Freelancer.com review: Freelancer.com will steal your money 49

Same thing happened to me, I wish I had read this forum before using Freelancer. Amazing bunch of
of crooks. I am also notifying PayPal.

Yes, same is here... Please check the under-given link, same is happening with me.
Getafreelancer.com / Freelancer.com — Gaf is scamming me for my 1012$

Same thing here as well, i notified paypal too and investigating. Any useful info would be very well appreciated.

veryy bad site veryyyyyyy very bad they are cheaters...

I in the same boat. they are stealing my money. a member of GAF, now they saids its freelancer.com now, i ask my money in my account to return and they will not give it back i have to signup with them. no way.

same here... They got me for 140.00 was the only income I have. They need to be shut down! Close them AU. Do the right thing. Freelancer makes your country look bad to the rest of us hard working people. Close them down.

They have no right to retain your money in any way. I got my money back and don't work with them anymore

It is too bad they are not honest in business dealings. In the end, Greedy people get busted and maybe sent to jail. It may take time, but it will happen.
I needed my pay for food. They have taken food from ME during hard times.
A starving artist can bring them down.

They got $170 from me ... Where can I make a complain? It is a "customer protection" agency or something similar in Australia? I wan't to make a complain about these scammers from freelancer.com. Thank you

We appreciate your feedback about freelancer.com

Please note that we do not respond to customer issues on public forums. If you would like to contact us directly our Support Team are available 24/7 here or email customer-support@freelancer.com.

If your complaint is regarding a legal or compliance issue you can email legal@freelancer.com or write to us at PO Box 1121, Double Bay NSW 1360, AUSTRALIA.

Freelancer.com is the world's largest global outsourcing platform with over two million registered users. We value feedback from our users and would like to take the opportunity to improve wherever we can.

Kind Regards
Freelancer Support Team

Freelancer is not responding anyway! I have 3 open tickets on freelancer with no answer! When I contact the customer support every time I talk with another person who do not know what is all about! After I explain the situation they say that they have to talk with some superior commission...this last from November 2010...

I did not asked for a complain on freelancer, I asked for a Australian authority to make a complain about these scam!

So, think again when you wan't to sign up to this site, it is just a matter of time till when you will be ripped off by these guys!

While I haven't been ripped off as I never got to the point of hiring someone, I haven't used this site in years because if memory serves me, it was a pain, the interface was a nightmare, & it was very difficult to find workers who:

1. Speak & understand English
2. Can follow even the simplest of instructions
3. Actually have skills
4. Are reliable & trustworthy
5. Don't just spam out the same response to every project.

So I stopped using them, but then they just bought out Lime Exchange.

I tried to hire people on Lime Exchange, but with the exception of one person we did hire, there was no real talent on Lime Exchange.

So freelancer.com starts sending out e-mails saying because I'm a Lime Exchange client, I will now get their gold membership for 2 months for free. I try to log in to see what's new. Has anything improved. I can't log in even though they said it would be the same login as on Lime Exchange.

I start a ticket & things go downhill from there.

1. They can't understand a word I say. I have to repeat myself.
2. They somehow created a new user name for me without telling me. They delete that one, but are clueless that I STILL can't get into the one I was using with Lime Exchange. So they have no common sense.
3. I ask to speak to a manager. I doubt that happened.
4. Finally I'm able to log in. I now inquire about the gold membership & I'm told I don't get a gold membership.

I finally lost it & told them that their company is TERRIBLE. This is why I never used them years ago & NOTHING has changed.

Now that I read they are ripping people off, thank gawd this happened to me. I can only imagine if I had hired a graphic web designer, where would we be if our money got stolen.

I didn't even know they are in AU. I thought they were in India.

