Freelancer.com
Reviews and Complaints

I am a freelancer designer and i've been working in freelancer.com for about a year or so. My account has been limited for 10 days now (Since feb 21), whe you account is limited you can't withdraw or transfer any money. I provided all the documents and information that were asked by the website. They asked for 48 hours to confirm id 10 day ago. When your account is limited seems like you can't have access to the live chat, this is so weird because when you have that kind of problem is when you need the chat. Until now there were no contact from freelancer.com, I tried to submit 4 tickets that usually take 24 hours to be responded, none of them were answered. I've been completely ignored by this company. There is a lot of similar complaints about the website here in cb, I even read the they allegedly close accounts without providing any information or refunding money. I hope that this issue can be solved so I can continue to work. I hope that freelancer.com change their policy and start to respect their customers/partners instead of ignore them.

I had a very bad experience with Freelancer in the past and then I promised myself not to use this site again. But unfortunately I decided to give Freelancer a second chance and got scammed. I lost my job and found a really good job offer on Freelancer. I applied for a project and they said that I'll get all the money after I finish my job. I believed them and worked hard on the project. They promised quite a lot of money so I was very excited. When my work was done they said that I'll get the payment within 2-3 business days. That did not happen and they never paid me!
Freelancer support was useless, they simply did not reply.

My website legion was disabled by my freelancer. He build up a new website for me and gave me the legion credentials. I was able to legion and make changes. But recently I tried to legion and the URL(http://suffitechh.com/rag/housing/) "Wordpress" was disabled.
When I agreed with the freelancer is name was (Infotech1) but for the payment he said it was better to use( Kushalmahajan0081). My bid was $85 USD, and I paid 2 payment ($40) before and after the website was done ($45). Our agreement was I can control my website till I upload it to my own domain server.

Freelancer.com destroyed my life. I completed 8 project for one of my client and get $900 payment. Client was fully satisfied from my work and give me 5 star feedback and released whole amount. I transfer all files to client server. But after one month i check my account and there is negative balance. I check transation history and it was showing all amount reversed to employee. I contact 4 time freelancer support team, Create 2 ticket and also email freelancer CEO Matt brian ([protected]@freelancer.com). But freelancer support and ticket system give me same reply and matt not reply me. They said to me your client filed a chargeback against their payment source. So we will cut money from your account. I contact client and he said to me he filed chargeback and he got his money back. He cheat me . And it means you are wasting your time only on freelancer.com Because their are lot of client like this and one of my friend face this issue 4 time in one month and lost $3000 amount. And freelancer team said they don't have full control on this matter. So why we are working there if they don't have full control on all things. Please close your website if you don't providing good service to your user. Freelancer earning money only . we are giving huge amount of commision also give every month subscription fees and they not secure our money. Then why we are giving him all amount. We work hard 20 days on a project and then get money and after one month they reversed back to client. It means they are in favor of client. If we go fo support then they only said that's rule and our term and condition. If any business that make money only then it's not a successful business.If you don't care your user.i really upset from this thing and i am in trouble. Thanks My email address is - [protected]@gmail.com my freelancer profile url is - https://www.freelancer.in/u/skmothsara.html

I've been working on freelancer for around 18 months now. Every now and they they dip into my account. Just steal a little bit of money and refuse to refund it. I make a reasonable amount through their site so usually don't kick up much of a fuss.

However this time they have stolen £111 GBP. I live in a developing world and this is too much to lose. This is 2 weeks wages. Not only that but they charge a fee for every project you take on so they have actually charged me a fee to have this money stolen, by them. Not to mention time wasted by doing work they stole the money for.

To go into more detail the money was paid by the employer to freelancer and after the work was done the employer released the funds. Freelancer gave me the funds. Then 2 weeks later took the funds back. They won't tell me why. Just saying an external dispute that has nothing to do with me. The thing is even after contacting their customer support they are very open about the money being stolen. Here is them openly admitting to the theft:

23:08 (my name removed): Yes. So as a summery. Freelancer have stolen money from me and charged me a fee for stealing this money from me. All i can do is wait. I'm not allowed any information on when or if they will return the money they have stolen. And i just have to take their word for it that they are telling the truth about the illegal reason they gave for stealing this money from me. Is that right?
23:09 Stephanie M.: Yes, that is correct.

*I have the entire conversation and admission of guilt in an email sent directly from their website. Again. This is by far not the first time they have done this to me. Just usually for much smaller amounts.

From a quick google search i get the impression that Freelancer are well known for doing this to all their users. Is there anything that can be done? Perhaps a collaborated law suit from their victims?

