miiila

That isn't really the problem, though, the problem with briefs so far isn't that I'm not comfortable with any of that, but that 99% of the briefs I got, were either telegram scam attempts, or not at all for anything related to my Gigs. The system needs some major improvement. The telegram scam ones can be tricky, as sometimes, they only get out with what's actually up in your reply to their brief/BR, but it must be possible to code the thing in a way that, for example, a seller who only offers translation into Chinese, won't get briefs about translation into all the other languages, as such Gigs, at creation, have drop-downs to choose "from" and "into". It's only been a time sink for me so far, and not because I'd not have been comfortable with any of the terms, but it was either scams, or I literally couldn't have accepted the order, because I don't provide the requested service. Plus, in many cases, unfortunately, it's been both the telegram scam and for a service I don't provide, too. Okay, technically, you could say, the issue were the REQUIREMENTS, because I don't want to take part in a telegram scam, or deliver something I don't offer and can't provide, but, you know.

Report the messages. It's a really annoying spam/scam wave, thankfully it wasn't normal, but lately it kind of is. I hardly see anything else on BR, get hardly anything else as Briefs, and also get them directly in my Messages. And it's not just spam. As one can also guess from most of their messages, someone who had actually replied to some of them on telegram, has posted on the forum, and said he worked for them, without ever seeing any money (of course).

It's interesting that you don't get the telegram scam briefs "at least", I thought there'd surely be some that would be matchable to writing Gigs too. I already got 4 of the scam briefs today, and it's only midday, so they may be targeting only certain categories. Or could it be due to the $50 that I set as a minimum for briefs? As those scams usually have a dizzyingly high budget for here, in the hundreds and thousands, they may not get matched to sellers who set lower limits? On the other hand, some have only "flexible" for budget and everything else, they are trying different tactics.

Frank had posted that a while ago, before his trip already, I'm pretty sure. I read it and turned the feature on again because of that. Not that it helped, the two or three times I sent a message, they messaged back with, guess ... right, a telegram address I was supposed to message for further information. Sadly, almost all briefs I'm getting, are either definitely one of those scam briefs, or very much look as if they are, and the remaining 1% or so is for something I don't even remotely offer. The briefs need people to filter out the telegram scams, shouldn't be too hard, but, yeah, guess it requires personpower. But, in any case, messaging instead of sending an offer is possible now, and you have "Suspected spam / buyer not credible" for choice among the rejection reasons, that are already two advantages over BR. Now, if there only were actual briefs by actual customers who wanted to pay and not scam you on telegram...

Are you sure? There's a "Message Buyer" button since a while on my briefs. Doesn't really help, though, if you have to keep rejecting them as "Suspected spam / buyer not credible", almost all briefs I get are those telegram scam ones that also clutter BR lately.

Hi Ashane. Is that a theoretical question? I see that you have seven 5-star reviews, so your buyer does seem happy, and not angry, and it seems to be going well for you. If you're talking about a specific experience, some more details would be helpful. If it's a general and theoretical question, it's not really possible to answer that in a few sentences, there are whole books about subjects related to that. Ask yourself what elements may be at play, and look up information, for example "expectation management", "business communication", "how to please unhappy customers", "customer psychology", "customer service skills", "working with customers", "collaboration with customers", "dealing with angry customers", and other associated search phrases may be good starting points for your research. There are shiploads of information at your fingertips.

Exactly. It's tiring, though, this endless supply of sketchy link/contact me/our CEO/our assistant manager/etc. on telegram/what'sapp/gmail/etc. spammers... 😴 Today, I was so annoyed, that, instead of my usual canned quick response and hitting the report or spam button, I spent a bit longer and typed a reply, "Not again. ... will be reported every single time." Not that it will deter them in any way, they seem to be able to open countless accounts, or use some kind of pyramid scheme, with ever new rank and file. "Not again" is basically my first thought, whenever I hear or see a notification coming in lately. Without a few regular customers in the mix, it would be close to 100% spam/scam. Well. This spam/scam wave too shall pass. I hope.

Let's for a moment, against all odds, assume that you misunderstood the Ukraine gig place, OP, and thought that all proceeds from your Gig, if placed there, will be donated. In that case, simply sell your Gig as you sold it before, in its usual place, and directly donate your revenue, once withdrawn, and after researching an organisation that supports Ukraine and that you trust. I think I must be still fast asleep and only dreaming about reading and posting on this forum.

Why did you think it was supposed to go up, did you get and deliver orders successfully?

Depends on the reason for the forum ban, I'd say, Fiverr's ToS are valid for both main site and forum, and some forum rules may overlap with ToS, too. If someone tries hard enough to get "sanctions" on the forum, I think they might have a chance at succeeding in getting banned on the main site, even though it's probably a rare occurrence, or may not have actually happened yet . Hopefully, though, OP has just a theoretical interest in this question and doesn't plan on trying to find out through major ToS violations.

Those "guide me", "help me", "order me" seller spam is the usual spam that I get all the time. I'm talking about a new recent phenomenon, people who pretend that they represent some company/agency, and try to get you to message them, or the CEO, or JhonSmiht (weird spelling on purpose) or whomever, on some usually telegram, sometimes gmail account. It all looks super scammy, and there's already a forum post by a seller who unwisely, unfortunately, and against Fiverr's ToS, actually replied to even more than one of them, and let them scam him into working for them, without any payment. Looks like either a scammer who manages to open account after account after account, or a scammer team, who try (apparently at least successfully in one case that I know of from the forum, so I'll assume there are more) to lure sellers off-Fiverr to make them work for free and pass on that work to their poor customers. If it's not even more scammy than that. I'd be tempted to investigate and maybe do more than report them to Fiverr when they message me directly or through briefs, but I'd have to violate Fiverr's ToS to reach out to them, so I won't. To me, it sounds as if laurens_designs is talking about the same thing, as they say "lately". That seller spam, new sellers who don't know how to use the platform and think we all have enough time and energy to reply and guide them all, instead of them doing their own homework, reading ToS, Help Center, forum, etc., that youre referring to, is happening since years. All those messages, BRs and briefs that I'm taking about, are a recent phenomenon, and definitely scammers, posing as companies or agencies, and showing certain patterns, not your typical helpless and hapless new seller.

