Why I Will NOT Use Fiverr As My Writing Service Again

Fiverr, the service where you can connect and get work done for $5, is used and liked by many.

Their service can be great for different small jobs, but after my experience hiring writers, I will not use Fiverr for content writing again.

Don`t get me wrong I love Fiverr and use them all the time, just not for outsourcing my writing. You can read why below.

If you have read anything else on this blog you know I`m a pretty positive person, but I just feel that I need to warn you guys about ordering writing jobs on Fiverr.

I have had tons of stuff done through Fiverr, design jobs, marketing, tech stuff and more. Majority of the times I have been very happy with the result. I will happily give 5 star positive ratings to people that deserve it, and most people do.

Writers on Fiverr

I had never hired a writer through Fiverr and I should have left it that way…

I needed some writing done for one of my sites, I had not tried Fiverr out for writing jobs before so I thought I would give it a go.

This is what I was looking for;

• Native English writer, since I`m not
• Independent, no agencies
• 500 word article
• Interest in the topic I needed help with

I did my research and contacted a few writers. I contacted them all before ordering, just to get an idea of respond time and the language in the reply. After narrowing it down, I found 4 writers that I wanted to work with.

My hope was to find a good writer that I could possibly work with long term. That did not happen.

 

4 Fiverr Writers and the Result

Writer 1 – turned out to not be a native English writer/speaker. The article was decent and delivered on time so I just adjusted some of the grammar issues.

Writer 2 – the second writer was not a native English writer either. I asked for a couple of rewrites but after 2 chances I asked for my money back. They used an agency and the person that I had been in contact with was not the writer. Still waiting for my money.

Writer 3 – the third writer delivered the article on time, but it was not complete. It was less than the 500 words  agreed + there were no proper ending or closure to the article. I asked for an updated article, 10 days later I receive the ”updated” version. It was 500+ words but still no proper closure to the article. When I go to check copyscape the whole article is copied.

Big scam! I requested the money back. The Fiverr team was great helping me with this issue and I did get my money back.

Writer 4 – from the fourth writer I ordered 5 articles. I liked the conversation we had before I ordered, so I gave her a chance of more than one. The articles were not delivered on time, they were late. After delivering 1 article she said the job was completed.

I asked for a modification request, always do that until you have received the complete job or it will be very hard to get your money back, I learned that the hard way and lost some money doing it. Again, I was provided articles of poor content and I cancelled the gig.

So after dealing with 4 writers, 4 different gigs, I got 1 article I could use, but I still had to rewrite some of it. This was time wasted!

When dealing with the Fiverr staff they were very helpful. One thing that I didn`t know that they brought to my attention was that there is a grace period of 13 days after that the order has been marked complete.

During these 13 days Fiverr can help you cancel the order even though the order has been marked complete. After that, the seller can withdraw the money and it becomes a lot harder to cancel the order and get the money back.

This Is What I Learned

• Hiring writers on Fiverr is NOT worth your time, I could have written all these articles myself instead of spending time getting after the writers and solving all the issues.
• The articles were of poor quality.
• Many hide their identity behind something they are not. Go figure right, it`s the internet. You would think though if you are trying to “build” a reputation and a writing service on Fiverr that you would be honest… but no.
• I will NOT use Fiverr for any future writing jobs but I will be happy to use other services there.
• The Fiverr staff was very helpful resolving the one order that I didn`t resolve directly with the seller.

I have had much better luck hiring writers over at odesk.com. I will continue using their services when it comes to content writing.

What`s your thought on this, have you used writers over at Fiverr? Do you outsource your content writing? If you do what service do you use?