I'm in the same position, Freelancer.com has stolen my money. I posted a job on freelancer.com. The winning bidder tried to do the job, but he could not, so he told me he is refunding the money. He sent me a screen shot showing that he made the refund, but Freelancer is not processing the refund. The bidder does not have the money anymore, Freelancer.com has the money, but will not send it on to me (as the bidder requested). When I complained, they suspended my account. The support people do not answer tickets and live support keeps getting turned off by them (the site will suddenly say live support is unavailable) as soon as I ask what is going on. When I asked them for their legal department, they said they do not have one. When I asked to communicate with a manager (to get this issue fixed), they said they don't have any managers. When I asked for the support department email, to create a ticket, they gave me a fake email, and my email message to support (requesting a ticket be opened) just bounced. Bottom line, the bidder does not have my money, I don't have my money, Freelancer.com does have my money. They are not willing to communicate properly to fix this issue. In my opinion they are thieves, and I think they are stealing people's money with intent. They give Australia a very bad name.

I'm in the same case. I lost $ 520 and 4 years of reputation. I think we should get together and fight for our rights. my email is: pacotrece @ gmail, write me ... look the right way to get our money

We appreciate your feedback about Freelancer.com

Please note that we do not respond to customer issues on public forums. If you would like to contact us directly our Support Team are available 24/7 here or email customer-support@freelancer.com.

If your complaint is regarding a legal or compliance issue you can email legal@freelancer.com or write to us at PO Box 1121, Double Bay NSW 1360, AUSTRALIA.

Freelancer.com is the world's largest global outsourcing platform with over two million registered users. We value feedback from our users and would like to take the opportunity to improve wherever we can.

Kind Regards,
Freelancer Support Team

Here is how Freelancer.com is really stealing money from users. You have to pay 10.00 to start. Then when you post a project, they take $5.00 for the project fee.

So you post a project and pay the $5.00. It then gets accepted by a freelancer to do the work. Once that freelancer has accepted the work, you now owe a percentage of the job in payment to Freelancer.com. In my case it was $22.50 plus the $5.00 for the first project. Total of $27.50.

I posted a second project and paid the $5.00 fee. Then the work was accepted by someone and I was charged again from Freelancer.com a $7.50 fee. So now I have paid $12.50.

But now something happens. I get to the 30 day completion mark for the first project and have had been unable to get the first worker to provide any updates except to say that things are progressing. I then get a notice out of the blue that he cannot complete the project. Mind you it has been 30 days and no work completed. He just skips out on the job. Cancels it and says he cannot do the work.

I then get a message that I am getting my second project cancelled on exactly the 30 day mark by the person saying they cannot do the work either. All the time, constantly asking for updates and finding out that they were supposedly working and yet when time comes, they do not have a finished product to hand over. Once the person who accepted the work, cancels it, then you cannot give them feedback or any negative rating and you are done with them. Freelancer.com basically has a back door to any person that accepts work that they do not have to suffer or pay any of the consequences if they do not want to finish it. It is totally rigged in favor of Freelancer.com and the workers who bogusly accept jobs and do not intend to finish them.

So I contact the Freelancer.com support to find out what I can do and then things start to sound fishy. Here is what they say:

"Our site merely acts as an online venue to allow users to offer and buy professional services. You acknowledge and agree that Freelancer.com is not involved in the actual transaction between the freelancers and hirers. As a result, Freelancer.com has no control over the quality or legality of the professional services provided by users on our site, or the ability of freelancers to provide the services or the hirers to pay for the services. We do not guarantee that a user will actually complete a transaction or act lawfully in using the site."

We always recommend buyers to review the user's ratings first before awarding a project. (HA, I did review the ratings and only chose people that had some but that does not stop them from pulling this crap)

If you have issues with the project and since we don't refund fees, the best option right now is to get in touch and compromise with your provider on what is the most appropriate resolution to your issues.

Are you kidding me...
That solution of working with the contractors does not work when the job is cancelled by the contractor. They have no responsibility or reason to finish the job nor to answer your requests or emails. They can't get a negative rating from me either after they have cancelled the job. It is just a joke of a service.

