Freelancer.com
Reviews and Complaints

Freelancer.com are criminals - no other way to say it. I joined their site in march 2019 and for several months, freelancer.com has refused to release funds in the account. I have told them numerous times, I do not intend to continue using the site. Simply refund my funds and close out the account but they refuse. On my profile is a verified payment method, verified phone and verified email address.

They claim they are having issues processing request for funds to a bank account directly but they also refuse to deposit earned funds to paypal. This has been months now. There is absolutely no reason to hold funds hostage. They are criminals.

I have also noticed that almost 90+ % of jobs posted on their site never get awarded and job posters are not held accountable for posted jobs. The site however deviced a way of charging users for credits that could then use to apply for jobs. This is fraud.

You can spend weeks or months working a project on this site and job poster change their mind for any reason and regardless of milestone arrangement, the site will refund all monies to job posted and you get absolutely nothing. They are simply reckless.

Freelancer closed my account for no reason whatsoever. I've had this account for more than 2 years, I paid all my freelancers on time and I've had great reviews but today they shut my account down. No reason was given. I even had someone working on a project for me and this is what they've done. None of the reasons they've listed below applies! Unbelievable!

Below is what they sent to me:

Hello there,

Greetings from Freelancer.com.

We regret to inform you that your account has been closed by the Freelancer.com administration. We offer no recourse or rebuttal for this penalty.

It is stated in our Terms & Conditions that Freelancer.com may terminate the participation of a User if we think that they are creating problems, legal liabilities (actual or potential), infringing someone else's intellectual property rights, engaging in fraudulent, immoral or illegal activities, or for other similar reasons.

In the event of termination, Users found in violation of the User Agreement will not receive any credit or payment from Freelancer.com.

Without limiting Freelancer.com's other remedies, to the extent you are in violation of this User Agreement, you must pay Freelancer.com for all fees owed to us and reimburse us for all losses and costs (including any and all Freelancer.com employee time) and reasonable expenses (including legal fees) related to investigating such breach and collecting such fees.

You agree that Freelancer.com is entitled to deduct such charges directly from any existing balance in the offending Account, or any other Freelancer.com Account owned by you.

Have a nice day.

Regards,

Damian L.
Freelancer.com Support.

My account was suspended for no reason, with money allocated to a project of great importance.
This is a lack of professionality both in respect of both people that are working (specifically the person that was working for me), and myself.

At the moment I have 250 euros in the platform, and no one of the customer service can give me any information about how to have my money back. Are they just keeping the money?

I would like some serious representative of the company to face this issue and to help me resulve the present complaint.

I completed a project for an employer.
I worked on it for over 30 hours.
I paid around 100$ In fees to accept the project.
When I got my earnings and tried to withdraw them I learned they are being held, because the employer hasn't finished verifying my account. The employer has no intention of doing it and I am left with nothing.
Their official answer is that after all that work, and employer who got the project. I am the one who is being penalized, basically got my money stolen by freelancer.com.
Employer got their project, Freelancer.com got their fees and held my earnings.
I am left with lost time and money.
Stay away from this site, they treatment of freelancers and customer service toward them is deplorable.

The night before I was filing a dispute against one of my clients on Freelancer.com and Freelancer made me pay 43 euros as arbitration charge, the commission of the project I had worked on plus an euro extra as Credit card verification charge. I was pretty sure of wining the dispute so I paid all the money. And the next morning my account was closed! I was supposed to get 280 euros from the disputed project plus I had two projects going on simultaneously. So they confiscated almost $1150 in total and my account just disappeared from their site! When I tried to contact them, all they said is that I violated their Terms of service.

I work as a Digital and Creative Consultant Consultant and a part of my job is to manage Social media accounts for my clients. So yes, I did take their login details to get into their social accounts, but the payments were 100% through Freelancer site. I assumed the violation was due to this sharing of login details. When I asked them more about this and also explained why I had to take the login details, like an expert scammer they refused to respond to any of my emails.

