My freelance woes

In my last job, I used to use people on Fiverr for stuff like voice overs and animated backgrounds. The voice over for example for one of our internal instructional videos, I provided the captions and the time frames where they should sit and the guy did a sterling job.

Seeing what went on, I thought I think I'll advertise myself on Fiverr and see if I can earn a bit of beer money whilst enhancing my reputation.

I offered blog writing, ad copy, video editing and making a video from the client's materials. Are those clear statements of services?

A short time ago, I had some nutter from China. He had what he believed to be a revolutionary pet door he wanted a video to promote.

Unfortunately, he wanted me to buy one off Amazon saying he'd reimburse me, I had to fit it to a door and then find a pet to use it and make a video.

I had some Arab who was unhappy in his job because he'd been passed over for promotion. Sent many pages of his letter asking why and asked me to make it more business like. I did, he wasn't happy with it and went with his own missive. Admittedly he did pay me.

Then there was the guy who was about to launch a board game on the world. Sent me the rules and expected a video from that alone.

Today, I received a message from a bloke in Egypt saying he wanted a thousand words on something or other for which he would pay me $20. A moment later I received a second message which read, sorry, I meant $10.

I checked out his profile and he advertises himself as a writer of blogs and articles. Something immediately told me that he'd take my thousand word article for which he'd reward me ten lousy dollars (about £ 6.50) and sell it on for twenty. I politely told him to jog on after making such a suggestion to him.

On another platform, I wasted £80 in "tokens" bidding for work and advertising myself with no take up at all. Then out of the blue this Indian woman contacted me, no idea how she got my e mail, as you have to part with tokens to get that.

Anyway, she teaches yoga classes and wanted to promote herself using video. She said she would provide the video. She did and it was awful, like she'd recorded it in a bathroom, so much echo.

Then ensued, days of my answering questions such as camera settings, microphone types to use, questions about animation, lighting etc. A visit to her house about 8 miles away, more questions all for free.

Then, SILENCE and that's the way it's been since. I dropped an e mail asking what was up and she said she was ill. I suspected she'd milked enough free advice out of me and had found some other sap to do her video work.

Having Milked me for all the technical background to making her instructional videos, I guess she's found some other sap to do the work even cheaper than the paltry sum I'd quoted.

Apart from the Arab fellow, I've one other paid job from the past year and £ 12 in my Fiverr account, so I am not planning on retiring yet and am saving that money for a rainy day.