Is Fiverr even worth five bucks?
Wednesday, March 04, 2015
More out of curiosity than anything, I decided to give the website FIVERR.COM a try. I thought it might be fun to see what other graphic designers could come up with as a new logo for The Melbourne Magic Festival.
Our current logo, designed by Carl Knox, is this:
and we like it... so I scoured some of the people listed under the category GRAPHIC DESIGNERS and found a lot with heaps of 5 star listings so, I assumed, they must be worth a shot.
The first one I tried was CAROLINEW who claims
I will do professional and eye catching logo for $5
Her samples looked quite good
But when it came to delivery she sent this
When I pointed out that all she had done was find free clip art on google and I was hoping she would actually "design" something as promised, she sent this
More free clip art... Okay, so maybe I got a dud designer despite her 60 five star reviews... I tried another "graphic designer".
COOLINTROTOMY had great five star reviews and good looking samples
and said
I will design Eye catching Logo in 24hrs for $5
Great! I sent him the brief, all the examples of what we have had in the past, how we want to avoid cliche images etc... he sent this:
The same clip art that CAROLINEW had found! Different text of course, that accentuated MELBOURNE over the more important words MAGIC FESTIVAL... I pointed this out to him and he responded by sending me a totally new design
"I create your logo design , I feel this is better than the previous and looks professional than it. So PLEASE complete the order with your positive feedback (5 STAR) for my job."
My reply... "So you took the free vector clip art from here http://cdn2.qvectors.net/downloads/images/vector/misc/12502-free-vector-magic-hat-full.png and put text next to it and you consider that to be a logo?"
His response "Thank you bro"
After this effort I posted a review (as you must do once any FIVERR order is completed, and gave him a very generous two stars.
His response was to call me a fake buyer and tell me to cancel the order, take my review down, and he'd give me the $5 back.
I pressed DECLINE on the cancel order button, and he just kept sending me the 'Cancel Order' request over and over and kept DEMANDING I remove the review and take my money back. The bad thing is that, if I don't press the DECLINE buton, after two days the order is automatically cancelled and the review is taken down.
So this constant email game began with him sending a CANCEL ORDER request, me pressing DECLINE and him sending another CANCEL ORDER request.
In the mean time I had sent the same brief to some other "graphic designers".
I will design Eye Catching LOGO for you for $5
This person sent two options. The first (which is actually the logo for DISCOUNT MAGIC but altered slightly by adding stars)
I gave her a reasonable review, at least she tried with the second one, but again she messaged me demanding I cancel the order and remove my review because it wasn't FIVE STARS.
She even tried to explain why her work was not up to the standard of her samples saying:
"Sir please accept my request. Sir I tell you reason why I not send you your update. Sir I was in high fever and I was admit in hospital and my friend do working on your logo. I'm still in fever but feel better. Sir I apologize for it."
I also tried a guy called GRAPHICS123 who offered
I will design a beautiful flyer, poster or brochure for $5
He had 1138 FIVE STAR REVIEWS and an amazing selection of professional samples. He sent this:
Not something I would use but at least he put a bit of effort into it and I was impressed. The only drawback was that he delivered it a few days later than promised and didn't communicate accordingly. Even FIVERR automatically emailed me to let me know he was late on delivery and did I want to cancel. So when I wrote what was an overall positive review, the rating ended up 2.5 stars.
So... he wrote to me asking for me to cancel the order as well....
It seems that FIVERR is all about getting nothing but FIVE STAR RATINGS.
Obviously, there are some genuinely talented designers on the site, but unless they are prepared to harass and badger people into giving them ONLY five star reviews, they get relegated to the bottom of the page while people looking to get art work done end up dealing with the "TOP RATED" designers who send them rubbish.
I message CUSTOMER SUPPORT, as you are supposed to do if there is a dispute, and explained that when I gave COOLINTROTOMY a negative review he accused me of being a fake buyer and Kevin from Fiverr replied "After reviewing the order I can see that the seller has sent you a mutual cancellation request in order to refund you. You may go back to the order page and accept that refund."
Seems to be the way FIVERR operates...
Sure, it's only five bucks, and many would say "What do you expect for $5?" But the point is there are many talented graphic designers on that site who simply can't even earn $5 because of the hustlers and hucksters exploiting the system.
I went to FIVERR to get some logos designed and ended up being harassed (I got A LOT of emails demanding I remove my reviews... and I am STILL getting them)
Is that worth five dollars? Not in my book.