Fiverr.com SCAM - AVOID Selling on Fiverr

Selling on Fiverr is a nightmare! Here are some of the problems with the Fiverr platform and why it's a scam.

1. When you deliver an order to a buyer, you are the buyers puppet. If they file a dispute with customer support, Fiverr will NEVER reach out to you to present your case. You will simply receive an email stating that your order has been cancelled and ALL funds were returned to the buyer. The email will contain no reasoning and no explanation. I have lost $600 on a single order multiple times.

2. When opening tickets with seller support, you play a lottery on who will be assigned to your case. Javier is the WORST person you can be assigned to, if this happens, close out your ticket and start again. If you have a complaint towards Javier, he will assign the ticket to himself and instantly close it.

3. You can present all the evidence to Fiverr, but once they refund a buyer, they will NEVER side with you as a seller. You can give them 1000's a sceenshots clearly showing your order was delivered as described, but they will keep picking and picking at it. Once you finally get them with indisputable proof, they will IGNORE you. Yes, they will simply IGNORE YOU. If you open a support ticket, they will instantly close it with NO REPLY.


Get back at Fiverr. Get justice!

1. File a complaint with the BBB. A great way to talk to the head office!

2. File a complaint with the FTC. Government backed and gets results fast!

3. File a complaint with the BSA. Fiverr have been known to use illegal software and not purchase enough licences for their systems. Have them investigated once and for all!

Gold Spike in Las Vegas, NV: AVOID!!!

They are very underhanded and dishonest about door fees and their security is quick to manhandle undeserving people just to get them out of the way and move business along more quickly. Security acts entitled and above the law when it comes to grabbing, shoving, talking down to, and disrespecting people. I'm sure there are a few good ones but there are at least several bad ones ruining it for everyone. They should consider themselves fortunate to be receiving nothing more than poor reviews from me at this point in time, particularly considering some of the pictures my husband took of a couple of the incidents we witnessed between their employees (hostess and door men and women) and guests. We even caught one of their door men trying to slyly let a group of his guy friends not only cut the entire 30 minute+ line but get in for free when they were charging other men $20 each on the door. This same door man, who had previously grabbed one woman somewhat violently to push her out of the way of the entry, shouted at and threatened to call the police on another woman when she tapped his shoulder just to get his attention and ask a question. This was Halloween night 2018 and they had been advertising their Halloween party everywhere - via email, Facebook, various other websites and flyers - but nowhere was there mention of any sort of entry fee. After waiting in line over 30 minutes to get in, men and women were separated into two lines where they couldn't even see each other to know what was going on. Women were quite literally pushed along and rushed into the building, not allowed to get to their men til they were inside. Men were then told they could either pay or leave but could not get in touch with the women they'd arrived with who had already been funneled inside. The door men would not locate the women for their men either so men were left with no way of contacting the women they'd arrived with to tell them what was going on (aside from waiting outside for these women to hopefully check their phones that had hopefully not run out of battery by that point in the night) and no option other than to pay a $20 entry fee to rejoin them inside. They were given no time to discuss or think about it and told they would have to wait in the entire line again if they needed a minute to assess the situation or discuss with their partner. Women were told they would have to wait in the entire line again if they exited so going out just to see if their man was still stuck outside was not an easy option. Wtf What about men whose women were holding all of the cash for the night?!! First off, there was no shortage of party options that were more fun and cheaper than here or even free to get in (ie: the Nerd, The Griffin, Fremont Street itself, maybe Artisan,..) but this was also an extremely underhanded way of getting money out of customers. Worst of all, however, was the hostess letting the men in. She had a truly disgusting personality and was cruel to the confused men who showed up in front of her only to be surprised by a previously unannounced $20 door fee, which would've been perfectly fine with the majority of patrons, I'm sure, if just posted or mentioned ANYWHERE in advance and not handled in this manner.

I've been to this establishment at least twenty times with my husband, alone, and with friends visiting from out of town but after such an appalling experience we will absolutely not ever be back. Fortunately for us, we didnt waste our Halloween here this year and we instead had an absolutely incredible time drinking, dancing, gaming, bowling, and so much more at The Nerd. We got way more value for our money too because, rather than spending that $20 on Gold Spike's surprise door fee, we got to add it to our drink budget at The Nerd, where we ended up partying til maybe 4am?! All this after dancing for free and just buying a couple of drinks at the completely packed, awesome bar called The Griffin.

Tl;dr: Spare yourself the frustration and the bs and don't fund the employment of the sorts of people they hire to work the doors here. Plenty of better options in town that you don't have to look far for.

