Hey readers,
I am posting this about my business partner who's account has since been banned. He can no longer access the forum. It is a worthy story shining light on the highs and lows of Fiverr. I share this so all fellow freelancers know how unstable the FIverr platform can be and to think twice before you pursue a career on Fiverr full time.
Background:
Joined Fiverr in October 2020 as a UK seller selling high-ticket services on Fiverr in the business consultancy category.
Top Rated Seller in March 2022.
Left full-time employment in September 2022 to pursue Fiverr.
$300,000 earned October 2020 -December 2022
February 2023 was invited to Tel Aviv Fiverr HQ in Isreal (Pictured). Met Success Manager team in person at the office and had coffee with them.
Fiverr PRO Application prepared February 2023.
Monthly income average $30,000 in 2023.
Over 1k 5 star reviews.
March 2023:
Mobile App was logged-out and upon logging back in I received "Your account has been temporarily suspended" notification.
Sent a What's App and Email to my Customer Success Manager asking what is going on.
CSM informs me she will review and get back to me ASAP.
Automated notification from Fiverr Customer Support that my account has been permanently suspended. No reason given.
CSM responds with a robotic reply saying that there has been a breach of Fiverr Terms and that I am banned.
All future e-mails to Fiverr have been ignored. What's App blocked by Fiverr CSM.
Total earnings at time of ban was approx $360,000 ($300,000 was the last I had pictured).
Clearly the impact on me, my wife and our family has been huge. To go from $30,000 per month to $0 with no warning, no violation demotion and no explanation has been extremely difficult and impacted me emotionally and financially. What I find most difficult, is just a month before the account was removed I was laughing and talking over coffee with Fiverr employees in the HQ who I assumed were friends and now they do not reply and did not even give me an explanation or opportunity for appeal.
Needless to say - I do not know what Fiverr term I was in breach of. I have thoroughly reviewed them and cannot tell that I did anything wrong. I was not doing anything differently to the previous 3 years on the platform. I have a strong suspicion that a competitor has found a way to remove other sellers, as a number of other successful sellers offering a similar service were removed around the same time. There are now only 2 sellers offering the service in the market.
I have finally reached a position emotionally where I can write this post without driving myself crazy, but I thought it was a story worth sharing. Yes Fiverr can be a way to make a huge amount of money, but the platform is incredibly unstable and very unreliable. Some of my key findings and what I would like others to take away are as follows:
Fiverr systems and platforms are nowhere near as robust or sophisticated as the likes of Amazon, which opens them up for manipulation and you can be removed with no chance of appeal.
Any kind of relationship or trust you have with your success manager does not help. Even if you meet them in person.
I would strongly consider you think again before deciding to leave a full-time career to focus on Fiverr. At least until you have built up another revenue stream that is not on Fiverr.
When you are earning on Fiverr make sure you save a sizeable sum every month to protect yourself should a similar thing happen. I am fortunate that I was able to save most of my earnings, which I am using to fund new business ventures.
I hope you're able to take something from my story. It could be reassurance that high earnings are possible and achievable on the platform. It could also be that operating on the platform can be risky. There are many lessons here for current and future sellers.
I wish you all the best!
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