Take a closer look into a Seller profile before you buy & compare gigs/sellers

[Guest multisync3]

Rate the service. If you put in maybes or probablies then it is likely your review could be removed for being unfair.

If you think the seller is doing something inappropriate or against ToS then report them to CS with a clear explanation.

Then move on.

I read you…Thx (20)

[Guest multisync3]

I saw LinkedIn and just had to add…

You really have no idea who the people on LinkedIn are, unless you meet them in person and watch them log in (don’t do that, by the way). It’s social media. What does that photo tell you? You do realize it could be a photo of anyone, right? Or a profile meticulously compiled from other people’s information? Yearbook, business card, etc. LinkedIn is not any more or less professional than this site. If you want reliable professional information, don’t look to a source that ‘verifies’ information by having people who have never met agree on it.

As a word of caution - it’s not a good idea to assume you can verify who people are on the internet. People who do that for a living make major mistakes every day.

As for this site, what does a photo of the seller tell you specifically? Now if the seller is a model or actor, I can understand wanting to see them (that’s part of what they offer). I am reading that based on your original post. You seem to give two options, a real photo or a fake one. I am asking from the point of view as a seller, because for instance as a creative professional I feel that my work is more recognizable than my face, but I’d like to hear more.

As far as #3, Fiverr is actively preventing that. I can’t show my degrees because evidently no one else says they have them too. Do they allow more profile text now? When I started it was extremely short (the length limit). I’ll have to check on that.

I do agree with your #4 though. There’s really no reason to lie about your location.

Could you explain #6 a little more? Do you mean after the Gig has been delivered, or after you accept/review (touching base with previous clients)?

Your #7 should be considered with other factors as well. Some sellers are much more fearful of bad reviews than others (some with good reasons). After all, they really have no idea if you’re a malicious buyer, do they? As far as the refund itself, some sellers specifically say they will refund you if you are not happy, so please don’t penalize them for honoring their word. Yes, I know you’re not supposed to incentivize a change in ratings, but people do a lot of things they aren’t supposed to with no malicious intent.

You really have no idea who the people on LinkedIn are

People there are much more verifiable as you are linked to a company and other co-workers and partners. BTW in Fiverr you can link your social too but it’s not accessible for sellers/buyers, right? Why a social link then? Teach me?

People who do that for a living make major mistakes every day.

Major mistakes every day? Then you do something wrong! Mistakes yes, sometimes - nobody is perfect. A mistake is one thing - cheating and faking another.

Could you explain #6 a little more? Do you mean after the Gig has been delivered, or after you accept/review (touching base with previous clients)?

Before the gig is clear and after the gig (is delivered) to see how a seller deals with your input, critics etc…

some sellers specifically say they will refund you if you are not happy, so please don’t penalize them for honoring their word.

I will argue some sellers do exactly such a statement to avoid a bad rating. Easy thing to refund, like fire and forget. NO! He still failed to deliver and I would rate him accordingly. For all my bad experienced gigs I never accepted a refund.

Refunding is a “buy out” to avoid negative feedback. Above said is valid for measurable and/or agreed specs between seller & buyer.

I am pretty sure this part will elaborate to a hot topic but that’s fine - let’s discuss. @eoinfinnegan > no “inflammatory” intention but a honest expression of my opinion.

[Guest offlinehelpers]

I’m seriously finding that this is getting seriously creepy and stalkerish.

In fact, since this discussion started, I’ve removed information from my profile to make me less identifiable in ‘real life’. I’m not using Fiverr as a springboard to a future career - I’m here because I enjoy it. I started my teacher training in the early 80s, and retired a few years ago. In that time, I taught thousands of kids who are now adults - some of them may even be on here - good luck to them and I hope they do well. What I don’t want is somebody I may have taught recognising me from my profile, ordering a gig and leaving me a bad review as a bit of sport, or even just messaging me.

When social media first started, we had it drummed into us about privacy etc. - I don’t even use my real picture on Facebook and only accept friend requests from friends of friends. Why should my privacy be any less enforced or enforcable here?

Do my buyers care about my picture or lack of profile info - it would seem not. Have I made a good contribution to Fiverr as a seller - I’d like to think so. Do my buyers think I’m professional - from the feedback it would seem they do.

This obsession with identifying sellers, their social media profiles etc. isn’t healthy and I’m beginning to wonder if I’m the right sort of person for Fiverr, or if Fiverr’s the right platform for me if this carries on.

If you’ve got a problem with a seller, report it to CS and move on.

[catwriter]

I’m seriously finding that this is getting seriously creepy and stalkerish.