Spirit Airlines Future Travel Vouchers (FTV) are a SCAM!!!

Spirit Airlines Travel Vouchers are a scam

Our flight from Minneapolis to Las Vegas to severely delayed by over half a day, so we were offered flight vouchers for the value of $100 each with Spirit Airlines.

At first, we accepted, this sounded great! However, it's IMPOSSIBLE to use them.

Spirit Airlines travel vouchers are NOT compensation. They are like those phone scams where you call them for $4.95 per minute to get a free wine glass. You DO NOT gain ANYTHING from this. AVOID AVOID AVOID!!!!!!!!!!!



Here are some gotchas:
1. They expire within 1 month.

2. You cannot transfer them. You cannot book under another name. YOU and YOU alone MUST use them.

3. The flight vouchers only remove the flight portion of the ticket

4. You cannot combine them with miles. You MUST pay for an expensive ticket to use them.

5. The flight portion of the ticket is actually really low. On a cheap flight, it can be negative, which means you cannot use your flight voucher at all. Other times, it can be $5 or so. I called customer service, they suggested picking a $300 flight rather than a $40 flight so I can use my voucher. Lol. What!?

6. You have to pay extra fees

7. The vouchers didn't arrive by email, but we did get an email saying we were entitled to our vouchers. We had to call their number to speak to 3 people to have them issued. The guy on the phone had a horrible accent and it took us 40minutes from phone up to phone down to get them.

8. Their customer service phone number is IMPOSSIBLE to navigate. You ONLY way to speak to somebody is by using options: 5-4-1. This took us 2 hours to test each option. It's simply TERRIBLE.

I will be lodging a BBB complaint over this, the customer service availability and interaction was dreadful. This is the worst flight experience I have ever had.


AVOID AVOID AVOID!!!!!!!!!!!

DO NOT RENT A CAR WITH TURO!! - Fees, Charges and more

We rented a car in Hawaii and the car itself had pre-existing damages. We took a video of the car before our trip so that all evidence was recorded and we could drive with piece of mind. We did the same when dropped off the car.

NOTE: The owner did not want to meet us. They left the key under the drivers mat and told us to put it there when we were done.

Name and shame: https://turo.com/rentals/cars/hi/kailua-kona/toyota-corolla/364057

Once we dropped off the car, the owner filled a dispute for damages totalling $800+. We had video evidence to support this was pre-existing.

PROBLEM 1
Turo demanded we send them all evidence within 24 hours. If we wait any longer, they will take the money from our card. So if you're travelling... better find Wi-Fi FAST!! because the phone app wont work for this. Visiting an ill family member? Better ditch them to find Wi-Fi... Apparently, Turo think 24 hours is fine because quote: "You either have the evidence or you don't"

PROBLEM 2
Turo offer only EMAIL support. You CANNOT call them. You try calling Turo, you will be passed around a bunch of menu options and none of them lead to a physical person. They take OVER 24 hours to reply to you.... So if you have problems, tough luck, because you better send all that evidence over within 24 hours because you will not be able to talk to Turo in that time.

PROBLEM 3
We followed the guide we received via email and submitted some picture evidence. Get this.... The website DOES NOT SUPPORT VIDEO EVIDENCE. I took the initiate and renamed the video to .txt and left a description. I also uploaded the video to YouTube and put in the link in. They debited my credit card for $800 and stated that I did not provide any evidence. What!?

PROBLEM 4
After emailing back and forth, a day wait in between each communication because they are as slow as hell replying when it really matters, I opened a case with the Better Business Bureau (BBB). This lit a fire under them because I soon received some preferential treatment. Money was finally refunded, despite it being taken from my account illegally.

PROBLEM 5
Turo users can charge up to $250 for a cleaning fee. So if you're renting a nice shiny white car, you're f****ed. Better clean that baby nice and clean and take photos, or you'll be $250 up the spout. 

PROBLEM 6
The owner of our car was able to charge if the gas level was not full when dropped off. Turo allows car owners to do this. We picked the car up an d the gas was just below full. After driving around, we totalled that 80-100 miles were missing from full. In the paperwork for our agreement, it states the car was full when collected. To avoid the fee, we filled the car up, but we knew we were being had. I submitted the evidence to Turo and they ignored the question 4 times. FInally, they addressed it and stated quote: "You took that from a different angle, the car is full". 

Do yourself a favor, spend a little extra and rent from somebody like Hertz and not these bunch of pirates. Trust me, you'll be happy you did!!