So all the fees I paid or have left in my account are lost. I went to withdraw the remaining money I had in my account and they have a $30.00 limit on the amount of money they will allow you to withdraw, anything less and you are screwed. Now, some of you are thinking that anything less than $30 bucks is not much to lose but when you add up the problems and the way I feel I was taken for a ride, I wanted any money left to come back to me. But because I am not going to use their service and I can't withdraw it, I have to let it sit there until Freelancer.com takes it and keeps it for themselves. I get scammed a third time...

So if you want my advice, find a service that puts the workers feet to the fire if they do not come through for the employer. Otherwise, Freelancer.com is the only one that goes home happy and is getting everybody's money. Basically, they told me they did not care what happened to me, because they already got paid for both projects even though the work was not even performed. It is absolutely a joke... too bad it was on me to learn.

Unfortunately this is the case with almost 100% of the online bidding & job sites. Independent contractors can waste the company's time (time is money for any business) & usually the outsourcing site doesn't care.

While I'm not going to say that ALL online companies are professional & ethical, in our opinion based on trying to hire freelancers since 2003, we've only come across may be 1 or 2 responsible, ethical, respectful workers. The rest run away if you tell them what they did wrong, they don't like what you say, or you get upset because their work is terrible or they can't communicate well. And for anyone who thinks these complaints are just about foreigners, think again, this is across the board with workers in the US & Canada.

And the way the majority of them talk to the boss or person of authority is totally shocking as they would be fired or thrown out on the spot if they ever talked to a boss or manager in that manner.

There's even been workers who get angry at negative reviews posted about them, & to retaliate they start blogs telling lies about companies by calling them fraudulent & scammers. The worst positions we have found are:

1. Editors & writers
2. Graphic web designers (not website coders)
3. Bookkeepers

They are allowed to lie & slander with no repercussion.

Another problem that happens is you train them, they say they are going to do the work, then in the end the work is either terrible, or like you said, they just keep lying about whether the work is even being worked on. By the time you realize what is happening, a month to 4 months go by. One time 1 1/2 years went by when a programmer ripped us off.

Unfortunately this is one very BIG reason being successful online with one's business is very challenging.

Freelancer.com is scam! I have had my account suspended twice! The first time they suspended my account happened a few months ago. I had about $1000 on my account and eventually lost all the earnings (I worked as a freelancer) and got my account terminated. After some time passed I decided to register another account on Freelancer.com. Now the account is suspended again! I have earned $700 that I have had no chance to withdraw. Seems frustrating, isn't it? But I am fine :) They may have my account suspended and terminated, my money stolen, but those swindlers will not be able to steal my knowledge. Omnia mea mecum porto! :)

I will never work on Freelancer.com again because Freelancer.com is scam. Wanna lost your money and waste your time, be sure to visit Freelancer.com! :) That is what I would suggest anyone interested in working on Freelancer.com. So, stay away from it or you may end up writting your own complaints on Scam.com. ;)

(Originally posted on Scam.com: http://scam.com/showthread.php?t=135356)

