Many freelancers and buyers get their Fiverr accounts banned after violating certain terms of service. In some cases, they were not deliberately violated; however, ignorance is most times no excuse for a serious TOS violation.
Fiverr may warn you sometimes before account ban — but that’s not always the case. They may as well just go ahead and deactivate your account without any warnings.
In this guide, I’ll share with you some of the common mistakes you must never make — so that Fiverr will not deactivate your account.
When you join any business platform, the first thing you must do is read the terms of that platform. So this guide is in no way a substitute for Fiverr TOS; but rather, a guide to help you avoid your account getting banned.
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5 Common reasons Fiverr bans accounts
1. Hate speech
I’ve been a fan of Pewdiepie for a long time to know that the guy jokes with practically anything or anyone. However, he was unable to communicate the humor in his joke to the Fiverr owners.
Come on Pewdiepie! They are Israelis for crying out loud.
I don’t think any Israeli would ever find any humor in a joke that uses the exact antisemitic slogan used by countries and people that hate Israelis so much.
The Fiverr funny guys only had to put that message on a cardboard piece and hold it up the front of the camera for just $5.
And guess what! They did it anyway.
So much for $5…
Although the Fiverr funny guys claimed not to have understood the message written on that cardboard, their account still ended up getting deleted — ending their ‘lucrative Fiverr career’.
They actually spoke English to say they didn’t know what a message written in English meant — which made their claims all the more doubtful.
Regardless of them knowing what that message meant or not their account, along with Pewdiepie’s, ended up getting banned.
In other words, Fiverr doesn’t care if you deliberately promoted hate speech or not; whether you did it jokingly or on a serious note. When your Gig services or order promotes any form of hate speech, your account will get banned.
2. Multiple accounts
Owning several accounts gives you undue advantage over other sellers and can also get you banned.
It might be that you didn’t deliberately open several accounts. Maybe you opened an account and forgot the password to that account and decided to go ahead and open another.
Whatever cookies Fiverr uses to track IPs, I must confess is dangerously smart.
You cannot successfully run two accounts using the same IP address. If you do that, your account may get banned.
In some cases siblings use the same computer, probably a home desktop, to run separate Fiverr accounts.
If Fiverr support team notice those accounts, they may contact you to clarify things. But most times they don’t. They just go ahead and ban duplicate accounts without notification.
3. One payment account linked with several Fiverr accounts
Maybe a friend wanted you to help him withdraw money from Fiverr because he didn’t have a PayPal account — so you went ahead and used the same PayPal account linked with your own account to withdraw money from your friend’s account.
Fiverr will consider both accounts to be owned by the same person and may end up having either one or both accounts banned.
So, whatever you do, make sure you don’t link the same Payoneer or PayPal account with several Fiverr accounts.
4. Using buyer requests to promote your services
Many new freelancers, out of desperation to make sales, promote their services on buyer requests. The buyer request feature is exclusively for buyers to post jobs and for freelancers to post services.
Fiverr has a warning under its TOS that indicates that your account can get deactivated if you abuse the buyer request feature.
Instead of posting your services on buyer requests, it’s better to keep track of job postings; so as to be the first to send offers to buyers who post jobs.
5. Reviewing your own account
New sellers, most times, buy their own Gigs and give themselves positive ratings in order to give buyers the impression that they are capable of what they offer. However, if you get figured out, it can land you in hot water.
It shouldn’t be a bad idea to buy your own Gig if you’re actually good at what you do – but you’re not getting noticed by buyers.
But Fiverr happens to frown at that, which makes it extremely difficult for novices to pull off.
6. Exchanging email and phone number
Fiverr wants all transaction to be carried out on Fiverr. Consequently, if any seller tries to convince a buyer to do business with them outside or vice-versa, Fiverr will ban the guilty party.
Remember, messages you send on Fiverr are not private. They can actually be read by the Fiverr team. So you must never request for people’s emails or phone numbers. And if someone requests for yours, you must not give it to them.
7. Wrong choice of words in private messages and Fiverr forums
Fiverr must be the meanest freelance platform the whole world; that they even ban people for offenses in the Fiverr forum.
So if you use the forum a lot, you must mind your choice of words there. Your account can actually get banned as a result of an offense you committed in the Forum
I told you earlier that your private messages are not so private; so you must avoid having heated conversations with your contacts and with people in the forum.
8. Too many complaints from other account holders
Apart from getting bad ratings, if Fiverr receives too many complaints about how poor your deliveries are, you may get restricted or banned.
Not just freelancers, even buyers can get banned. Some buyers try to bully new sellers into rendering free services or blackmail them to provide extra services in exchange for positive ratings.
Fiverr will eventually catch up with you and ban your account if you indulge in that.
9. Spamming buyers
When you’re new, making sales is not always so easy. As a result of that, many new sellers try every possible means to get noticed by buyers.
Some even go as far as spamming buyers with messages offering to get jobs done for them.
It shouldn’t have been a bad idea if done properly without offending anyone. However, if you get reported by the person you send messages, you may either get warned or banned — whichever Fiverr deems an appropriate punishment for your offense.
10. Buying a Gig and then dubiously filing a dispute for refund
This one isn’t a mistake, but rather, a deliberate attempt to get things done for free. Some dubious buyers order a gig by funding their accounts using PayPal and then, once that gig has been delivered, files a dispute at PayPal for a refund.
Whether you successfully get your refund back to your PayPal account or not, your account will end up getting banned.
I hope with this guide, you’ll be able to avoid getting banned by Fiverr.
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