In fact, since this discussion started, I’ve removed information from my profile to make me less identifiable in ‘real life’. I’m not using Fiverr as a springboard to a future career - I’m here because I enjoy it. I started my teacher training in the early 80s, and retired a few years ago. In that time, I taught thousands of kids who are now adults - some of them may even be on here - good luck to them and I hope they do well. What I don’t want is somebody I may have taught recognising me from my profile, ordering a gig and leaving me a bad review as a bit of sport, or even just messaging me.

When social media first started, we had it drummed into us about privacy etc. - I don’t even use my real picture on Facebook and only accept friend requests from friends of friends. Why should my privacy be any less enforced or enforcable here?

Do my buyers care about my picture or lack of profile info - it would seem not. Have I made a good contribution to Fiverr as a seller - I’d like to think so. Do my buyers think I’m professional - from the feedback it would seem they do.

This obsession with identifying sellers, their social media profiles etc. isn’t healthy and I’m beginning to wonder if I’m the right sort of person for Fiverr, or if Fiverr’s the right platform for me if this carries on.

If you’ve got a problem with a seller, report it to CS and move on.

This obsession with identifying sellers, their social media profiles etc. isn’t healthy and I’m beginning to wonder if I’m the right sort of person for Fiverr, or if Fiverr’s the right platform for me if this carries on.

Yes, you’re the right sort of person for Fiverr. Fiverr is designed to be an anonymous platform that protects the privacy of the users. That’s why, unlike other platforms of this type, Fiverr doesn’t encourage users to take the project to email/s***e; quite the contrary.

I don’t even use my real picture on Facebook and only accept friend requests from friends of friends.

Good move. Seriously. My settings were set to let anyone send me a friend request, but I’ve recently changed it to friends of friends, because things got creepy.

As for Fiverr profile pictures, I think that using a logo is perfectly fine. Or a drawing/cartoon of yourself.

[Guest multisync3]

I’m seriously finding that this is getting seriously creepy and stalkerish.

In fact, since this discussion started, I’ve removed information from my profile to make me less identifiable in ‘real life’. I’m not using Fiverr as a springboard to a future career - I’m here because I enjoy it. I started my teacher training in the early 80s, and retired a few years ago. In that time, I taught thousands of kids who are now adults - some of them may even be on here - good luck to them and I hope they do well. What I don’t want is somebody I may have taught recognising me from my profile, ordering a gig and leaving me a bad review as a bit of sport, or even just messaging me.

When social media first started, we had it drummed into us about privacy etc. - I don’t even use my real picture on Facebook and only accept friend requests from friends of friends. Why should my privacy be any less enforced or enforcable here?

Do my buyers care about my picture or lack of profile info - it would seem not. Have I made a good contribution to Fiverr as a seller - I’d like to think so. Do my buyers think I’m professional - from the feedback it would seem they do.

This obsession with identifying sellers, their social media profiles etc. isn’t healthy and I’m beginning to wonder if I’m the right sort of person for Fiverr, or if Fiverr’s the right platform for me if this carries on.

If you’ve got a problem with a seller, report it to CS and move on.

Thank you for joining the discussion. There is no general intention of stalking etc. But sometimes a issue on a single case comes up and you go deeper. I surely not have time to stalking and I believe with others here it’s the same.

In fact, since this discussion started, I’ve removed information from my profile to make me less identifiable

This I find interesting! But according your above statement it makes sense for you.

Like another contributor of the discussion said, you don’t expect in real life, in a real shop a person hiding behind a mask, having a fake name etc. So why you should here doing business in anonymity?

leaving me a bad review as a bit of sport

I strongly believe sellers and buyers have a serious and honest interest to get things done here. Surely, sometimes things derail but it’s not the norm.

The intention of my posting was to bring awareness to buyers.

[miiila]

Absolutely agree with everyone who is concerned about their privacy.

Of course I can follow the reasoning that someone who wants to buy from someone might like them to ‘show their face’, as it makes it less probable they are up to nothing good when they stand behind their products/service ‘with their face’, but still if they do or not should be up to the seller. Internet stalking is very real, not only, but especially for women.

I never would btw not buy a book from an author I never saw a real life profile pic of, nor do I look for a pic of a seller if I buy something expensive like a computer or washing machine on the internet.

If someone doesn´t want to buy from someone without a ‘real pic’ they have every right not to, just as everyone who sells on a platform that doesn´t force ‘real’ profile pics has every right not to use one.

If you don´t want to buy from someone without a real pic, don´t, problem solved.

