ruthle

The "Don't like it, don't sell here" is true, you're right! but for me, that's my issue with fiverr - They can set their own rules and price, but is it the right thing to do? it's my belief that that saying is a good-ole-classic monopolistic statement that is immensely unjust. It's the same level of argument when people say "you should do what I say because I'm your manager and I said so" it's true they have authority, but it provides no productive valuable discussion. unfortunately that's just how capitalism works i guess. (unless like you said, a competitor rises up in the market and competes with fiverr, so fiverr has to change their way). Do you remember the public uproar against uber when they exploited their workers by classifying them as contractors even though they legally should fall under the catagory of employees? thus removing the workers from rights such as sick leave, insurance, annual leave, etc. Uber can use the "Don't like it, don't sell here" statement, but Uber then were scrutinised by the Fair Labor act and fortunately they are now changing their policy to be more fair towards their workers. With that in mind, can you imagine the uproar the public will have if uber starts taking a % on their workers' tips? Fiverr is lucky that they aren't a big enough company to catch the general public's eye and lawmakers, but I hope that they will soon. You're 100% right that tipping isn't a norm in a professional exchange, as they are normally bound by contracts and tipping is more common in hopitality etc.. But I'm not trying to discuss about whether tipping is professional or not, but when a buyer decides to tip, seller should keep all of it - it's the right thing to do. If a seller doesn't believe tipping is professional, they can choose to not accept tips. From what I gather . I think it we just have a different fundamental belief in this matter. I'm trying to start a discussion with average people like us, so that sellers like you, me and everyone else here gets treated fairly and are protected against corporate exploitation. and it goes beyond fiverr taking a % of tips, but when and if they decide to create new rules that is unfair to sellers in the future.

First and foremost, apologies for bumping an old thread, but thought I'd share my opinion on this matter as this topic has been frustrating me for years. I understand Fiverr's concern in regards to sellers exploiting/frauding the system where they can ask the buyer to pay most of the order via tips in order to avoid the fiverr's cut. "Tips are a gift or gratuity given as a sum of money tendered for a service performed or anticipated" therefore, why should Fiverr take a cut on tips when they've already taken a 20% from the seller's service Fiverr already has a system to detect and ban sellers when they try to link an external payment, or when they try to arrange conversations/private deals outside the Fiverr platform. To implement a similar system in order to detect sellers who are trying to abuse the system by asking buyers to pay the order through tips shouldn't be a difficult thing to develop considering all of these fraud preventions system they already have in place. (e.g they can automatically detect when a tip is significantly higher than the base order for manual review; automatically flag a conversation when the word "tips" are involved before an order is made for manual review) So my question for Fiverr is, exploiting sellers by taking 20% of their tips for an easy profit merely just guised as a "fraud/abuse prevention system" or say "it's in our TOS, you either agree it or don't come here" ? Lastly, a bit of a moral/ethical question here, are the sellers the actual thieves/exploiters here? who are simply trying to obtain what they're entitled to have? Or is it fiverr? where it's easier for them to grab an extra 20% from the sellers' tips and create their own TOS for everyone to comply, than to allocate extra resources to develop a system to prevent tips abuse? The only way for Fiverr to change is either through the law or public pressure, and speaking from experience, writing this paragraph will serve nothing to change this system unfortunately.