Threats against me!

I just completed my 4th course at Udemy and was threatened by a guy from Fiverr. He apparently signed up for my course and then sent me a message. I was surprised to open up my message toggle here at Udemy and get this threat that if I did not use him to promote my Udemy courses at Fiverr, that he would report me to Udemy for doing nefarious things.

Have any of you every received a threat like this?

It was my first time. I reported it to Udemy yesterday and to Fiverr. No reply from either yet.

I did not reply to him. I blocked him and promptly reported it. Please tell me if you have ever experienced anything similar?

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MarinaT

Hi @KevinBurns301
,

First, I'm sorry you are going through this, and I understand it must be unsettling.

We had multiple instructors in the past weeks in the community reporting issues with Fiverr, such as threats and other activities. I linked the most recent posts below:

Post 1

Post 2

Post 3

You did the absolute right thing by reaching out to Fiverr and Udemy support. Fingers crossed, you will hear back from them soon!

Please let us know if you have additional questions.

KevinBurns301

Thank you Martina. Sorry to hear that others have experienced this too. A buddy of mine has done Udemy for years and never had an issue. And yes he uses Fiverr to promote at times too. I won't be using Fiverr again for a while, if at all. I hope they get things cleaned up. They told me they were "dealing with the person." But of course could not tell me the details. So I am very happy that it is being dealt with. I hope more don't experience it. It is difficult and hard work to make courses, that last thing anyone needs is to have to deal with threats as well.

KevinBurns301

Just for other people's knowledge, here was the threatening message I received last night:

Staceymedia: Kevin, My name is Mahin (also Jackson), and I specialize in promoting and marketing Udemy online courses. While browsing through Fiverr, I stumbled upon a gig that had been promoting your Udemy courses. Are you aware that such promotional methods are a clear breach of Udemy's guidelines? I'm sure you're familiar with the ramifications - your courses taken down, and your entire account blacklisted. Here's the deal. If you DO NOT buy my service, OR you try to buy same service from other than my accounts, I'll inform Udemy about your little scheme. Given the undeniable proof, I don’t need to spell out what will happen next. Do not report me to the Fiverr support team as they will close my accounts. support@fiverr.com The following are the links to my accounts on Fiverr (yes I have more than one): 1) Link to his Fiverr Offer

MarinaT

Hi @KevinBurns301
,

I'm glad to hear they are already dealing with this person . Also, thank you so much for sharing your Fiverr experience and raising awareness within our community. This will certainly give fellow instructors a heads-up.

Please let us know if you have additional questions.

I wish you all the best on your teaching journey!

KevinBurns301

I have come to suspect that the person who did this, didn’t use his real name. Why would he? That would be stupid. The target of these scammers may actually be the people named in the scam unfortunately. I don’t know, because neither Fiverr nor Udemy have told me much.

Michael_D_Nwaogu

Wow! This is not funny!🥺

Hope the bad guys lose at the end.

SivakamiS2017

**bleep**! This is scary. Do keep us posted.

ArminSarajlic

Hey Kevin, hope I'm not too late to the party...

I just released a new course a few days ago, handed out some free coupons, etc. Today I received two 1-star review from a guy whose username was the same as on fiver. He left 1 star reviews from two different accounts which had the same username just with different numbers. In the review he accused me of buying in-organic traffic and fake review services and linked two fiverr gigs. The interesting part is that he himself was selling similar services to the linked gigs, so I assume he was just doing it in hopes of spreading word that his competitor's services are against udemy policy, while they are basically all selling the same thing. The worst part is that I had nothing to do with any of them. Ngl, the bad reviews would hurt my course since it was just released recently.

So I did a little bit more digging, and found out that this person has 25+ accounts on Udemy with almost the same usernames (who knows how many more with completely different names).
I reached out to Udemy's trust and safety team, with all the information I found, and they removed the reviews. So, I'd say you don't have to be scared of these lowlife spammers, and since you have proof of the threats, Udemy has got your back

KevinBurns301

Thank you everyone! I was feeling quite alone the moment I woke up and as I was enjoying my morning coffee, reading of a threat against me. Fiverr got back to me and said they were dealing with it. I hope they got the right people, as I doubt someone would use their real name in a threat. I hope Udemy has dealt with it too and I trust they have based on comments I have read here and elsewhere at the Udemy forums. It's nice to know I have some comrades in arms here at the forums. Thanks again! All is well at my end, except for a few reviews of 3/5, arghhhh! lol But some 5s and 4s too.

KevinBurns301

Armin, that's great that you reported this!

SivakamiS2017

Does this mean we have to do an extensive investigation everytime we get 1* and 2* ratings ?!

I don't currently do that, thankfully they are rare, but still they do cause a lot of heartache when they arrive !

Unless there is also an email from them somewhere, it's not this scam, I guess.

Dr.ArslanAk061

Don't worry