Fiverr

I consulted a seller about a publishing project. The seller is level 2 with 800 five-star reviews. So I was confident he would be professionally competent. In the course of describing and negotiating the project, he asked me to send the documents. At that point, he dropped communication. This was after he'd been replying within an hour normally.

So, I waited a few days to follow up. No reply. I asked to confirm that he was receiving my messages. No reply. After five days, I contacted customer service. They were friendly and did reply, but when I explained the matter, there was nothing substantially done. Finally, after a week elapsed, there was still no resolution by any party.

It's very hard for me to understand how a top-ranked seller could behave with such careless disregard and why Fiverr customer service would not swiftly act to settle the matter and to validate the customer's legitimate concerns.

It's reprehensible to ask to review documents sent by a buyer/client and then to show no respect or care for the client/buyer or materials sent. And why wouldn't he seller simply get back to me and say, "Sorry this job isn't right for me" if he didn't want to work on it? Why leave a client hanging? Why create unnecessary confusion? And this is a seller without a single negative review? The interaction raises many doubts.

Though there are no doubt some good sellers on Fiverr and buyers who have good experiences, this interaction (my first on the site) has been a big red flag.

Update: Customer service did get back to finally, once again. I cannot fault them for trying. But they never received an answer as to what happened. I offer this review in case it's helpful to people who are considering fiverr as a buying platform.

Fivver is one of those site where you have to take small steps in using a seller. After using fivver a few times, I relized that $ 5.00 gigs was the bare minimum service for most sellers. The more you want done the more it's going to cost. Yes, there are some sammer on there, but you have to order with caution. When working eith a fivver seller, know what you want. Be able to communicate that in great detail with seller. If you don't give detail of your project the seller want know what your project needs are. Communication is the #1 key factor in using fivver. When a seller doesn't deliver on time or communicate with you, cancel the order and try someone else. It's nothing lost, because fivver will refund your account. You then take your refund and try another seller.
Over the past couple of years since I've been using the service, I have had some good 5 star service and serveal canceled orders. But overall, I have found fivver to be a great business tool for those who work on a small to no budget. With anything shop with caution. Some of the thing I've had done:
1. Business phone line greetings
2. Facebook advertisement
3. Flyers
4. Logos
5. Fundraiser Donation letter
6. Product mockup
7. Product package design
And more

I'm going to post more reviews for this site based on the products I buy. Since everyone here is an independent contractor or freelancer like me, I don't think it would be fair for me to judge based on one or two bad services.

This particular review is based on the logo design. To be fair, I did not purchase any of their so-called "vetted" sellers that they call PRO sellers. These are apparently professionals they hired from all over the world. They charge in the thousands. I don't trust their vetting process and didn't want to spend that much money to discover yet more stolen or mediocre work because of all the bad experiences.

I have spent as high as $150. When I paid the lowest price of $5, I received clip art - okay, that's fair, I get what I paid for - right? No, not exactly, it was downloaded probably from Google. I could have done that myself without paying anyone $6 (there is a $1 processing fee tacked on) and waiting two days. That seller had no legal right to sell me something he does not own. This happened to me 3 times for logos I bought from low as $5 to high as $25.

When I spent the higher price based on really good description on their gig page, it was the same result. It wasn't stolen stuff they gave me but the work was awful, communication was even worse. The only time they seem to send me messages was when they wanted more money. If I pay them, they disappear until they deliver at the last minute.

The products I received were below average all across the board from everyone I bought from. They only care about getting 5 star reviews and getting as much money from you as possible.

If you end up getting a decent logo - google search it because its likely stolen from another designer. If you use a logo that belongs to someone else, it's you who will get sued not the person you hired on Fiverr.

I bought two different services from this site. I paid someone $15 to come up with titles for my story I was working on. I gave them the summary of my story and its themes and told them I was looking for something poetic. They took a few days to complete which I thought meant they were working hard on it. I soon got a list of title ideas. Half of them were titles for books that are already published and don't even make sense for my book. My book was about mothers and daughters and I get a title suggestion that says, "the fastest horse in the race" (not exactly this but the same idea). It's like they just used an online title generator (which I could have done for free). Very disappointed, not sure how they had all good reviews. Next I paid for someone to edit the first part of my book. I wanted them to do a little bit of developmental editing and editing and critique. Well, they returned the word document and their own comments and suggestions were filled with typos! This really bugged me. They wrote down all of their opinions on my story and it had poor grammar/spelling. I thought maybe they were in a hurry. But then I went to edit over my book and I find that it still has some issues. So what did I pay them for? You also cannot go back and edit your reviews. I then wanted to hire a book cover designer. I found a seller and asked if they done any kind of sketch before payment and if they could verify their work isn't copyrighted. Well the only response I got was about their pricing, no answers to my questions. I am a digital artist so I understand the work that goes into creating a design. But they wanted $250 for a ebook cover and $450 for a hard copy book cover! Come on now. So instead I drew up my own book cover which I'm very happy with. But really? I feel like I should become a seller on this site because I wouldn't be charging so much and I'd actually provide better services.

At first I thought Fiverr was a great way to earn extra cash, until I started realizing the many frustrations that come from being a freelancer on Fiverr. First, they take 20% of all your proceeds (which is a lot considering the low prices sellers make). I understand that they need to make money but then they take 20% of your hard earned tips! I have received hundreds of dollars of tips and instead of getting to keep 100%, they take credit for sellers going above and beyond! Next, they charge money for you to just withdraw your earnings. If you try to inquire about anything, their customer support is a joke and they never adequately resolve any issue you bring to them. Second, if you are on vacation (and in some cases do not even have internet access), sellers can still contact you if they are past clients and if you don't respond then your response time gets lowered and buyers are less likely to choose your services. Third, and most frustrating, Fiverr can delete your gigs for absolutely no reason without even discussing it with you first. I had a gig up for 1 whole year, received a fair amount of work and a large amount of money from it (which also means Fiverr received a good amount of money as well), had all 5 star reviews, and Fiverr removed the gig without any warning and just said it was a violation. There are 150 other gigs just like mine but somehow they aren't violations. There is no trust with Fiverr and I don't believe they have seller's interests at heart. They favor the buyer over the seller and treat their sellers like garbage. They don't try to keep their sellers happy and I guarantee they have lost a lot of good sellers because of it. I am a level two seller with all 5 star review who generates a good amount of revenue for Fiverr and they are going to lose my business because I'm absolutely fed up.

I hired an expert on Fiverr to fix a bug on my website and he did a great job. It took only one hour and everything was perfect.