Freelancer.com Reviews

I had my 3D anniversary card designed, developed and completed within 5 days. I set up 2 milestones one at 50% completion and the other was released on completion. I selected the freelancer based on experience, and previous projects completed. I had no issues using the freelancer site and if anything I'm looking forward to using it again. The amount of money I saved and the ability to have it organised and completed all within the vicinity of my own home. Way to go freelancer and thank you for looking after my financials.

Graphic designers are posting jobs for $30 and in turn sell them to their clients for a lot more money. They tell you they will own all rights to the logo or whatever. So they are claiming your work as their own.

I have also complained many times that people are googling images and putting them directly into their work...and then WINNING. They are never deleted, never suspended, nothing.

I'm done with freelancer.com

To verify your identity, visit the Verification Center.

End dher they don't acept my personl data i send 5 times

for me the freelancer.com is a full scam site

I was on there as an employer not a freelancer, and there were too many fees, and their dispute resolution SUCKS. I am done with being nickled and dimed, and am only using Elance now.

We used freelancer.com to try to find a person to complete our e-commerce site. We had a project budget of $500-700. We found a freelancer to complete the project, and we paid $150 for what they call a milestone payment. The person working never did any work on our site. He kept sending us emails telling us to send him money outside of paypal because the company takes too much out and he didn't have a credit card linked with paypal. Knowing this was in violation (and very shady) we felt uneasy to continue working with both freelancer.com, and the person who won the bid on our project. Seeing as NO work was completed on our site, we asked for a refund of the $150 originally paid. Freelancer said they do not offer refunds, and that we would have to find another person to complete the project through their site. In the meantime they locked us out of our account, and there is no one to talk to. Three weeks in dealing with these people we now have to open a paypal dispute. These people are total scammers and a complete waste of time and money. I would FIND ANOTHER COMPANY!!

After reading all these reviews, it's hard to add anything new, but I want anyone still considering (or worse, actually using!) to quickly move on.

I started on Freelancer.Com after they bought vWorker. As I already had a good reputation, I didn't go research Freelancer.Com (that's probably why Freelancer.Com MUST keep buying new victims). I have made several thousand USD and have some good clients, but Freelancer.Com has still scammed me. Once I got to the point I was fed up with them, I found this site. Here are some points, almost all of them echoed by the other comments, except for the first. I haven't seen this point mentioned yet:

1. Completion Rate: The completion rate is calcuated by total number of projects SENT TO YOU (not accepted, just sent to you) divided by the completed. Yes, I had someone trash my Completion Rate because he kept sending me a job and I wouldn't accept it until he had all the requirements for me to start! (He wasn't trying to be malicious and didn't even know this was happening... why would he??)

2. I was awarded $2000 projects from a client but he never responded. Of course, I wasn't foolish enough to accept because he lacked project details, but I couldn't figure out the reason for someone to do this. Either it was to make the compition loose money and maybe leave or ?? (Of course, it also didn't help my completion rate.) There is something very wrong with Freelancer.Com to set up their system this way.

3. I've completed projects for clients, been paid by the clients, received 5 Star rating had the money deposited to my account. All good. A few weeks later when I go to make my first withdrawal, oh guess what? There are problems with the CLIENT FUNDS. I don't even find out until the money is missing from my PayPal account. I eventually find out from Freelancer.Com support that there is an issue with the client funds and that I should contact them for payment. Um, EXCUSE ME FREELANCER.COM - WHAT IS THE POINT OF YOU AGAIN?? The thing is, I was talking to the client and he even sent me the pictures he had to take with his ID and other information. Turns out, Freelancer.Com charged his CC over $3000 for $150 project! (His laywer was taking over the situation.)

4. I've been awarded projects, had milestone payments deposited, did the work and had the client cancel. Everything gone EXCEPT my fee - of courese, I still had to pay that fee. No Refunds. No Exceptions.

5. I've had milestone payments created, delivered the work to the client and requested the milestone to be released. Client acknowledges I did almost 70% of the project but wants me to finish it before he pays me. I say no, pay me the 50% milestone first. It goes to arbitration. I lose. Why??

I sitll have a 5 Star rating on Freelancer.Com, though I'm sure they'll cancel my account if they can figure out my username. Everything above I can support from my own experience.

If you don't trust the reviews you've read here, then come back and post your own WHEN you get scammed by Freelancer.Com. (I expect scammers to use any website they can. I don't expect to be scammed by the website operators directly!)

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 butt 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't 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 BS. They even have no answer to roll-it-back.

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