Freelancer.com Reviews

At the first half of February, 2013 I got a payment from employer M. (a little bit more than $1K). M. is a reputable employer (member of Rent-A-Coder / VWorker / Freelancer.com since 2004, reputation is 5.0 based on almost 60 reviews; 80+ projects completed).
I got more transfers from other employers and made some successful withdrawals after that payment (some days my balance at freelancer.com was close to 0) and felt happy with my job.
Everything has collapsed at the 2nd half of April. I’ve requested a new withdrawal ($800+ - my balance at freelancer.com was a bit more that that amount) but got nothing in time. I thought that there was a bug in freelancer.com software and made another request for withdrawal of the same amount. In a day I've noticed that my request was just disappeared from the respective list at freelancer.com. I would like to highlight that during that time I have not got any messages from freelancer.com other than “Latest projects and contests matching your skills.”
Of course I've submitted a ticket to freelancer.com support. They have responded that employer M. is having an account issue with them (as I noted above, the reputation of M. on that site shouldn't cause any doubts), and that the amount which I have received from M. cannot be withdrawn.
There were a lot of words… Here is the model (please note that all dates, amounts and user names are close but not exactly match to real data):
1-Feb-2013: Payment of $1100 from M.; balance is $1100
10-Feb-2013: Payment of $500 from A.; balance is $1600
21-Feb-2013: Withdrawal of $1000 – OK, balance is $600
1-Mar-2013: Withdrawal of $550 – OK, balance is $50
10-Mar-2013: Payment of $400 from B., balance is $450
25-Mar-2013: Withdrawal of $400 – OK, balance is $50
10-Apr-2013: Payment of $800; balance is $850
20-Apr-2103: Withdrawal of $800 – REJECTED since amount of $1100 (= payment from M. at 1-Feb-2013) became unavailable to withdrawal :-O

Also I got an advice to contact M. directly and ask to resolve that account issue. It would be a good joke if it wouldn't concern the sensitive amount of money: I thought that the main aim of freelancer.com is to establish secure relationships between freelancers and employers, i.e. freelancer.com guarantees that freelancer will be paid for its job if it has been done, and that employer will pay for the job which has been done only.

CONCLUSION. IMHO since you have earned your first money at freelancer.com you cannot feel safe: at any moment any of your former or current employer(s) can be declared as having account issues with them and amounts you have received from that employer will be locked – despite of how long ago etc. it was.

I did a few jobs on this site. It's a waste of time, avoid like the plague.

First off:

- Everyone thinks they should pay an engineer less than a convenience store worker.

Really.

- Employers can cancel at any time, the bill is footed by the provider.

So you get pushed out, you pay the bill. Oh, the provider pays the bill too. Double fees - no refunds.

- No complaint system for nonpaying employers

I was scammed out of $150 worth of work with this. The guy set things up, I did the work - he took off. Milestones gone, payments gone - my hours of time - those were gone too. Can I complain? Nope. FYI - the company that did this to me: MOWBI dot Com - Bill's a thief - doesn't pay his workers, overcharges for a garbage product.

So - go to a different site. If there's fees on all ends - like with Freelancer.com - then it's a scam, avoid like the plague. Elance is 1000% more reputable, and I've had NO losses with Elance.

Hi everyone. Once I signed up for this site I found a project about report rewriting. The employer (ishtiak146) said that I have to complete it urgently. Once I've done it I he disappeared without paying. Be careful.

ishtiak146 is a scammer.

He was from Bangladesh. This is why I would hire or work for guys from Bangladesh. Be careful.

The site took comission and did not refund it. Actually, I was ripped off.

Really number one cheating company - freelancer.com, Because i have converted money USD 2000 to indian rupee, Current rate of USD conversion is 53.96, But their conversion rate is 51.4. Whats this? Remaining 2.5 INR gone where?

So totally i lost 5000 INR for conversion. Really so bad, and also the same i converted 700 CAD, actual conversion rate 53.42, but their conversion rate 50.86.

So think about this and be aware about them.

Dear,

Please read before post and hire freelancer in freelancer.com!

Nothing help when the freelancer disappear, I have a case that the freelancer promise to have 1 year maintenance for the project. The payment is completed after the project is build, the freelancer agree that the 1 year will fix any issue if found any bugs.

OK, then, i found the bugs, freelancer cannot contact, i ask freelancer.com to amend my comments for the freelancer (Because they have something so called reputation), i need to give bad comments instead. Freelancer.com tell amending comments should both side agree!? How come a people agree another people to give bad mouth?

No sense! They said it is the policy.

OK, I give "I HATE IT" rate. Hope people don't be cheated anymore!

========== Take care buddy =========

I started working at Freelance a month ago. The first project I got was worth 100$. At the end of it the employer awarded me with bonus 25$. So I actually got 112.5$

The second project I got was worth 440$. After a few days of communicating with the employer he said that he is aborting the project. That is when I was that Freelance already took the 10% fee (44$). I tried to contact them but they ignored my request for refund.