[Guest multisync3]

This obsession with identifying sellers, their social media profiles etc. isn’t healthy and I’m beginning to wonder if I’m the right sort of person for Fiverr, or if Fiverr’s the right platform for me if this carries on.

Yes, you’re the right sort of person for Fiverr. Fiverr is designed to be an anonymous platform that protects the privacy of the users. That’s why, unlike other platforms of this type, Fiverr doesn’t encourage users to take the project to email/s***e; quite the contrary.

I don’t even use my real picture on Facebook and only accept friend requests from friends of friends.

Good move. Seriously. My settings were set to let anyone send me a friend request, but I’ve recently changed it to friends of friends, because things got creepy.

As for Fiverr profile pictures, I think that using a logo is perfectly fine. Or a drawing/cartoon of yourself.

Fiverr is designed to be an anonymous platform

What? That’s your opinion but not a Fiverr statement.

[Guest multisync3]

Absolutely agree with everyone who is concerned about their privacy.

Of course I can follow the reasoning that someone who wants to buy from someone might like them to ‘show their face’, as it makes it less probable they are up to nothing good when they stand behind their products/service ‘with their face’, but still if they do or not should be up to the seller. Internet stalking is very real, not only, but especially for women.

I never would btw not buy a book from an author I never saw a real life profile pic of, nor do I look for a pic of a seller if I buy something expensive like a computer or washing machine on the internet.

If someone doesn´t want to buy from someone without a ‘real pic’ they have every right not to, just as everyone who sells on a platform that doesn´t force ‘real’ profile pics has every right not to use one.

If you don´t want to buy from someone without a real pic, don´t, problem solved.

I guess privacy, anonymity and openness are bipolar things. They have to be at a right level.

It’s about to find a trustful and reliable source for your purchase, picture or not. But such things can help to build confidence besides other factors.

[miiila]

It´s a different thing if you´re only anonymous to the customers of the platform, or to the platform itself.
IMO a platform should make sure they know who their sellers are, and it´s pretty difficult to stay anonymous, as you need to withdraw your money, and they can get your identity from PayPal or your credit company, if real need arises.
But I don´t see the need for everyone buying a 5$ gig from me to know my full name for example, so they maybe can find out where I live etc. for instance. Or even for people who never buy anything from me btw.

Of course things like real names, real pictures etc. do build (additional) trust. But if the platform you use allows sellers to stay ‘anonmyous’, you have to choose the sellers who choose to give up their privacy for that trust, or you need to find a different platform. There is at least one similar platform I know that requires real full names and ‘real pictures’ AFAIK.

[catwriter]

Fiverr is designed to be an anonymous platform

What? That’s your opinion but not a Fiverr statement.

What? That’s your opinion but not a Fiverr statement.

From Fiverr’s Terms of Service: “To protect our users’ privacy, user identities are kept anonymous.”

[Guest offlinehelpers]

Thank you for joining the discussion. There is no general intention of stalking etc. But sometimes a issue on a single case comes up and you go deeper. I surely not have time to stalking and I believe with others here it’s the same.

In fact, since this discussion started, I’ve removed information from my profile to make me less identifiable

This I find interesting! But according your above statement it makes sense for you.

Like another contributor of the discussion said, you don’t expect in real life, in a real shop a person hiding behind a mask, having a fake name etc. So why you should here doing business in anonymity?

leaving me a bad review as a bit of sport

I strongly believe sellers and buyers have a serious and honest interest to get things done here. Surely, sometimes things derail but it’s not the norm.

The intention of my posting was to bring awareness to buyers.

Like another contributor of the discussion said, you don’t expect in real life, in a real shop a person hiding behind a mask, having a fake name etc. So why you should here doing business in anonymity?

Can you see the seller’s picture on ebay or amazon - no, because they’re online, just like Fiverr is - it’s not ‘real life’. If I wanted to show my face as a seller, I’d go and work in retail, in a bricks and mortar shop, but I’ve chosen not to.

[Guest multisync3]

What? That’s your opinion but not a Fiverr statement.

From Fiverr’s Terms of Service: “To protect our users’ privacy, user identities are kept anonymous.”

I guess you take it out of context. It doesn’t mean you should offer your gigs anonymously.

[Guest multisync3]

Like another contributor of the discussion said, you don’t expect in real life, in a real shop a person hiding behind a mask, having a fake name etc. So why you should here doing business in anonymity?

Can you see the seller’s picture on ebay or amazon - no, because they’re online, just like Fiverr is - it’s not ‘real life’. If I wanted to show my face as a seller, I’d go and work in retail, in a bricks and mortar shop, but I’ve chosen not to.

