Update 6/19: I’ve had some experience with the withdrawal system now. It’s pretty easy and, despite the fee for going through PayPal, is painless enough. It’s certainly accessible enough for even the novice to use. However, remember that after you first link your account to your PayPal account you need to wait 24 hours before making a withdrawal. It’s for security reasons and I see why they do it but I thought I’d let everyone know. It happens if you change the PayPal email you’re linked to, too. Still, I got the money very quickly and fairly easily so Fiverr is still by far the best freelance experience I’ve had.
Nevertheless, my book review gig was denied again. I’m asking customer service for help understanding how I “violated a third party’s intellectual property rights or rules”, but it’s still frustrating that this keeps happening to me when I know that other people on the site offer similar services through their blogs. I’ll let you know what happens when they reply.
Update: Fiverr replied and essentially said the same thing that they told me when they removed the Gig. I’m going to take it to mean that I shouldn’t reference any third-party sites, such as Amazon and Goodreads, anywhere in the Gig description just to be safe. Don’t want to accidentally violate any site’s terms. I suggest everyone else err on the side of caution as well.
I’m here with another side-job update, this time on Fiverr. In the last side-job update I gave you, I talked about how I was content with only having Fiverr to get freelancing jobs. That’s still the truth but I’ve encountered an issue since then that I feel I should let you know about.
For the second time since I joined Fiverr less than two months ago, one of my Gigs has been denied. This time the denial came after I edited the Gig to include some more information, information I would’ve happily removed if they had told me it was a problem in the first place. More importantly, this Gig was my most popular Gig.
I had edited my “I will review your published book and post the review on my blog” Gig to include the URL for this blog and to mention that I’ll put reviews on Amazon and Goodreads as well. They informed me earlier today that my Gig was pending approval because they don’t generally allow outside URLs in Gigs and that I needed to modify the Gig. I went in and removed the URL. No big deal, right? Should’ve been OK after that, right? Wrong.
Apparently some “third party” had reported me as violating their terms of service with this Gig. Mind you, neither Amazon nor Goodreads ever told me that they had a problem with my reviews. I don’t know the exact reason why they didn’t tell me of an issue but I’m guessing it’s because I actually did read the books I reviewed and I provided my honest opinions, both positive and negative. I never write “fluff” reviews; I only write what I truly think about the work. Still, someone complained to Fiverr and my most popular Gig was denied.
I have since posted a new version of that Gig in which I don’t mention Amazon, Goodreads, or anything of the like. Instead, I say that I provide honest, thorough reviews on my blog. I have also contacted Fiverr customer support and asked them to tell me what exactly I did wrong so that I can avoid it in the future. I’ll update this post after they answer me.
Hopefully there will be no issues with the new Gig. I love writing about my opinions on books and this Gig has given me an opportunity to read and review books I wouldn’t have discovered otherwise. I don’t want to lose that opportunity.
Fortunately the removal of that Gig did not also remove the 5-star reviews I had. I’ve worked hard to earn those reviews and I’d rather not lose them. I also still have the order I had in the queue for that Gig, so I’m glad I didn’t lose money because of that. I’m just upset that I had over a thousand impressions on that Gig and now I’m virtually starting over. I also would’ve liked it if they had told me that the Amazon and Goodreads stuff was a problem while I was modifying the Gig for the URL issue. I would’ve removed those options without hesitation had they told me then.
My advice is to be very careful about your wording and very patient if you want to get work through Fiverr. The first Gig I had denied was due to minor errors in wording that were mistaken for term violations (which I never meant it to be), and I had to create two new Gigs to ensure that the misunderstanding did not happen again. Once your Gig is denied, you can’t access it again, so you’ll have to rewrite it and hope that you didn’t accidentally violate terms again. It’s a learning experience and you just have to tread lightly.
Fiverr is still by far the best freelancing site I’ve ever been a member of. Despite all these minor Gig denial issues, Fiverr has not deleted or suspended my account, for which I’m incredibly grateful. Upwork is not as generous. Fiverr also has an incredibly large reach and it’s easy to promote your Gigs via social media. I’d recommend Fiverr to anyone looking for freelance work in any field. However, I also recommend caution in your Gigs and patience when Fiverr denies a Gig.
What are your thoughts on Fiverr? Have any advice, cautionary tales, or success stories? Leave them in the comments below.