So, now anyone can post a project, and a freelancer who accepts it will suffer.

We wanted to have a project developed and tried to hire some IT people through freelancer.com.

The whole process has been one of being confused and giving the feeling of being cheated upon...

At first it was not clear what charges came with every step I took and believe me: everything you do has an extra charge!
The system lured me into registering my credit card including my paypal account, ok it was my fault I should have been more awake not to do so... but I trusted them. :-(

Afterwards not 1 single amount that was agreed figured as such on my CC statement! They were all higher :
30 $ have become 31,01 $ ...
20 $ have become 20,78 $
5 $ have become 8,57 $  
and an initial payment for the project of 300 euro became 404,11 $ (317,25 eur) ???

The developer himself received about 265 euro, all the rest remained in the system of Freelancer.

By than the situation between all parties had become so sour that everything got cancelled!
I have asked them to unregister my CC, just hope they will not deduct any more amounts of it.

It has all been one long story of stress and feeling ripped off!
A great shame!

I've worked at freelancer as a graphic designer making websites and images for clients. Freelancers policy on fees is RIDICULOUS, unreasonable, and outright thievery. As soon as you accept a project, they take 10% of whatever you charged DIRECTLY out of your account and then refuse to refund it even if the client decides they don't want to actually go through with the job or some other issue comes up. Think about it, you've made no money but Freelancer is charging you a hefty some of cash. WHY would they even do that?

I contacted support to get my money back and they informed me that I would not happen. The support agents are heartless bastards, they refuse to be reasonable and their job is to support the company 100% no matter how wrong it is. They KNOW it's hurting the freelancers who are trying to make a little money and getting charged big amounts rather the project pays them or not. Does Freelancer care? NOPE! I begged and pleaded for them to be reasonable, but they would not budge on their policy. Their "policy" is illegal and it's just a matter of time before their ass gets sued in a class action lawsuit. You can't charge someone for literally NOTHING and then refuse to refund them.

If that wasn't bad enough, they literally suspended my account BECAUSE I had a negative balance, which they themselves caused by charging me a big fee on a job that never happened. The CEOs are rotten! Stay far away from Freelancer, get your projects done anywhere else!

This website is 100% Scam. Few days back so called Matt MF Barrie was asked about their scamming by a newspaper and he blew that. Guess what, this site is a scam. Today after 2 years they reversed $1700 from my account that one client paid me 2 years b ack. According to them, the client got issue in his account. I must ask, if client got issue with his account, what my fault is. As now we cant blame the mother of Matt Barrie as he gave birth a bustard. Whenever that guy will need money, he will take money from innocent people’s account. If you are thinking to use this website, that means you are going to throw your money in water.
Do not use. Freelancer.com scam. Freelancer.com is 100% Scam.

I'm an emplyer looking for gemnuine help from good coders that I can afford but without exploiting them. I always pay a bonus and have mostly repeat coders working for me.
Having used Scriptlance I was dismayed to find freelancer had taken it over some time ago. I had already vowed never to use freelancer after they took 1 month to refund an over deposit.

Now I have used it several times since hoping for the best -- and each time I wish I hadn't. This is now abouyt the time I will look elsewhere.

1. The site interface is dreadful! User unfriendly and takes a long time for pages to load. Strange links - strange navigation. in a word - CRAP.
2. They rip you off. Charge for everything -- even editing your job. Any money left over from a payment in the past is always gone the next time I log in.
3. Lot's of things missing in the site 'skills' list that make it difficult to look for certain skills - such as ssh, etc

It is full to brimming with Indian bidders asking you for your Control panel URL and unable to use SSH even though you've specified Linus coding, php scripting, etc.

From what I hear they also rip off coders.

So in a word -- employers and coders -- find another site!

Freelancer is a garbage website aimed at making money for themselves.

Very poorly executed website, with many technical issues. At the same time, tech support is poor and unresponsive. Website is meant to be a marketplace for slave labor, so not surprised that these issues are present. Don't get duped into giving them a single dollar. It is all a game.

Sue the MF's. This is what all the victims should do!!! Today they withdrew 5-6 dollars from my PayPal without me authorizing, or interacting with anything at all.
I immediately opened a dispute, reclaimed my money and deleted the billing agreement they had inconspicuously put with my PP account( was somewhere in the PP settings - watch out).
Get the word out - save innocent freelancers, migrate to reputable websites.
Please recommend good websites for people like me - employer and employee.

Let me start by saying that I found a really good and reliable programmer on freelancer.com, but that is where the good news ends. On a small bill I got hit with an extra 15% in fees from freelancer.com. When I tried to contact support regarding what I perceived as an over charge I was met with extremely uncooperative and poorly trained support staff. While they were friendly and respectful they have absolutely no intention of helping you, or really any ability to. All they can do is point you to terms and conditions, privacy policies, etc. Actually talking to someone was a nightmare because they do not have phones. I finally got someone to call me, but it was over skype and a really bad connection.