At no point did Turo apologize, not once. At no point did they penalize or ban this car owner. We were finally refunded by Turo because TURO made this mistake. The car owner still kept the $800 despite trying to charge us for pre-existing damage. This car owner is free to carry on and rip people off. I assume that Turo gets a nice cut from rentals because they are clearly doing nothing about it. This has been the most terrible car rental experience I have ever had.

Spartan Race Shop - AVOID AT ALL COSTS!!!!!!!!!!

Everybody loves a Spartan Race, right!? 
It's true that the races are overpriced and also full of Venti-Drinkers with too much money on their hands; throwing away their newly purchased $120 shoes at the end of the race because they don't dare place their muddy foot warmers in their brand new Prius, sure.... But what about the Spartan Online Store?

The Spartan Online Store offers great looking Spartan Race merchandise for, well, not the cheapest prices, but the pictures look good! Right? If the Spartan Race owner Joe De Sena attends a race (Which he is known to do often!), he is always sporting Spartan Store merchandise... and if you'll notice... it ALWAYS looks brand new! You may think to yourself, hmmmm this is high quality stuff hmmm maybe that $60 hoodie was worth it, especially if Spartan God and multi-millionaire Joe De Sena is wearing it! Unfortunately, your assumption would be incorrect (Well based on my friends $300 online store purchase).

Joe De Sena

My friend (The $300 one lol) is very deluded you might say, great for the US military - he would make a fine general! but no so much for getting caught this Spartan lifestyle.... Not so much the traditional Spartan lifestyle of minimal clothing, fighting wild beasts and eating very little... but, the more modern Spartan lifestyle of giving all of your money to Joe De Sena in exchange for an AROO here and there. Sorry getting carried away here, back to my point....

You will notice the Spartan Online store offers little descriptions about their items. This is for a very good reason! They DO NOT list materials used to make their clothing, materials used to make their 'swag', nor do they list fitting information. They do not have hardly any Web 2.0 content at all in fact! I.e. No user reviews (Of course, i'm sure they would all be bad!), no comments, no discussion and the list goes on...


Here are some approved purchases my friend made:

Men's Spartan Race Hoodie:
https://shop.spartan.com/collections/mens-hoodies-jackets-1/products/spartan-bold-helmet-logo-hoodie-men-s
"SPARTAN Bold Helmet Logo Hoodie - Men's"

What the website SHOULD say about this item is:
"Made in Pakistani by young children. Designs look great out of the package, but never wash. If you do decide to wash, even at 30 degrees, your logo will turn PINK. This won't be very Spartan at all!"


Spartan Paracord Bracelet:
https://shop.spartan.com/collections/spartan-swag/products/spartan-race-sprint-para-cord-bracelet
"550 heavy duty paracord bracelet. Adjustable up to 9.25 inches."

What the website SHOULD say about this item is:
"Made of copper, may cause allergic reactions. Copper is painted silver, which may come off within 2 weeks or sooner. May turn wrist green. Bolt on the paracord bracelet may dig into wrist and hurt like hell. Adjustable from 9-9.25 inches. Only fits fat man wrists on it's smallest setting"


I contacted Spartan Race on Facebook about this. They didn't offer any apology, but passed me on to somebody else at the Spartan Store. They seemed to be more concerned about ending all of their messages with AROO rather then actually helping or, yet, even sympathizing with my woes. To be honest, I'm sure it's a run-of-the mill operation for them. ("Another person not happy about the merchandise in the Spartan Store!"... "Again!? I'm getting bored of this!")

I contacted the Spartan Store but I've yet to receive a response. The website suggests I direct everything to shop@spartan.com. I'm sure 50 billion other people are directing their multitude of questions to this one email also. So without departmentalizing their support system, this is probably why I haven't had a response in FOUR WEEKS. I do recall getting a quick response when I queried the stock levels of an item prior to this though... Strange eh!

Anyway, if you are thinking about buying ANYTHING, literally, ANYTHING from the Spartan Online Store, DON'T! You will get a better product from Jim Wong who lives in Hong Kong; selling knock-off Spartan Race T-Shirts from his bedroom on eBay. He only charges $5.95 too! That's a $24 dollar discount before you even think about shipping!

If you have had similar experiences, leave a comment here! Share your experiences with us all so we can create a crying circle and wipe each others tears while thinking about how much money Joe De Sena made from us all.

