Time does not go very well for each order on Fiverr. Some situations will come that you have to handle with caution and confidence.
Not all clients are equal. Not all buyers have the ability to think of worse situations from a seller’s perspective.
Leaving aside some bad clients, there are also some other clients who might be good as a person. But they are not good as a client. They only understand their need and think about their own benefits. And never take measurements or compare their budget & expectations.
In a nutshell, they do not try to understand or honor the “Scope of Work”. So you may need to cancel the order on Fiverr as well.
As a seller, you might work very hard during the day and the deep night. You try to tie all the bells & whistles to impress the client, recurring orders, and 5 stars reviews. But now the worse time came that you have to handle it at the earliest time possible. Let’s get into it…
What happens when you cancel an order on Fiverr?
If you cancel an order on Fiverr, a few negative things will/may happen with your account, gigs, and level. And it has a direct impact on your search appearance. I believe you already know about these topics. And that is why I’ll not go through any brief discussion on them.
But these are the gist that will happen after order cancellation
You lose money for your hard work, you lose the client forever, and it decreases your gig performance & order completion rate. Your current seller level may drop in the next evaluation and more.
- You will lose money for your hard work.
- You will lose the client forever. Because this specific client will never come back to you. Nor you will have the desire to work for this client again.
- Your gigs will be down, meaning your gigs will appear less time in Fiverr’s Search Results. And this slow downtime may go for a long period of time, for example, 30 to 60 days. But it does not affect everyone equally and there are other things involved with it. You can override this effect with your intuition, creativity, and efforts.
- Your “Order Completion” rate will be decreased. And if it goes beyond 90%, then you will lose your current Level in the next evaluation (the 15th day of each month). But if you can go above/equal to 90% before the next evaluation date, it will not hurt.
These are the main effects of order cancellation on Fiverr. But there are worst-case scenarios than order cancellation. Those kinds of situations may lead your freelance career to risk. So you should think wisely & may need to cancel the order on Fiverr as a seller. Or ask the client to cancel the order.
When you should cancel an order on Fiverr?
You can cancel an order as a seller on Fiverr if the following things happen to you:
Revision Abuse:
In your Gig, you have the option to offer a number of revisions. And it could be 0-9 or Unlimited.
If your client exhausted the number of revision(s) from the offerings and if the client forces you to do more revisions without extra cost then it is time to think about canceling the order.
But if you can do the revision without much hassle and without expending a huge time, then you can of course do the revision and re-deliver the order.
If you see that your buyer asks for revisions repeatedly, I would say there is no reason to work for sine-die.
Sometimes sellers end up with 10/15 revisions and then cancel the order. So it’s better to cancel the order after 2/3 revisions. Though you will lose your money for your hard work, early action will save you time. And it will help you to focus on other projects/orders.
Keep in mind that a good client never asks for more than 2/3 of revisions. If your client exceeds more than 3 revisions then you have to be mentally prepared for the order cancellation. No matter how many revisions you offer, or even if you offer Unlimited Revisions. A good client will never ask you for more than 3 revisions.
Just politely tell the client like this: “I tried my best for you & put my highest effort into your order. Unfortunately, I can not do more than it. If you are still not happy with my work, you can cancel the order & get a full refund. I will accept your dispute.”
Luckily, you don’t have to struggle too much because you already learned from my mistakes.
Protip: There are other great alternatives to Fiverr that also might be worth checking out. Don’t mess up with one specific platform that not suits you well.
Out of Scope:
Out of scope refers to the extra work which was not included in your contract. Your client may want you to do additional work which you have not promised to do. This type of client is a real danger and their expectation never ends –the sky is the limit.
For example- you are a web developer and you were hired to develop a three-page website. Once you complete your work and deliver the order, the client may ask you to design & develop 1/2 additional pages. Just because they need it.
The problem is that if you offer them an additional price for the additional pages, they will not agree. And they will argue and prove that their expectation is correct someway.
You might think that it is their last requirement and once you do the extra pages, they will accept your order delivery and give you 5 stars review.
But in reality, those vague client comes with additional work which is not only out of scope but also annoying.
If you walk in their direction, you may end up with huge time wastage and negative feedback & even a refund.
But if you are lucky enough, they might leave a 5 stars public review (end of the harassment). Probably, they will give negative private feedback. So it’s a wise decision to take action at the beginning.
Reseller:
Reseller refers to the buyer who buys gigs from you and then resells them somewhere else with a higher price and makes a profit from your work.
This type of buyer gets orders from their client and comes to Fiverr to get their job done at a lower price.
They hire sellers on Fiverr, get their job done, and re-sell it to their clients at a higher price. You may not see any problem with this reselling at first sight. But these are the BIG VIRUS on Fiverr.
The resellers do not know the project requirement clearly or properly. And they do not even have a niche skillset to understand the project requirement.
Most of them just take orders from their clients only for the sake of money. During the work in progress, If you ask your project-related questions to this type of client (reseller), they are not able to answer your question at the first sight.
Either they will ignore your question or they might forward your question to their client. They (resellers) will come back to you upon getting a response from their client.
