colegordon

I've been away from Fiverr for a little bit, but since I've come back I've been dealing with rampant spam and unserious queries from brand new profiles. Eh, whatever, I can deal with spams. But today someone contact me and was pretty much trying force me to work with him. He wanted something outside the scope of my capabilities and I kept telling him I wasn't the right person for the job, gave him tips on what to search for to find the correct match, and even sent him different seller suggestions. But he kept responding with things like, "I want you to do it." "I believe in you. Please work do it for me." "I know you can do it." Then he said he really wanted to work with me because a friend recommended me and said I was "nice and helpful." Which was a blatant lie because Fiverr showed me that he came through a "promoted" click. In the end, he threw a tantrum, "I guess my friend was wrong about you. Go ahead and block me then." So I did. I guess my question is, are there any new scammy tricks that I need to be cautious about? I've never encountered anything like that. But Fiverr in general has been weird since I came back. Any tips on how to navigating going forward?

Does your bank charge low processing fees? I've just been looking at the three fees with direct tranfers: Conversion fees + Payoneer fees + Bank fees.

Does your bank charge low processing fees? I've just been looking at the three fees with direct tranfers: Conversion fees + Payoneer fees + Bank fees.

Did you withdraw at the ATM first?

Is it cheaper to withdraw your funds at the ATM and then deposit it in your local bank account, rather than to transfer the funds from Payoneer directly to your bank account? Which method have you found saves you more in fees? Thanks so much in advance for your advice!

For my graphic work, I automatically write-off anyone who comes asking for samples as a time-waster. There’s plenty of samples, especially of recently delivered work, on my gig profile. What that tells me is that they didn’t bother to read and/or view without contacting me, or they’re fishing for ideas. Ex. One guy came to me recently for a cover design and had a bunch of questions. I spent time giving him advice on his genre and why X won’t work and Y will. Then he asked me to give him a couple of ideas of how I would design his cover for him. I told him the truth: I never know until I start designing. His reply was, “I know you probably don’t want to tell me because I haven’t ordered yet…” This immediately tipped me off to what he was doing. So I sent him a custom offer and told him that we would talk more once he placed the order. He replied, “Fine.” But he never did place the order. Turns out he had an order with a $5 seller the entire time and was trying to use me for ideas to pass on to the other seller (I tracked him). He wanted my knowledge but he didn’t want to pay for it. For my blurb writing gig, I don’t share samples of previous work out of confidentiality. Unless a client chose to share their work when leaving a review so it pops up on my profile, I won’t share it with anyone. There are two different buyers with this gig. Those who reply with, “I won’t buy your gig since I don’t know the quality of your writing”, and those who reply with, “Oh, okay, I understand. Please send me a custom offer for…” I’ve never had any problems with the latter. That said, this is just my own way of doing things. It’s worked for me. You just have to use your judgment and past experiences with bad clients to develop your own '“screening” method.

What’s up with sellers being so terrified of bad reviews? I saw another post the other day where sellers are saying they’d rather cancel than get a bad review. I’m sorry, but I value my time and I’m not going to let buyers bully me and get away with it because I’m afraid of a bad review. Also, I’ve purchased from sellers with all glowing 5-star reviews, not one bad review, and got really crappy service that left me wondering where all those good reviews came from. And I’ve purchased from sellers with multiple bad reviews and got quality service. That said, I’ve become VERY picky as a seller. I now tell a lot of potential buyers that I am not available even when I am, based on a number of things - like that first contact message, or if they’re asking for samples or trying to bargain, etc. As a result, I have very few bad experiences. When I do get a bad review, I simply tell my side of the story.