In the last year they have stolen money like this from just myself to the sum of £340 give or take a few pounds. Then their are fees on top of that so i guess it's more like £450 (rough estimate). If they do this to 10, 000+ users (they claim to have over 10 million users) a year that's a shockingly large amount of money they are illegally obtaining every year.

Failing going through the justice system to benefit all their victims and prevent them stealing money in future i would be happy to accept £500 GBP for the money stolen and their fees charged for stealing the money, my time and the inconvenience and stress this has caused.

Hope to hear back.

Started a logo contest. There were many submissions. Using their private chat facility, I first chat with one designer, then another, and I was horrified to see the history of the first chat appeared in the chat history of the second chat! So the second designer could actually see what I said to the first designer, privately!

I was horrified. So I asked to cancel the project and get refund. And it was then I realized that using their own USD and AUD conversion rate that is much higher than the bank's, I lost US$150! That was on top of the US$50 non-refundable "feature upgrades".

So my experience with Freelancer was a horrible nightmare. I wasted a lot of time, delayed my project for three weeks, and they charged me AU$200 for having those horrible security bugs.

Hello.
I attempted to set up two separate projects on freelancer.com.
Both times I was prompted to switch to a contest. At no stage is it indicated that the contest funds are paid in full before the work is complete.
I selected seo work (Which is normally a monthly fee) once set up. That was my budget once I had awarded the work to the correct person, yet freelancer took the money immediately (They kept my details from previous work last year on file!)
The submissions have no met the briefs at all!
Nonetheless, I tried hundreds of times to contact support for help to delete the contest and have my funds reinstated.
After contacted paypal, freelancer limited my account, and now both contests are gone, and so are the submissions.
Over $600 was paid.
They keep sending automated emails, asking if my issue is resolved!? But no one is doing anything about my issue at all!
Please help!

I've finished doing a writing project for this jaylinejackson from the us. His business is on seo content writing. His skype name is magic content point. If you ever encounter anything like asking you to write articles, beware of them. You will only waste your energy. He has a verified payment method so I pushed through the project. He added me in skype and we did the project over there but did the invoice in freelancer.com. I sent the invoice but no payment arrived. He said he was working over it. But after some days, I started having doubts. I stopped working for him. Now he remove me from his skype. Wasted time and effort and no $600 for me. My mistake is to use freelancer again. I've never learn from my first lesson where payment through milestone has never released in my account but I got deduction for service. For all of you looking for part time job, don't waste your time and effort expecting you will get some money in this site. I believe all the freelancers who posted here. Such a place of scammers indeed. I hope karma comes to them a million times.

Freelancer.com is a joke. I put a lot of time and effort into the work and spend at lot of money on "deposits" for the jobs that I bid on ($4.00 a pop).

Now here's the rip off:

They pulled $30.95 for premier status without my permission.
Once I deposited money for a bid, they had my account info.
I am fighting to get a refund.
Nothing yet.

$30 debited by freelancer to my credit card without my consent and agreed to refund the same after complaining. But I have not received the refund yet. This highly unethical and please take action to refund the same as soon as possible. I chat with one lady from freelancer and agreed to refund. I thought this site is a reliable site. If I don't get the refund I will write in all public forums.

These guys are world class fraudsters and there is no doubt.
They took from my Paypal $150 initial milestone but when I got the first invoice instead of paying with the money in milestone they took another amount from my Paypal account. And immidiately at same time another $150 for next milestone.

Meaning the first initial milestone has gone without trace.

I cannot get them to explain and when I filed a complaint with Paypal they issued an invoice to may account for reverse payment for the amount of $150. If I win the case they will be paying be back %150 theoretically, but they have already issued an invoice for reverse payment, meaning they owe me nothing even if I win the case.

This is not the service I joined 10 years ago; It has become machine for defrauding unsuspecting clients.

Freelancer.com doesn't go ahead and complete the registration without credit card. This is how they make money. Please refund my money to me. I have not used any of your services. This is not ethical. My email id [protected]@gmail.com

I hope freelancer.com have not saved my credit card details. Please do not deduct anything or else I will have to go legal.

I have had over $100+ stolen from a freelancer due to misrepresentation of both service and product which was promised.
Release 2/3 milestones, and when confronted, freelancer asked to end the project and did not respond to any of my messages.
Agent is : Sanidhay Kumar
Project ID: [protected]
I wish to have my full funds returned and the agent banned from further business conduct.