And if you ask them another question, then you may have to wait another 48 hours for the answer. Because they have to reach out to their client first. This type of triangle communication is hugely time-consuming & quite frustrating.
Finally & when you deliver your order, your buyer (reseller) will come back to you with revisions.
They will just copy & paste the revision requirements without knowing what involves. Fixing their issue is a real pain.
You might need to arrange a talk show with your client & their clients to understand & fix the issue.
But in reality, you both may end up with unhappiness.
Another big problem, this type of buyer (reseller) generally hires multiple sellers for the same task and accepts the best one, and initiates refund disputes for the rest of the sellers.
Because they (resellers) know that Fiverr will not release the payments to the seller until they approve the seller’s work. Sellers are the victim in most cases.
So if you believe that you are working for a reseller and they are harassing you, go ahead and tell them politely to cancel the order.
People say “Prevention is Better than Cure.” So ask a lot of questions to your future buyers and get everything you need to complete the order. And only then send them ‘Custom Offers’ to get started.
Of course, things are not always in your hand. Because buyers can order any of your gigs/packages without asking you a single question.
So be sure to add necessary questions with your gig as well. A seller can add up to 10 requirements/questions to a gig. Also, make sure you marked your questions as mandatory (*) where applicable.
Money Replacement Trap:
It’s a buyer-side fraudulent activity. It’s a way of partially replacement of your gig price with illegal goodwill.
Let’s say- your gig price is $300 USD but a buyer may offer you like this: “Hey, I will give you $100 and a 5 stars review. Please do the job.”
That means the buyer wants to replace your $200 USD with 5 stars review.
It’s a total scam. Never ever accept this kind of offer.
Buyers are always welcome to negotiate with sellers and they can offer any price to any seller. But deducting the seller’s money with reviews or something else is totally non-professional behavior and a part of fraudulent activities.
Now, what happens when an existing client offered you this trap? What if your existing client wants you to do additional work for getting a 5-star review?
Take a breath, calm down and politely tell them “It’s against Fiverr’s Terms of Service and you can not violate their rules.”
If they do not agree with you and if they push you repeatedly, go ahead & flag the specific message and raise a ticket to customer support. If the customer support agent stands on the buyer’s side, then go ahead and cancel the order. But never become a victim of this type of Money Replacement Trap. Bravo!
Were you able to take any decision regarding the order cancellation? Let me know.
These are the few main reasons why you can cancel an order on Fiverr and learn from it. Canceling orders may cause disheartening. But sometimes it is the only way to fix an issue and sometimes it is a necessary evil. Don’t be afraid, if you have quality, then the time will come for you.
FAQ
Look for a link/button “Visit the Resolution Center” on the right sidebar of your order page. Click the button and describe your reason for the order cancellation. After then, the Fiverr customer support team will receive your request. And they will review it and notify the client regarding the cancellation. The client has 2 days to respond. Otherwise, the order will be canceled automatically.
The buyer did not respond to the above case and that’s why it was canceled automatically (after 2 days). But if the buyer would respond and agree to the cancellation, then it would be “Mutual Cancellation.” See the below screenshot:
No matter if it’s a seller or buyer, everyone has to go through the resolution center (Fiverr customer support) to cancel an order.
So, yes a seller can cancel an order on Fiverr and the process is the same as a buyer.
Customer support will review the reason for cancellation, check the order and notify the buyer to respond to the cancellation request. The buyer can either accept the cancellation or reject/decline it. And this is also true for the opposite. That means that if a buyer wants to cancel, the seller has the right to accept or reject it.
If the buyer rejects the cancellation and if the buyer can manage the seller to work, they can complete the order.
But if the seller raises the cancellation request again and if they (seller & buyer) fail to manage each other, then customer support will take over and make their decision.
The buyer has 3 days to accept the delivery/order or ask for revision. If the buyer failed to respond within 72 hours, the order will be automatically marked as completed.
But if the buyer keeps rejecting deliveries and asking for revisions, then it’s better to cancel the order.
Keep in mind that if the buyer wants to harass you, you’ll never get the money for your work, no matter how outstanding work you have done. Because Fiverr always stands on the buyer’s side when it comes to refunds or cancellations. Fiverr will never release the fund to the seller until the buyer accepts the order/delivery (except for the auto mark).
I sold more than $25,000 (twenty-five thousand USD) on Fiverr. And most of the sales had been made within a short period of time. Based on this practical experience, I have written an honest review of Fiverr. It’s worth checking out and will help you to become more proactive.
FIVERR REVIEW »
Conclusion
If a buyer does not release the fund, you’ll never get paid for your work. And even if you did a great job.
A seller never wins when it comes to disputes or order cancellations. So it’s a total waste of your time to prove your work and get the money through the dispute process, or with the help of customer support. It never ever happened on Fiverr.
From this context, you have to cancel the order yourself based on the above situations. If you take action at the right time, it will at least save you time and help you to focus on other projects.
But if hang with your emotion and keep fighting with the buyer & customer support, you’ll lose time, money, and many other things. So, make your decision wisely and at the right moment.