Fiverr  – Highly overrated platform with maybe a few good sellers if you know where to look

I did consider giving 2 stars, but my overall experience has been mediocre at best so I decided to give one only. This is mainly because I think Fiverr as a platform is to blame for this experience as well and even for a big part so.

I understand that there will be sellers who do not take their work as seriously as I would want and I should be careful in making a selection. However for my first seller I chose one with almost all 5 star reviews (that I found out later are 99% all fake). But the real reason I chose to trust this seller was because it had this label “Fiverrs choice”. When there is a special label for sellers that deliver good work I kind of expect on such a popular platform that there is somewhat truth in that.
Unfortunately this turned out to be a farce. The seller was fast in communicating at first and delivered the first part of our agreement way before the scheduled date.
From here it went all wrong. The seller asked me to approve delivery while in reality only a small part of the agreement was delivered. I flat out refused at first and got into a discussion. From here on out the seller didn’t respond anymore. This went on for couple of days after which I contact her again. I decided to approve the delivery, because she said she would continue the process after that.
I didn’t really believe this of course, but what choice did I have. In between I did contact Fiverr’s customer support which responded I had to make a new deal with the seller to get part of my money back. Well this new deal didn’t happen and after I approved delivery it seemed at frist like she would still hold her side of the bargain. But she started asking me to purchase other things in order to continue and everytime I was the one that had to initiate contact. At one point I just left it.
Also she kept asking for 5 star ratings and many more things that make all alarm bells go off.

So in summary:
– Fiverr’s choice doesn’t mean anything (nothing gets checked appearently)
– My other 2 experiences with the platform were a bit better
– There is no protection as a buyer even though Fiverr acts like the seller doesn’t get any money unless you approve.
– I contacted the customer support after all this again, but got no response this time.