Also, my inbox is FILLED with spam since signing up to freelancer.

Lesson learned. Stay away from freelancer.com. If you must post a project, insist with the programmer that you move to another site (elance, guru perhaps) or direct pay through PayPal, otherwise you are setting yourself up for disappointment.

I have write a plugin in Wordpress which is about 60$ contract approx on Freelancer.com. When work done the client telling me that this is not what they agreed on.

They sell that plugin in 67$ for a single copy. That fraud lady have sold more then 10 copies on just WarriorForum.

The lady who never pay me (I made it) and sell the plugin a single copy more then what I made for. The problem is not price. The problem is they never pay me. I got only 30$. I spent my 20 days (because this is my first project).

The second fraudy is maksut96. When work done they refuse to take my work. Gave me bad comment and delete the project. I even can't answer what they do. They never paid even milestone when they want work start.

Yesterday I make mistakenly converted my funds into INR and lost 20$ on this bullshit. They even have no answer to roll-it-back.

They are #1 fraud site I ever seen on Internet.

did job for an employer, spent 6 h..at night.. received only 75% from payment required, after 2 month that partial payment was canceled by support staff of freelancer.com like employer has not verified account.

in result 6 hour... of night.. instead of sleep I spent for free for an idiot! freelancer.com is an unresponsible place... of scam

First they froze money, second stole them. Support says its for your good! Dont work with them they are criminals.

Paid for logos on this site and loved them but then found out they were coped from a free vector site, therefore cannot be copyright protected. Complaints were basically met with fake responses that pretend people who pretended to do absolutely nada. Run away!

Lost months of time, 500 usd and got a creep giving us a really nasty review hitting on SEO.
We unfortunately hired a fraudster USAGraphicsPro on Freelancer.com

After weeks of delay and no activity on our project it is finally rushed through in 4 days. (the deadline was 8 days, set by the guy him self).
We got absolutely nothing of what we asked for.
In the end we did not get the refund nor the files - as he claims on we did on Freelancer.com

Only after opening second dispute he actually got to do some work.
We can write books about this fraudster and his behavior - and later Freelancers lack of assisting in anything, before, during and after the disputes. (we also filed some violation reports - with absolutely no results or reply - simply nothing).

Bottom line is:
Freelancer has NO interest in helping the employers.
The employers may open a single project and then no more, either because they don't need more or because they have fled the scene.

The freelancers, like usagraphicspro, are the ones making money on and for Freelancer.com - so Freelancer.com has a financial interest in protecting the fraudant freelancers and not helping the employers.

Here is a hint on how to make big money online, in no time, without lifting a finger:

Sign up as freelancer on Freelancer.com
Bid on a lot of projects.

When you win a project:
Claim your milestone (preferably as big a milestone as possible), then stall the employer for at least a month (this way he can no longer stop his payment via paypal/creditcard).
Send a poor result to the employer, who will then open a dispute - this will buy you even more time to catch other fools.
Make sure you also make employer profiles as time passes, you will need them regularly to pretend you also have happy customers.

You can be certain Freelancer.com will not lift a finger to stop you - they make money on your scam.

I used RentaCoder, then vWorker and just tried to continue with that strategy by using Freelancer.com. However, the experience is very different. Besides the non-intuitive interface the coders may not even be coders. I had one guy offer to do the work then insist on getting more money than he had bid after I had accepted his bid and not contacted other coders.

Freelancer.com support was not willing to help even when I told them that I thought it was fraud. Three times freelancer.com support has closed my support tickets without doing anything, ANYTHING!

I have hired over 100 people over the past 5 years through many different websites such as oDesk, PeoplePerHour, and eLance and let me say Freelancer has got to be the worst out of them all. They are no where compared to any of the sites I mentioned above. Freelancer only cares about making their money and disregard any dispute resolution you may have.

They require you to add a credit card on file on their website (not a problem with me) but then charges your account without your permission.

For example: They upgraded my account to premium a few weeks ago, and the last time I used their service was 5 months ago!

Their website structure makes it easy for you to send payment. I mean really easy. Just click on a two word text and you will send a payment. There is no additional page where you can review your payment or confirmation whatsoever. Check your bank account and there are 2 transaction made. One for that total amount and one for the fee (average $3~).

Ask your freelancer how much they charge him? Took about 30% of his payment and charges a withdrawal fee and hold his payment for about a week.

O also, they charge to post projects and charge freelancers to buy additional bids.

If you have a dispute, they can't do anything. They will tell you that its best for you to work things out with the freelancer.

They regularly implement new fee structures so be sure to regularly read through the fine prints on their terms of condition.