If this post has swayed even ONE person from avoiding the Spartan Online Store, my deed is done and I can sleep peacefully tonight! :)

eBay - Guerilla Seller Protection 101

There are many articles scattered around the interweb with regards to eBay's policies favoring buyers rather than sellers. From personal experience, I have experienced the grasp of eBay's inequitable eBay Money Back Guarantee and the laughable Seller Protection Policy many times. terms like: Return Requested, Payment Reversal, New Significantly Not as Described Dispute, Your Dispute Has Been Escalated to a Claim are all part of another crappy day in the office.

This article was inspired when recently a buyer purchased a phone from me. The phone had a value of around $85. I shipped the phone to the buyer with valid USPS tracking. The USPS tracking stated the package arrived at the buyers address. The buyer then opened a dispute with eBay stated they did not receive the item. Under eBay's eBay Money Back Guarantee, the buyer did not get the item they purchased, so the balance was removed from my PayPal account as a result and the buyer was refunded. I lost not only the amount for the phone, but also the phone itself. Crazy right? As USPS stated the package arrived, I could not file a dispute with them to claim my money back. All was lost!

The tips in this article will enable you to protect yourself better on eBay. These are things I have put together from hours of frustrating support calls, hundreds of returns and thousands of messages with "buyers".

NOTE: Most of this article assumes that the buyer is being unjust. It is assumed you have analysed them and pegged them for somebody trying to pull the wool over your eyes. I don't want to have to write this in every paragraph, so I will put it here. Your judgement is yours an yours alone.

Handling an unjust dispute

PRO TIP: An eBay dispute from a buyer cannot exist in eBay AND PayPal. If the buyer opens a case in Paypal, ALL eBays cases will automatically close-out (Even if the case has already been opened in the eBay Resolution Center - not matter what the status is!). PayPal will ALWAYS have the final say in this instance. If somehow the case exists in both places (There is a slight bug where this can happen), PayPal will process ALL refunds and returns. eBay may tell you that YOU issued a refund, however, it is really PayPal doing this on your behalf.

Avoid paying for return shipping

- Try and get the buyer to open a dispute via PayPal. This way, the buyer will HAVE to pay for the return shipping as part of the PayPal Purchase Protection for Buyers policy. If the return is handled through eBay, you will be lumped with the cost of the buyer returning the item to you. You'll find that scammers, nonchalant-greedy-folk and generic assholes get impatient very fast when multiple message exchanges. Offering them to open a dispute in PayPal is usually quite easy to do. The entire dispute will then be MOVED over to PayPal.


Didn't get your item back?
If the wrong item is returned, or, an empty box is returned:
- You will either need to go to the police station and get an incident report within 10 days. Expect to wait a long time to see your compensation.
OR
- Print out an affidavit and get it notorized by a notary. Within 10 days. Most banks offer a free notary service. Expect to wait a long time to see your compensation.

Getting negative feedback removed

Over a decade ago, it used to be fairy easily to get feedback removed. You would just have to call eBay Customer Service, whine at them for 5-10 minutes, then the feedback magically disappears! Hooray! Today, however, it is very hard to achieve this. Any negative feedback MUST fall inside the rules of the eBay Feedback Extortion Policy. Also introduced around the same time, sellers could no longer leave negative feedback for buyers. This gives the buyer a notion that they -almost- have nothing to lose (In terms of feedback reputation on eBay). A buyer can call you names in messages, tell you everything they apparently did with your mother last night, use profane language and still leave VALID negative feedback. This doesn't leave us much wiggle room to get feedback removed, but we will cover everything we can here...

PRO TIP: eBay secretly keeps track of 'user behaviour' patterns for many things. The list includes and is not limited to: Unreasonable demands, inappropriate feedback, abused a buyer protection program, misused returns and foul and offensive language. Example: If a buyer opens 3 returns sequentially, they will receive an email stating that they are conducting irregular buying habits (Basically, eBay thinks they are trying to rip people off and puts them on close watch). We can use this to our advantage in this section.

Let's be honest, the Feedback extortion policy is crap. If there is something seriously wrong with what the buyer is doing, yes, the feedback can be removed. (I.e. The buyer is threatening to leave negative feedback if you do not ship them extra things not included in the listing). I will not cover these circumstances here.

Profanity - eBay will remove ALL negative feedback that CONTAINS profanity. The profanity HAS to be within the feedback itself. If you know the buyer will soon leave negative feedback, get them to use profane language in message exchanges. I recommend waiting hours to reply and being short with your messages. I cannot teach you to be a pain in the ass, but imagine what might be annoying. If the user has been flagged for profanity previously (See PRO TIP above), use the "Report a buyer" feature and report them for profane language.

