit skills. .

[eoinfinnegan]

Hi,

I am a buyer and know exactly what I want i given drawn roughs photos, details and always stay available for further request.

and after 4 sellers who pretend to be professional and understand the request deliver something out of the remit

They never read the brief. and ask questions where i have already briefed them.

Seriously beginning to think fiver is a place for anyone can join, with not legit skills. .

Seriously beginning to think fiver is a place for anyone can join, with not legit skills.

It is. Fiverr is a platform where anyone can join and offer their services. This is why it is important for buyers to read the ToS, learn how to decide which seller to use and to be careful. It is also why the prices are so low.

[garythomas9501]

Seeing that list i guess i have been pretty fortunate. Haven’t really had many issues with clients. I have had to turn down request for work sometimes after seeing a few things on that list so i guess i’ve saved myself from the trouble 😁

[idostuff74]

While I know the portal to hell that can open up, knock on wood, so far I have been lucky enough to say that one of these alone should not at all be seen as a warning sign. My last two works both started with the 7 and the next and only response from the buyer(s) was the 5 star review,
However, I get wary when my art is requested by artists. For their babies like their books, their poems or something like this. That’s when I brace myself for the impact on revision land.

[melgraphics1]

They wanted the same thing, but better. So I did the same thing, but better. Now they want it betterer.

That´s not so bad, as long as they don´t want it perfecter.

Very funny indeed:joy:

[global_promoter]

This will really help we, sellers to get rid of troublesome buyers

[djgodknows]

Hi cheesecake,

Please feel free to contact us so we can help you out with your project.

You are not allowed to perform self-promotion on this Forum.

Please rectify your statement as per forum rules.

Thanks.

[easyforu]

Really helpful. Will save me a lot of trouble in future.

[misscrystal]

Here is a warning sign of a troublesome buyer:
if they just started selling on fiverr and they offer the same gig as you do with your gig description copied.

[cheesecake1]

Seriously beginning to think fiver is a place for anyone can join, with not legit skills.

It is. Fiverr is a platform where anyone can join and offer their services. This is why it is important for buyers to read the ToS, learn how to decide which seller to use and to be careful. It is also why the prices are so low.

Now I am contacting the Seller before placing an order and asking for recent work to be shown so I can see if they are able to do the the gigs they advertised, so now they answer me with I can do it, no evidence of the work.

The photos in the gigs are never like the work presented? Im still looking!!

[eoinfinnegan]

Now I am contacting the Seller before placing an order and asking for recent work to be shown so I can see if they are able to do the the gigs they advertised, so now they answer me with I can do it, no evidence of the work.

The photos in the gigs are never like the work presented? Im still looking!!

Can you not see their other work in their portfolio? Not their gig images, their portfolios which have reviews on the image when you look at them. Also, due to the amount of info you say you are supplying, I assume you are not seeking a $5-20 logo, if you are then disregard my comments, I have no advice for that except be thankful for any seller who gives more than an hour to a budget of that amount.

I spent most of a day recently looking for a logo designer. I won’t go into all the details but what I was looking for was someone to come up with a concept, a logo designer in the original sense, not someone working from templates or doing a version of another company’s logo that I like.

I found the same situation, the ones who had a style or artwork I liked had generally just copied those images from other people. It took a long time before I found someone who I think may deliver what I am looking for but I could be wrong.

The price is several times my initial budget and will be more if I am happy with it and purchase vectors etc. I guess that sometimes what I require does not match my budget so either my requirements or my budget must change. This time I changed the budget, other times I may change the requirements.

[fixwordpress1]

really?

[psychicbunny]

Have you been conned by a buyer? Just spent 10 hours on what should have been a 1 hour gig? Had to give a refund on finished work just to get rid of an awkward buyer?

On Fiverr you don’t want to spend time on difficult customers. Most buyers are easy & good to work with. Most aren’t malicious, they just don’t know what they want. Some are too difficult to make it worthwhile. Some are setting out to con you.

If I think a buyer might be troublesome in any way, I end the conversation as soon as possible. It’s taken a while to learn some of these, or have the confidence to apply them, but these are some red flags to be wary of.