You got a point! But you are also much more protected as a buyer at eBay and it’s usually very easy to get your money back as long you use PayPal.

[Guest offlinehelpers]

You got a point! But you are also much more protected as a buyer at eBay and it’s usually very easy to get your money back as long you use PayPal.

How is it easier on ebay because of PayPal? We use PayPal here, so it’s just as easy.

From Fiverr terms of service

To protect our users’ privacy, user identities are kept anonymous. Requesting or providing Email addresses, s***e/IM usernames, telephone numbers or any other personal contact details to communicate outside of Fiverr in order to circumvent or abuse the Fiverr messaging system or Fiverr platform is not permitted.

Does that not scream ANONYMOUS at you, because it does to me.

[Guest offlinehelpers]

Fiverr is designed to be an anonymous platform

What? That’s your opinion but not a Fiverr statement.

Yes it is. 20 characters

[catwriter]

@offlinehelpers I can’t find it now, but I remember that one of the rules was that we were strictly forbidden to provide other users with any identifiable personal information, except for our names (or was it first name only?).

[Guest offlinehelpers]

@offlinehelpers I can’t find it now, but I remember that one of the rules was that we were strictly forbidden to provide other users with any identifiable personal information, except for our names (or was it first name only?).

It rings a definite bell - was it in a Fiverrcast? First name only as I remember.

The fear is that we’d all start conducting business off Fiverr, which is completely understandable, and privacy too, of course!

[catwriter]

I think I have read it somewhere, and it was way before Fiverrcast was launched. Then again, if I did read it somewhere, it could have easily been repeated on Fiverrcast. 🙂

[miiila]

While fiverr’s fear might only be lost revenue, which I don´t assume and don´t hope, I´m pretty sure it´s one of the points that attract sellers, not only, but especially, female ones, to fiverr specifically, and they´d be well advised to not risk losing them, not all women, or men, or else, who want a bit of privacy are planning on cheating buyers, you know, many of them will bring in good revenue and deliver good work.

A buyer might be able to understand privacy concerns of sellers better, if they imagined being a woman and a seller, We do get asked a lot of stuff, starting with email and s***e (for gigs not needing any emailing or skyping), inspite of what offlinehelpers and catwriter cited as fiverr ToS, and not ending with that… I believe someone already mentioned feet, so not going into that… and things like stalking and death threats over some silly forum quarrels and such happen to men as well.

If I had to put my full real name on my profile, I´d most probably close my account. Not because I want to cheat anyone, but because I want to feel halfways safe. There are people who are very good at finding and putting together every tiny bit of the puzzle of your online identity, I don´t want to make it too easy for them.

Regarding getting you money back, I think it´s extremely easy here for buyers to get their money back if they are in their right to get it back, and even if they aren´t.

PayPal…lol no, can´t get started on PayPal, I need to work on my orders. 🙂

Back to the topic/title, my take on it is do take a closer look and compare, absolutely, and then decide according to what is important to you. If a ‘real pic’ is important to you, choose a seller who has one, if you see that there are valid reasons to use a logo or something, don´t make that one of your criteria.

Compare different forum posts on such matters 😉 and mix and match from all the tips what makes the most sense to and for you.

[Guest multisync3]

@offlinehelpers I can’t find it now, but I remember that one of the rules was that we were strictly forbidden to provide other users with any identifiable personal information, except for our names (or was it first name only?).

You completely misunderstood and/or even do detailing the topic. It’s about some identity in your seller profile towards a buyer to build confidence. I never said you should share names, email, s***e etc.

But as @miiila said this is rather Fiverr protectionism.

Again the question why is Fiverr then asking to link other social accounts? For Fiverr own purpose?

[gina_riley2]

This seller said he can’t change his gig description as he has active running gigs and need to wait 20 days to change. Is this a correct statement that you need to wait xx days to change your description if active gigs?

I don’t think this is correct. I never read anything on that topic anywhere, which already makes it improbable that it is correct.

Fact is that I could and did change both gig description and order requirements while having active orders. How could sellers who always have gigs in the queue ever change anything if he was right, makes no sense.

Of course when I made some changes I checked on a running order just to be sure, and just as one would expect, the changes were not ‘backwards compatible’, i. e. the running order was still showing the former order requirements and gig description, not the changed current ones.

So, yes, from what i can tell, you can change the gig description while you have gigs in the work, but it will show the old one for those outstanding (in that not yet delivered sense ;)) orders (anything else would have been a massive oversight by fiverr and there’d be a long forum thread about it too, I suppose, well, two, one by sellers not able to ever change descriptions, and one by buyers seeing the description change on an order they already placed).

by buyers seeing the description change on an order they already placed

Actually, from the moment the credit card is charged, the old description is locked in.