We would like to take your kind support and help in exposing off one of the biggest scam and fraud company with the name Freelancer.com Run by Matt Barrie who is the so called CEO of the company.
The company has always been in the news and press for providing one of the best platform for outsourcing but after surveying and searching the internet for past 2 months and after having a personal bitter experience with the company and a long discussion with their CEO we would like to state that the company is nothing but merely a HUB of scams and fraud. This company is not only doing internet frauds and scams but also spoiling the name of the country in which it is registered.
We registered as a service provider on the website 2 months back and won lot of projects online, our clients created milestone payments for us using their paypal accounts and all of a sudden company blocked our account without any reasons.
They asked for verification documents in such a manner that we got furios for the issue. The company asked us not to cross mark anything on the documents and also asked the owner of the company to send their passport and a verification code in both the hands and send them the pictures. This kind of verification made us quite suspect along with their statement that we must not darken or blurt or put any cross mark for our safety on the documents.
When searching on the internet we also found out that this company use to steal the identity of people and rip off them for their money. They use the id proof and documents of their site users for scams and frauds which involve money.
They Also usually suspend the accounts of the users when they are about to withdraw the money for their hardwork which they have done online. Apart then this company also suspends the accounts of the users who have some money in their accounts in the form of milestone payments and then mentally harass them to send multiple documents and never reinstate their accounts.
They also never refund the payments back to the project owners who had made the payments for the freelancer and neither they withdraw the money to freelancers. This way the company is running a huge huge scam online and both the project owners and freelancers are harassed.
One such incident occured with us when our clients with their username itgenie, eloko, proshopexpert made the milestone payments of 200 USD each and asked us to start the project, all of a sudden our accounts were suspended and our money with them freezed.
We sent them multiple emails, talked to their staff which really has very very poor customer support service. But no resolution was made, they also denied to refund the money to our clients and also didnt allowed us to withdraw the money, it was paypal who supported us at that moment and helped us to get our money back from freelancer.com which we paid to the company for getting the gold membership.
Finally we agreed to send them our documents but only on condition that we also requested them to send the documents of their company, their legal status, registration certificates along with the documents of the owner of the company in order to ensure that the company is a registered legal company and our documents are going in safe hand, but company denied to send us stating that they have strict privacy policy and they never send their documents for cross verification- which again made us suspect of the company.
You can check the authencity of our email by checking freelancer.com scam, freelancer.com fraud, getafreelancer.com scam, getafreelancer.com fraud and google will direct you to various websites like www.[censor]lancer.in, /link removed/ www.scam.org.
All the above three portals will have hundreds and hundreds of complaints against this company.
I strongly believe that the staff of this company must be put behind the bars for ripping off the users for their hard earned money.
with warm regards
Nitin Naresh

www.[censor]lancer.in

I have the same issue as many people here, money has been stolen from me and my account apparently no longer exists, have lost well over $600. It's disgraceful that these people are allowed to stay in business. Has anyone every managed to get a response from their support emails ? 9 emails I have sent so far and nothing!

Same here, filed a compliant with https://complaint.ic3.gov/default.aspx - reference this number if you decide to file a compliant against them I1104051012476332

I have the same bad experience right now. freelancer suspended my account and I even didn't ask for money. I only complained about my last provider. I also have a project open and the provider accepted. but I can't work with him now because my account is closed. I have send my ID but no answer yet. it really looks like they are out to take our money. I have money on my account.

Once the person who accepted the work, cancels it, then you cannot give them feedback or any negative rating and you are done with them. Freelancer.com basically has a back door to any person that accepts work that they do not have to suffer or pay any of the consequences if they do not want to finish it. It is totally rigged in favor of Freelancer.com and the workers who bogusly accept jobs and do not intend to finish them.

I will never use freelancer again and hope thousands will follow.

Unfortunately all of the freelance sites are like this. The company loses out big time & we can't even see if the freelancer has behaved like this in the past. Like you said, ONLY if the project was completed & money changed hands can you write the truth about what happened.

oDesk just told me that down the road they may be making it so we can put some kind of strike on their acct. if they do that, or oDesk will take the info, put it in their notes about the freelancer & then if it happens 2 or 3 times, they will ban the freelancer.

That is at least better than the other ones.

Guru is terrible too. They have canceled my account because I wouldn't let freelancers talk to me in such a disrespectful fashion. The freelancer would then cry to Guru like the immature babies they were & then Guru would warn me or boot me. So basically the message is, they are allowed to be disrespectful to the manager or owner of the company, but if I put them down, that's another story altogether.

