Roger R.

I had been a member since 2008 or '09 or so, but never really bothered to fill out my profile completely, as I wasn't ready to do some traveling yet. I rec'd an email saying, "Hey, come visit the site and see what's new etc." I signed back on, and filled out some very, very personal data. I was then asked to verify my account both by cellphone (OK, fine), but also by either credit card or Paypal. I thought it would be a simple, under a dollar transaction with a full refund, just to see if I had a legit account. Next thing you know, I've been charged an "indefinitely recurring annual fee" of $20 USD! I never authorized this, and immediately cancelled the Paypal payment. I will be emailing them, tweeting them, and then closing my account.

I agree with all the 1-star reviews here. This site was hard to register (I had to jump through all kinds of hoops), and then they wanted my banking information. Huh? Paypal isn't enough?

The final straw was when they requested a sign-up fee or some such nonsense.

Yeah, no. There are a bazillion alternates to this site. Stay away!

I am an ex-Fiverr freelancer, and I say ex- for a few very good reasons, from all perspectives - freelancers selling gigs, customers buying those gigs, and the company itself. Let me enumerate why I left Fiverr.

1. Actual freelance work is generally hard to get in the first place if you're just starting out, unless you are willing to "SELL! SELL! SELL!" your product or service at a rock bottom price. In other words, about $1 USD/hr. The only way around this is to induce your "upsell", or else farm out your work to even lower paying workforces. Note that there is also a good chance that your "client" is in fact just another Fiverr worker, looking to act as a broker, and scouting out new talent. This is what happened to me. They were simply taking my work, making a few tweaks, and upselling to another client at a higher hourly rate.

Also, know up front that Fiverr will take a dollar out of every five dollars (not gigs, actual amount paid - $5 gig you get $4, custom order $500 gig, they get $100 etc.) so that's 20% of your earnings gone right there. Not only that, they will charge you additional money to transfer your money out of your Fiverr account to Paypal (who also might charge you, depending on how you've set your account up.) Fiverr will happily retain your earnings for a full 2 weeks (10 business days) before you are paid for your work. Excellent business practice, guys - nice way to scam your workforce!

2) I've never been an actual buyer on Fiverr, but pretty much all the issues that everyone else has brought up is right on the nose. Low cost equals low quality, in general. Not to mention copyright issues, communication issues, payment issues, and the overarching ethics of doing business this way.

The sweetest part about this? They also have a (imho) fishy payout schemes like Payza and Payoneer which issue you a debit card, on which there's also a fee.

As you can probably tell, I'm not happy with this business in the least.

At first I thought this site would be a good try. It had a well-made, modern-looking, and well-designed website, and convincing stats in terms of number of buyers and sellers. I signed up for the low level free account, because well - why not? After I failed after THREE attempts at their ridiculous verification process, I smelled a rat. They wanted "clear, unaltered photos" (done), a government-issued ID (done), and a recent utility bill, phone bill etc. to show true residency (done). Fine. I did all that. After a week or so, they told me that they couldn't verify me, but I'd passed two of their three checks.

Once you're in, the fine print says you have the option of paying them an extra monthly fee (at various membership levels) to increase your visibility. Oh, and every bid will cost you 3% or $3 USD, whichever is greater, which is actually not bad. Some sites I've seen charge as much as 20% for each bid you deliver on.

Then the real smell of rat emerged when I saw them asking me to take a "mandatory choice" of numeracy, literacy, or logic, each costing $5 -- otherwise my "profile would be incomplete". So in other words, I need to pay them first in order for them to potentially pay me, *IF* I won a bid for a job (yes, like many other freelancing sites, it's bid-based, like an eBay for jobs.) No thank you. That's not how I do business, and I refuse to "pay to play".

Stay away from this company at all costs, seriously...

EDITED UPDATE (In response to the feedback below)
Hello Freelancer Rep, thank you for your response to my feedback. I found my overall experience (beyond the initial hopes that this would be a suitable source for legit freelance jobs, as indicated above) to be quite bad, I'm afraid. I'll accept that verification may be required for certain types of employers, for tax purposes or other business reasons, but as for "skill tests", I can only say that 1) your process needs vast efficiency improvements, and 2) freelancers should emphatically *NOT* be the ones paying for these proficiency tests. Their skills and abilities should be self-evident from both their profiles, as well as the bid proposals they submit. Please take a look at your competitors' websites to see how this works, in particular, eLance / Upwork. No verification process, no money required for a multitude of optional skills tests, and just as many projects to bid on as your site. Also, withholding funds from your freelancers, cancelling projects without payment, etc. hurts your business as well as your reputation. I hope you pass this information up the management chain, unless your company is OK with the majority of reviews on this site that are tainting your reputation. Best regards.

- Roger