Yes, I did, and they have. There's a constant barrage of spam that's intended scams at the same time lately, in direct messages, BR, and briefs. Everything has roughly the same pattern, so not hard to identify, once you noticed, but so annoying, and such a time-waste. It's so bad that I hardly feel like reading messages or BRs or briefs anymore, because it is or feels like 99% spam/scam now. I hope Fiverr will be able to fix this sooner rather than later.

Yesss! The much needed rejection reason "Suspected spam / Buyer not credible" got added! Now, just "Suspected ToS violation" is missing.

2 more brief notifications and accompanying mails urging me to reply quickly to stay ahead of the competition later... 💤. Same sender, same scam attempt, different countries. I suppose, I'll have ... how many countries/languages are there these days ... a whole collection, eventually. Maybe they plan an "I scammed a person from every existing country" YT video. Is it bad for some secret rating if I stop rejecting them and waste a little less time by just checking for long enough to know it's them again...?

Woke up to 3 more "briefs" that not only were not for a service I offered, but also, again, scams after the same pattern as the 9 from yesterday, and as are so rampant in BR lately, that I almost want to call it SR. As the forum topic by a seller who fell for it, shows, that leads to sellers working for that person or those people (the "BR"s/"briefs" are so similar that it probably is either the same scammer or a scammer team or ring or franchise or whatever shadiness) off-Fiverr, without getting paid. One can only hope that at least the work they are doing is "just" normal jobs that those outsourcing scammers want done for free, and nothing that's then being used for more deceptive or illegal or otherwise questionable schemes. I really hope Fiverr will stop this soon. Waking up to even more notifications about briefs that turn out to be even more of those scam attempts, and only to such briefs, is no nice way to start one's day.

Hi. Can you please let us know from where you are taking the 3-4% info?

I just got 7x the very same brief by the very same person in a row, with 2 x "PosingAsBuyer123 decided it was not the right time and decided to cancel their brief" sprinkled in between... I did reject it with "other" instead of "no service I offer", to ask Fiverr to check in the text field... Apart from that, it wasn't for a service I offer, as in probably 98% of all briefs I got so far, and I'm 100% sure it's a scam attempt; it had exactly the pattern of many BRs I'm seeing in BR lately, one of which I had replied to, to maybe learn more about what kind of scam it was and to confirm my suspicions to be correct, although I had zero doubt. They were correct. The pattern person insisted on me contacting them off-platform, so I didn't learn what kind of scam they are trying to pull off, but they aren't just in BRs but also in briefs. Tiring. Résumé of the day: "Briefs" managed to be more annoying even than the usual seller inbox spam. A real pity, it's such a good idea, I hope it gets better; today was the absolute lowlight in my "brief experience" so far.

This might be just me, but I'd only hire an accountant from the same country that I have to file my taxes. Anything else just doesn't seem to make sense or be prudent. Thus, as an accountant, I'd focus on pitching to fellow countrypeople and/or people from other countries that need to file tax in my country, and adjust my Fiverr Gigs and any other advertising efforts accordingly.

After a dozen or so briefs that weren't for a service I offer (which, I think, should be easy even for an AI to figure out, just by taking one drop-down into account that I had to choose from from when creating my Gig), finally, there was one that looked as if it was. Sadly, the reply to my message (great improvement over having to send an actual offer right away, still, though!) was to contact them via telegram...

Careful there with the fiverr logo in your image. "Don't use logos without the owner's consent or the license holder's permission." Unless you have that consent or permission, I'd drop that, right now, or ask support if you feel like you have the right to use it, to have their okay black on white.

Maybe it looks to the system as if you are using something like an auto-refresher to appear online, which is being frowned upon/against the rules, yes. If you are "very active" (not sure what exactly that means 🙂 ) in a normal way, like reading buyer requests, delivering your orders, replying to messages, that's not against the rules, of course. You could contact support and ask them. Not sure what else you could do, other than be less active (which doesn't make sense if you're active with reason, obviously), perhaps try out a different browser (Fiverr used to recommend Chrome, as it's optimized for that) and see if it's the same then.

Thanks for that, I turned the feature on again, for now, in the hope that they may also have managed to fine-tune their matches a bit, as in, not 90% of all briefs will be for things I clearly don't offer at all. Not having to send an actual offer to the vague briefs is in any case a big improvement. 🙂

I hope they thought of that, but think it's possible. I haven't put out a brief as a buyer, but my response rate was affected, when I bought from some designer and didn't reply to an order page message of his, because there was no need to reply, and I was the buyer in that scenario, so I thought it's fine. It wasn't.

Your equanimity is admirable. But my philosophy is, "If the wall starts throwing mud, go and watch Netflix instead". 😉 I believe in giving back, even in giving without having got or getting anything back, though, so I keep trying things, and also to try and help when I spot walls that look (but aren't always) sticky at least every once in a while. But your equanimity, perseverance and regularity is admirable for real, that wasn't (just) banter!

Yes, it remains a mystery... unless, of course, they didn't ignore but didn't even read the advice, even if it was pointed out directly to them. It's one of the reasons I stopped trying to help in Improve My Gig, too, it mostly seemed pointless.