Zainsih7 a freelancer is a fraud and cheat
Almost two months ago, I applied for a job naming “Content Writer” posted by him. he selected me and asked to send some sample. I submitted samples and they selected me as a final candidate. he promised to pay twice in a month based on the working and then assigned me some project on daily basis. Initially they only gave me a task to write academic report of 3000 words daily. After 10 days he asked me the detail of previous work and promised me to send a cross cheque at my home but did not fulfill their promise.
I made several calls to him but every time he made different excuses. Some time he is busy in any function or in office. Some times, he was ill or out of city. After my refusal for further work, they sent me a cheque of $65 after 25 days of my joining and I submitted this cheque in the bank. After 7 days, bank responded that this cheque was bogus and bounced and my employer did not have sufficient balance in his account. I talked to my employer and he said, he will make payment through on-line method. This was the time of my second payment that was almost $700 and my employer said he will first make previous payment and then next one. I had used some payment of my first cheque by taking loan from my friend and he was asking me to return his money.
I again requested my employer to please make my payment and told my all problems but he was making excuses again and again. When the date for second payment came, he left attending my phone call. Now I can do nothing . In this period, I write more than 100000 words for him and he did not pay me a single rupee. I still have all his mails and cheque as a proof if any one require.
He worked with the name of Zainish7 on Freelancer.com and acclaimed to be the owner/CEO of "Softic Outsourcing Solutions" company

WORST company I have ever worked with is Freelancer.com, they have also closed my account and it takes them ages to respond! I hate them and I hope their bussiness is not for long!

@f@&#freelancer.com.

Hello.
My name is Emir and I work for Freelancer. I came across your post here at complaintsboard.com. We appreciate the feedback.

I’d like to reassure that Freelancer.com will only freeze or suspend accounts to further authenticate a user’s identity or ascertain the nature of the transactions done through the site. These policies and procedures are in place in order to create a safe environment for freelancers and employers.

I understand that you had a bad experience with our Customer Support. Please be assured that our customer support teams dedicate themselves to make sure all account concerns are resolved as quickly as possible.

But we’ve taken into account all of your feedback on our support and services to further improve on the work that we do.

If you still have issues with your account, please send an e-mail to customer-support@freelancer.com and we’ll address them promptly. Or you can send it to emir@freelancer.com and I’ll escalate your concerns to our Customer Support Managers for immediate resolution.

Thank you very much.

There have been reports that their accounts were suspended without being informed or any preventive measures sent via email before they put a suspension notice. However, you can always contact their customer service to check on what you can do to reinstate your account. Reading these kind of comments would actually tell us to check the website first before we start doing business with them. I came across a certain site who offers full time work to employers at a low cost budget. I’ve tried hiring staff from “Staff.com” and I am happy to know that they’re a legit outsourcing site. Try to check their list of jobs at https://staff.com/browse for you to find out.

I also lost 280 USD from freelance the this cheater site never bid on this cheating site i am planning ot start a forum in which we together make an effort to collect the data of cheating by this freelancer and its CEO so pls inform all and collect the data we all can go together and make this cheater in an end.

Try searching freelancer.com scam on google.
I had bad experiences with the company.
PLEASE DON'T PUT YOUR MONEY ON FREELANCER, THEY WILL STEAL YOUR MONEY.

Hi Arunch. My name is Max and I'm also from from Freelancer.com. We appreciate the feedback. I'm helping my colleague Emir, with replying to user concerns posted at this site. It is unfortunate you feel this way about our site. I would like to help with your account concerns. Please send your username to max@freelancer.com and I'll help you resolve the issues around your account. Thank you and we hope to hear from you soon.

The same situation has occurred recently with me. I have put money on deposit. The contractor refused to start work without paying his invoice. I declined and said no - i did put money on a milestone. They failed to begin, they failed to deliver. Freelancer then wants me to pay fees to arbitrate the complaint. This is a complete scam! After a series of successful projects they are letting one bad apple spoil the bunch!

Hi freelancersucksass,

I am Will from Freelancer.com. It seems that you have frustrating experience
regarding the arbitration fee that we charge for your Milestone Payment that was put into dispute. I would like to help you by reviewing what had happened and to come up for a resolution to resolve your issue. Shoot me a message at willc@freelancer.com and I would be glad to resolve your issue the soonest possible time.

I will be waiting for your email.

