A scam client contacted me last week and placed an order worth, asking for two documents/briefs. He initially paid and told me there was no deadline and we agreed to deliver the order by a deadline, but as I was away due to national holidays in my country I asked for a time extension of one day. I had worked on his order for more than 5 hours--I delivered the first document/brief first and delivered the second on the final day of delivery. I have also checked my work for plagiarism and AI through two tools and it all came back unique before delivery. The seller was impatient and kept asking in broken English about their order which was still not due, which I obviously should take as a red flag.
To my surprise, the client rejected my delivery and came back with an unclear screenshot accusing me of literal plagiarism in which I kindly asked him what tool he used and where was the supposed plagiarism--his "check" had only found and highlighted two tiny superscript numbers and that this is usually a result of ChatGPT (as if a human cannot use superscript to indicate and number references--all references were numbered and listed by me as APA at the end of the document).
I have provided proof and screenshots that this wasn't the case (checked my work through Copyscape Premium and Copyleaks) but the client threatened he would open a dispute and so he did. I, of course, refused his cancellation request and contacted customer support supporting my position that this client was a scam looking for free work, and made sure to provide the necessary proof that his claims were unfounded and that he was just looking for free work. In the meantime, the client left abusive and sarcastic comments telling me that my reviews (which were currently excellent) show how much I care for my clients blah blah blah and other intimidating comments. He also made false assumptions that the reason I took one day extra to deliver (which he agreed) was the bad quality of my work--again completely unreasonable.
Again, to my unpleasant surprise, the system notified me after a few hours of him opening the case that they had canceled the order and returned his funds, also falsely accusing me of incomplete delivery (I delivered both parts, each one day apart, with proof by the final extended deadline) which is completely unreasonable as the client himself has requested cancellation falsely accused me of another reason plagiarism.
Not only that, the client was able to leave me a 1.2-star review and ruin my excellent ratings, even after cancellation stating I'm the worst seller on the platform. I could not reply to this review and my reply was not documented at all nor I could leave a review about him as well or block him whatsoever which is very frustrating. Upon examining his ratings, another seller indicated recently had a bad experience with him which makes him even more dubious.
I expressed my disappointment and anger to customer support and provided all screenshots of earlier interactions and documents exchanged with the client and final deliveries but I have yet to hear from them. It's just so sad that they usually rush and end the case in the client's favor without actually examining things from the seller's perspective.
I have been on this platform for 10 years and completed successfully over 1000 orders and things are becoming increasingly unfair for sellers like us. I haven't had such problems with other freelancer websites and it appears the new system is slowly killing old sellers like us and giving this scammer the right to rip our hard work off. I am seriously considering taking my business elsewhere where customer support, commissions, and protection from scam clients are better but Fivver sadly is the biggest source of clients for me.