The buyer:

1. tells you a previous Fiverr seller did rubbish work (they’ll rarely be satisfied)
2. never answers your questions fully, even if they write a lot & are friendly & professional (they don’t actually know what they want & it will take time to elicit requirements or they will request revisions once they see your solution)
3. asks you how many revisions you offer early in the conversation (they’ll rarely be satisfied)
4. asks you if you do refunds if they’re not satisfied (they’ll rarely be satisfied)
5. asks for a free sample based on their requirements (may be conning you or may be a cheapskate)
6. doesn’t provide specific requirements (they don’t actually know what they want & it will take time to elicit requirements or they will request revisions once they see your solution)
7. says they’ll leave the implementation up to you as you’re the expert (they don’t actually know what they want & it will take time to elicit requirements or they will request revisions once they see your solution)
8. says ‘this will be easy for you’ (they don’t know how to do it or how long it will take you but they won’t pay more than $5)
9. asks you to do extra work and will tip if it’s done. (they probably won’t tip)
10. is too friendly (they may be conning you or at least making it difficult to have a professional relationship. You may end up doing more work for less if they’re good at it.)
11. messages are short, and abrupt. (They’re treating you like a commodity and won’t hesitate to decline delivery/they’ll rarely be satisfied/may just go silent on you)
12. takes a long time to answer messages before the order. (Can increase the chance of declining delivery if you have questions and they do this during the order)
13. tells you that if this order goes well they have a lot of other work lined up (this is usually a con to get a cheaper offer)
14. doesn’t have real requirements – they just say, ‘improve this’ or ‘make this look nicer’. Requirements are subjective. (they don’t actually know what they want & it will take time to elicit requirements or they will request revisions once they see your solution)

1. tells you a previous Fiverr seller did rubbish work (they’ll rarely be satisfied)

This entire POST is GOLD.

BRAVO to you. And #1 says it all!

Best topic I’ve seen in a while!

[cheesecake1]

Can you not see their other work in their portfolio? Not their gig images, their portfolios which have reviews on the image when you look at them. Also, due to the amount of info you say you are supplying, I assume you are not seeking a $5-20 logo, if you are then disregard my comments, I have no advice for that except be thankful for any seller who gives more than an hour to a budget of that amount.

I spent most of a day recently looking for a logo designer. I won’t go into all the details but what I was looking for was someone to come up with a concept, a logo designer in the original sense, not someone working from templates or doing a version of another company’s logo that I like.

I found the same situation, the ones who had a style or artwork I liked had generally just copied those images from other people. It took a long time before I found someone who I think may deliver what I am looking for but I could be wrong.

The price is several times my initial budget and will be more if I am happy with it and purchase vectors etc. I guess that sometimes what I require does not match my budget so either my requirements or my budget must change. This time I changed the budget, other times I may change the requirements.

I am more than happy to pay for the Logo and I am also not happy to pay for templates either, or versions of someone else logo. Which I have been receiving and this is definitely 30 mins work maximum.

My Budget has gone up and find if they cannot converse in terms of design and specifications in the message section then I don’t bother with the gig going forward.

Interviewing them based on the gigs they advertised is the only way to see if they are what they say they are.

This is a long process but I have learnt this is the only way,

Saying all of the above I have not left any negative comments on the sellers page as someone else may find that the work they offer is fine.

[driedwriter]

One point you may add also since some have read your post and are trying to adapt: Buying a gig, sometimes custom to show you they are ready to spend and ask you for more job (and promises more job) if gig delivered is above their expaction, but they never clearly reply when you ask them how do they want to pay you (normal gigs, custom gigs), they answer that they have another bunch of work for you and tells you that everything will be paid at once and it’s urgent (sending you a fake message that if you don’t accept they will contact someone else) and at the end you will never heard about them again.

Quite easy to spot those people when you are an old monkey but newbies might definly fall for this trick.

[Guest lindapool]

This is a great list. Thank you for sharing. 🙂

[logoflow]

Really great Post.

Thanks 🙂

[miacmht]

Just saw this in buyer request “I’m looking for quality work. I am willing to wait up to 2 weeks if the job is done well. If you don’t do a good job, I will request to cancel.”. budget? $15. Red lag? Absolutely!

Even if these buyers turn out to be not as bad, these arrogant people are one of the factors I have to tolerate at my office job so there’s no way I would work with them when freelancing.

[luszy88]

I have to say that this theme is very irritating.

I am a buyer for a very short time but I have ordered almost 40 gigs by now.

I worked and I’m still working with great, very professional buyers, but I’m am dealing with some very unprofessional and even rude sellers that accept jobs that they can’t finish, they don’t reply for days after deadline and don’t bother even to cancel order when I ask for it!!!
I always write to sellers that I want to order from detail description of work that I need and ask them if they can do it before I place an order.

There are those who finishes jobs but their work is not professional, it is amateur and sloppy, completely useless and I then wonder how they have so good rating and finally I figure it how, when I get message in which they require me to give them good grade or to change my grade!

But most frustrating is that this unprofessional behavior is supported because when 48 hours in which a seller should cancel or withdraw dispute passes, Fiverr gives them extra time! Extra time for what?!

So, next time when you start to bad-mouth buyers remember that lot of buyers has very negative experience with sellers, too and that this kind of themes and comments are not really helpful and that they can be even offensive.