Thank you,
Will

freelancer is a big scam beware of programmonks and neoglobal they are thieves and freelancer will not refund your money, they pretend to be european programmers but are indian scammers

all of these ### on freelancer can hide bad feedback to, so you never know what scam your getting, be warned, stay away from neoglobal and programmonks especially

Hello monaro77,

I am Will from Freelancer.com. I would like to help you by reviewing what happened in your account. Send me a message at willc@freelancer.com with your username and let me see what I can do for you.

I will be waiting for your email.

Sincerely,
Will

They are really cheaters, I experienced this problem many times and they stole my money nearly $1500 by reversing it

Hi. This comment is not exactly about freelancer, but rather about a scam going on on freelancer.
There is a money exchange scam where someone offers to give you a sum such as $100 in exchange for a sum such as $150 on Skrill as they say they need the money urgently. They give you the money first and you can see it in your account balance on freelancer. Then you send the money.

However, what happens with this money exchange scam is that after ~12 hours Freelancer.com takes all the money back saying money exchange is not allowed on their site + they reserve the right to take the money if it was posted from a stolen credit card.
The result - > I lost $250 on my Skrill.

I'm posting this here because when I googled it I didn't find anything. I was a bit suspicious but finally thought it is legit.

I had hired a freelancer to Design a logo for my company. I hired him and had to pay him ₹1500($25 approx). I selected the payment method as Paypal which was accepted on their website, a receipt was generated for ₹1500($25 approx) and I paid. After the payment was successful suddenly I realised that ₹100000($1534.80) were debited from my account instead of ₹1500($25 approx).
I immediately emailed and chatted with the customer service of Freelancer and they said they will refund, but after 2 days had passed nothing happened. I again contacted them and they said that they have refunded the amount back to my Paypal account and even gave me a receipt for the refund. After another 2 days the balance dint show on my Paypal account, I again contacted Freelancer and they said that the fault is because of the Paypal service. I contacted Paypal and they said that no refund was initiated from Freelancer and if they do have refunded they(Freelancer) have to call Paypal and sort the matter. I told the incident to Freelancer and they then agreed that they had held up my payment and wont give it back until I called Paypal and tell them that I dont want a refund as it destroys the reputation of Freelancer and also makes 'matter complicated'. I called Paypal again letting them know that Freelancer wants to me close the dispute. Paypal strictly advised not to close the dispute as then refunding my money will be next to impossible.
I have till now mailed Freelancer over 25 times and every time they blackmail me by saying closed the dispute and then we will see how much and when to refund. I gave them a warning that Ill go to court and still they dint agree, after I was adamant that I will not close the dispute and will move to court, they are now for over 4 days keep replying me the message saying that my case has been transferred to another department and I will hear from them within 48hours. Its been many days now and since the start I have been jumping from talking to their department to department (chat, refund, Verification, billing and more).
Freelancer has now even limited my account and are threatening to block it and not refund the money at all. After searching on the net I found thousands of other similar cases where Freelancer debits money or doesnt refund the left balance of a customer back to them. Freelancer even agreed to the mistake of by fault debiting $1500 instead of ₹1500, but isnt refunding.
Iam a very small man compared to this billion dollar company and I dont know what to do. These guys dont have any phone numberemail of managementAddress in my country. Please help me, I can provide with any proof you like. I even have saved all the chats and emails.

Email- Varun.anand@hotmail.co.uk

My account also has been closed with 1900 USD worth of milestones from our clients. Plus $500 worth of withdrawable funds... they closed our account without notifying us the reasons why. this happened twice already. at first they froze $300 worth or funds from us, their reason is that, we are not verified. after we verified the account still our money was frozen... now the second time, they scammed us again... For all freelancers out there. Be careful with your money... Don't use freelancer.com.. they are scammers.

Yes Freelancer.com will steal your money, is a fraud web page because they steal the money of the Paypal accounts of the registered users, and in Paypal is accord this situation, be careful with the money in internet.