Threats - It used to be that if the buyer threatened to leave negative feedback, then this was grounds to get the feedback removed. It's a little more intricate these days because to get feedback removed, they have to threaten you in a -certain- way (The feedback removal qualifying way they threaten you depends on the person you speak to when you call eBay and ask them to remove the feedback  - It really does! - It's worth hanging up and calling back sometimes). A good way to get a buyer to make negative feedback threats is to end your messages with "I hope you leave me good feedback" after giving them no help at all. 

Report a Buyer - You can report a buyer for many things. The "Report a buyer" page allows you to report a buyer for each of the following categories: Unreasonable demands, inappropriate feedback, abused a buyer protection program, misused returns and foul and offensive language. Reading the PRO TIP above, it's a good idea to report them for each and every category. eBay allows you to do this. If they have a prior flag with eBay, your report may lead to feedback removal. It had happened to me twice so far.

Requesting a Feedback revision - This one involves a lot of butt licking, and to be honest, rarely works. It involves grovelling to the buyer, selling your soul to them, then submitting a "Requesting a Feedback revision". Only do this if you have no morals and no pride.

How to get buyers to change their tune

You all know that feeling when a buyer messages you and you get a good idea of where the road will lead after this. The message may read something simple like this: "Item doesn't work, I demand a refund! NOT HAPPY!". A few messages later, you're on a slippery road to negative feedback and a lighter wallet. It seems like you cannot change the attitude of some people. Let's look at some tips to prevent this!

The ol' "I know your friend/neighbour!" - Recently, somebody bought an item from me and was probably one of the rudest, bigoted crap-fests I've ever had to deal with. People get away with this behaviour because they are using the internet. They do not see it as the real world. Of course, it's good idea is to send them a friendly reminder! It's very easy to place their address into Google. Websites like: zillow, redfin and spokeo provide home owner information. Pick somebody that lives down the street and say that you know them. A good conversation changer may start with something like: "I didn't realize, but do you know Bob Smith? I just noticed when handling this request that you live in Billingstown. He's my brother and he lives down the road from you. He says he knows you. Small world eh!?". 9 times out of 10, this will avoid negative feedback and get them to calm down. You can even make this more intricate and use Google Street View to describe things in their area and reminisce of good times!

Summary

Again, most of this article assumes that the buyer is being unjust. Take from it what you will. It's a not a bible nor a manifesto. I hope that it will help eBay sellers who have been treated unfairly under the eBay Seller Protection Policy.

If you would like a last laugh, read the eBay Seller Protection Policy and try to keep a straight face! :)

Good tidings to all!

Terrain Racing Review - AVOID AT ALL COSTS!!!!

Terrain racing are at it again!
Constantly pissing around people, up-charging runners last minute, refusing to answer their support emails/calls, cancelling races last minute... and now... a new low!

My wife and I booked the Elite Heat 10K race with them, we paid more to do this. We were told literally a week before the race that the 10K is no longer timed and there will be no rewards for this race. If you want to win, run the first 5K lap as fast as you can, and then enjoy your second lap! What the actual F****!!! I swear this company doesn't have a brain cell between them!

Here is an email I received from them the other day...

from:		Terrain Racing <noreply@awntx3.email.active.com>
reply-to:		info@terrainracing.com
to:		me
date:		Fri, Sep 22, 2017 at 10:58 AM
subject:		CHANGE: Award Money for 5k Course!
mailed-by:		awntx02w.email.active.com

IMPORTANT PRIZE MONEY UPDATE:

We will be awarding prize money to the 5k distance at the Las Vegas October 7th race. The 10k will not receive prize money or rankings.

The 10k course at the Vegas race is two loops on the 5k course and only the first loop is timed. Even though you signed up the 10k, we will automatically time your first loop on the 5k course and place you in the results for the 5k. 

Due to changes with course routing at the venue, we have to make this change, thank you for your understanding. After you finish your first lap on the 5k, you can head to the start and run a second lap since you registered for this two-lap 10k option.

There is no action needed on your part for this to happen. You are all set to be timed in the 5k, eligible for prize money, and ready to run a second lap.

Thanks, we will see you soon!

-----------

"ready to run a second lap." - They MUST have been laughing when they wrote this!!

---------

The proof:

Cancelling races last minute: http://obstacleracingmedia.com/ocr-news/terrain-racing-canceling-races/

Reviews dont lie: https://www.facebook.com/pg/terrainracing/reviews/?ref=page_internal