It’s happened to me twice, once the price went down by $5 on an editing job (seller in boxed me & told me to send her a higher count - (one of my awesome regular) and the other time price went up by $5 (seller told me I owed him $5, after delivery and also said he would greatly appreciate a tip).

If the price point had changed, the green “order again” button is grayed out.

[gina_riley2]

I’m seriously finding that this is getting seriously creepy and stalkerish.

In fact, since this discussion started, I’ve removed information from my profile to make me less identifiable in ‘real life’. I’m not using Fiverr as a springboard to a future career - I’m here because I enjoy it. I started my teacher training in the early 80s, and retired a few years ago. In that time, I taught thousands of kids who are now adults - some of them may even be on here - good luck to them and I hope they do well. What I don’t want is somebody I may have taught recognising me from my profile, ordering a gig and leaving me a bad review as a bit of sport, or even just messaging me.

When social media first started, we had it drummed into us about privacy etc. - I don’t even use my real picture on Facebook and only accept friend requests from friends of friends. Why should my privacy be any less enforced or enforcable here?

Do my buyers care about my picture or lack of profile info - it would seem not. Have I made a good contribution to Fiverr as a seller - I’d like to think so. Do my buyers think I’m professional - from the feedback it would seem they do.

This obsession with identifying sellers, their social media profiles etc. isn’t healthy and I’m beginning to wonder if I’m the right sort of person for Fiverr, or if Fiverr’s the right platform for me if this carries on.

If you’ve got a problem with a seller, report it to CS and move on.

Do my buyers care about my picture or lack of profile info - it would seem not.

I could care less what my sellers really look like. I do think those using celebrity photos are just funny as heck, but logos and stock photos, I’m good.

I just want good work.

[miiila]

by buyers seeing the description change on an order they already placed

Actually, from the moment the credit card is charged, the old description is locked in.

It’s happened to me twice, once the price went down by $5 on an editing job (seller in boxed me & told me to send her a higher count - (one of my awesome regular) and the other time price went up by $5 (seller told me I owed him $5, after delivery and also said he would greatly appreciate a tip).

If the price point had changed, the green “order again” button is grayed out.

Thanks, good to know from that end, and makes perfect sense.

[eoinfinnegan]

I am genuinely baffled by the questioning of why someone would like to stay anonymous on the internet.
The only reason I use a real photo is because I believe it helps with sales in the line of work that I do. If I didn’t think it would have an effect I would change it to a logo or something. I regularly get contact requests on social media from people who have bought from me because they have managed to find me from my name or image. Looking at just a couple of the posts by women on the forum regarding inappropriate messages it is no wonder that people try to stay anonymous.
There is absolutely no need to know what the person you are buying a service from looks like. Some buyers may like the idea of it being like a store you go into and make a deal face to face.
The internet is different - get used to it.
In a store, the seller can also see the buyer so there is some level of mutual trust there. Most buyers do not have a picture of themselves so what is being asked of sellers is to not only expose themselves to anonymous buyers but also to anyone else who happens to find their profile while the same is not reciprocated. Come on… That is pretty much like allowing people come into a store wearing balaclavas or ski masks - try doing that at your local store and see what happens.

[writer99025]

I am genuinely baffled by the questioning of why someone would like to stay anonymous on the internet.

The only reason I use a real photo is because I believe it helps with sales in the line of work that I do. If I didn’t think it would have an effect I would change it to a logo or something. I regularly get contact requests on social media from people who have bought from me because they have managed to find me from my name or image. Looking at just a couple of the posts by women on the forum regarding inappropriate messages it is no wonder that people try to stay anonymous.

There is absolutely no need to know what the person you are buying a service from looks like. Some buyers may like the idea of it being like a store you go into and make a deal face to face.

The internet is different - get used to it.

In a store, the seller can also see the buyer so there is some level of mutual trust there. Most buyers do not have a picture of themselves so what is being asked of sellers is to not only expose themselves to anonymous buyers but also to anyone else who happens to find their profile while the same is not reciprocated. Come on… That is pretty much like allowing people come into a store wearing balaclavas or ski masks - try doing that at your local store and see what happens.

I like to stay anonymous as I don’t want anyone from real life - relatives, old classmates, neighbors, acquaintances - to find out where I work, what I do, and how I make my money. That’s why I have never once told my real name to anyone here. And I haven’t mentioned the word “Fiverr” to anyone in real life. I mentioned it once to my mother, but she has forgotten it by now 🙂