That one week I landed 5 gigs on Fiverr and then got ghosted on all of them

I had this crazy week back in March where I somehow picked up 5 orders within 3 days for my logo design gig. I was stoked, thought I finally cracked the algorithm or something. But then by Friday, 4 of those clients just stopped replying after I sent the first drafts. One of them even left me hanging for 2 weeks before finally coming back and asking for a full refund because they 'changed their mind.' I ended up spending like 15 hours on those projects for nothing. Upwork at least has that escrow system so you don't get totally screwed. Has anyone else had a hot streak turn into a ghost town like that?

3 comments

3 Comments

jesse_smith1015d ago

My buddy Tom had this happen with his voiceover gig last fall. He landed 4 auditions in one week, recorded and sent everything, then radio silence from all of them for over a month. One client finally replied saying they went with someone cheaper and the other three just never opened his files again. He wasted a whole weekend prepping those auditions and never saw a dime. Ever find out why people just vanish like that?

morganl7115d ago

Did you read that one article about how some of these companies are just collecting free demos to build a portfolio for themselves? I saw something about it on a freelance forum a few months back. Basically they post fake gigs just to get voice samples or rough drafts they can repurpose later without paying anyone. It's pretty shady but I guess it happens more than people realize, especially with smaller clients. That might be why Tom's files never got opened, they just wanted the raw material.

parker_webb15d ago

Yeah that's just the world we live in now honestly... everything's become so disposable including people's time and effort. I notice the same thing in regular life too like when you go to a job interview and they ask you to do some huge project or presentation as a "test" and then never even bother to call you back. It's like everyone's treating free work as just another resource to harvest without any thought about the person behind it. That's probably why those gigs disappeared on your buddy Tom too... companies know there's always someone desperate enough to give away their labor for a chance. It just seems like common decency is getting rarer and rarer these days.