The company is taking money out from account where they should be taking and I want a refund on my money that the company have taken out. I don't know why you are taking because I don't have any balance left. I haven't done any query of building a new online store. The company did a website for me and the also did the domain name, hosting and other things. It should be showing any balance at all.

I was a member of Freelancer for a long time now and actually had a great experience there.
About a month ago I found a great job so wasn't interested in their service anymore. I contacted them and asked them to cancel my account and they said they'll do that. Recently I noticed a charged which was made by Freelancer. They never cancelled my account and the worst part is that they decided to charge me for another several months! I asked for a refund but did not receive a response back yet! I'm very disappointed with how dishonest these guys are! I never allowed them to take my money and they never asked for my permission! Scammers!

I entered a contest about 37 days ago... Submitted my entry to freelancer contest... The contest went into pending / locked mode "meaning the contest holder did not choose a winning entry" then 30 days went by which means that freelancer will then award top freelancers the prize money... According to freelancer..

"""the prize for contest nutrition and fitness app has been released to the top entries and freelancers. 5 days ago
The contest was guaranteed, but a winning entry was not selected within the 30 days provided."""

The amount $1040"after freelancer deduction prize fee"...

All good until...

"""reversal of [prize awarded for nutrition and fitness app (Usd) from 09/01/2016 at 12:31 edt] (Usd)"""

Now according to freelancer if a contest is guaranteed and the contest holder does not select a winning entry freelancer will release the money to the top contest holders after a set amount of days... Correct... But this time they did a reversal of the prize awarded... I contacted freelancer and I was told that the prize money was refunded because the contest should have been a project and not a contest and that the contest was not gaurenteed... Yet stated above and on my dashboard - screenshot attached... It says the contest was gaurenteed... That means my entry can also have been taken by the contest holder...

I can sustain with evidence all of the above mentioned

Freelancer has stolen money from me. After continuous effort from my side to solve the dispute, sending millions of emails, they keep ignoring my requests to refund the money they stole from my paypal account without permission, and won't refund me the money which is still in my freelancer account, nor will they close my account. This organization is non trustworthly and I will never work with them again. I want my account closed!

Freelancer.com — freelancer.com is cheating with money

1 review
Vi vijayendra on aug 30, 2016 mark as resolved

1st complaint : project id: [protected] is not awarded to me, I have not accepted the project freelancer.com has deducted money from my account. now they email me to pay immediately otherwise they will suspend my account. this is cheating with us

2nd complaint : project id : [protected] this person awarded the work and I accepted but the employer never provided the work no chat no message nothing but freelancer.com has deducted more than $20 from my account.

3rd complaint : project id: [protected] the employer has awarded $555 job to me and freelancer.com deducted rs. 3995.96/-. now the employer paid only $50 in 3 months and now stopped the project. still they not returning money they should take rs. 300/- but they took 3995.96.

I got cheated many times with freelancer.com website

I had received three milestones payments and proceed to withdraw the money. This converted from british pounds to usd. Then all of a sudden it said that the project was deleted by the user and the milestones were reversed. I got in contact with freelancer and they said that the employer did something and they gave all of his money back (i highly doubt this) and that the milestones that were already paid were reversed.
This left me with a negative balance of british pounds. I told them to correct this, and these liars and scammers took my usd money and then some and converted back to pounds at an outrageous rate than just hours before, and took extra 50$ usd from my account to complete the conversion. That is extra money except from what resulted from the initial conversion. So they took all my milestone money, and extra money from my account, instead of just solving the issue and correcting my balance, for money that they said no longer existed on the website as they had already returned it to the employer. Now they are not responding to this and not willing to fix this, at least restore my account to the previous state and give me my 50$ usd back, not to speak of the project that i will most likely end up have done for free.
They are a bunch of scammers and liars and thieves.

I do quite a bit of work on Freelancer.com and I recently had a problem. I was contracted by an employer to do a job and a milestone payment agreement was in place. Half up front half when complete. I did the job and received both payments into my Freelancer.com account. Rave reviews and all the usual stuff. A month later the funds were rolled back without notice, my account went negative and account was suspended. After exhaustive questions and emails to 8 different support representatives they said we will allow me to keep working to earn the money back. lol, earn my own money back and still take fees from me? I requested arbitration and got the same answer even though I have irrefutable evidence in my case.

Freelancer.com did not do its due diligence when giving the money back to PayPal. Freelancer.com broke the terms of the User Agreement and left me with nothing. This is negligence.

Freelancer.com has to protect the integrity of its website and the users who rely on it.