However, they kept emailing me with updates about the dispute and I got one email 30 mins back saying the client has left me feedback that my work was incomplete! First the site completely closes my account, refuse to respond to my emails, then they email me about topics that are of interest to them and third, they allow a client to leave feedback on my account that they closed down and doesn't exist anymore! They also send me link to view the feedback which takes me to the login page and when I try to login, they say the account is closed and I should contact customer support and when i contact customer support I get no response. I don't even understand the kind of game they are trying to play because they are pretty experienced in scamming people for such a long time.

I have included screen shots of closed account, first email claiming TOS violation, second email with client dispute update for a non existent account and proof of amount deducted for credit card authentication. I didn't receive any email confirmation for the money deducted for dispute/arbitration (I do have credit card service email as proof).

At this point I do not care if Freelancer doesn't reopen my account as I don't wish to have an account with a scam site. But I do want my money that I am due to receive from the site ( money for the 3 projects + the arbitration amount + credit card authentication charge) and that I worked hard for and earned by honest means!

I have accepted an offer of a project of $1500 on freelancer and they charged me $150 as freelancer.com fee. The client later decided to cancel the project and he did that. As I havent got paid a single $ from the client I asked freelancer.com to refund me the fee they have taken from me but they said "please know that project fees are non-refundable whether a project is complete, incomplete, canceled or deleted.". Any one can guess that there is possibility that freelancer.com creating fake client profiles with good reviews and then posting projects by those fake profiles with large amounts. Offering the job to freelancer and then deducting 10% of the project amount as freelancer.com fee. After that they cancelling/deleting those projects or deleting the clients profile and looting the freelancers. When I said the same thing to their chat support person they have sent me an email mentioning that "We regret to inform you that due to your recent behaviour on Freelancer.com, we are required to take action. This is because you have attempted to take communication offsite." Where as the client have already deleted the project and he is not responding to my messages. I thought I may get the charged fee back from freelancer.com but they denied it completely. I want to know the way I can sue the freelancer.com as they might be looting freelancer this way. Also there is no way to know if the client offering the job/project is fake or real.
Please help.
Project URL - https://www.freelancer.com/projects/project-17752760
My Email - [protected]@gmail.com

I posted a job on this site and it was declined due to an "unmeaningful job description. Then they closed my account. I opened another one and posted the job. Initially it was approved and then declined again. When I tried to reach someone on Facebook, this is what they said

"Thanks for waiting. Freelancer.com does not have a support hotline.

We've checked your account and it has been closed due to a violation of our terms and conditions. As a result of this, we cannot assist you in reopening it and any subsequent accounts that you open will be closed as well.

It is our advise that you seek work opportunities on other freelancing platforms instead."

So apparently my job description violated their terms and conditions. Here's a copy of it:

"We are looking for an experienced and self-sufficient individual/team that is available and ready to work full time providing administrative and marketing support to a small real estate agent/investment company.

This individual must be experienced! You must be able to speak and write English fluently without spelling and grammar errors. You will be marketing to prospects via social media, texting, and via phone. Your English must be on point!

We have two teams generating research and marketing. You will be designated as the Team Lead and be able to organize all incoming leads, be able to follow up with a majority of contacts, and be able to analyze the deal on the phone, though social media, and text.

Leadership and independent thought are necessary. You must also be able to think outside of the box, anticipate the next step with clients/team members, and you must grasp the workflow/operations of the entire team. Do not apply if you are not a self-starter, only take orders, and leave the "thinking" up to us. You must be able to grasp the concepts and apply them to your tasks/processes.

We are looking for a right hand in these operations. Our assistant must be intelligent, must have a pleasant speaking voice, and be able to initiate conversations with clients/team members - not just respond.

This person will be connecting with prospective clients that are motivated to sell their real estate property and researching/qualifying leads via various softwares. This person will also be responsible for connecting with such persons, advertising the services of the organization, and setting appointments. Lastly, he/she will also provide all administrative support in preparing files and relevant real estate documents.

The marketing campaigns we are currently running include social media, dialing, texting, voice drop, and MLS. As Team Lead, you will be responsible for monitoring, ensuring all strong leads are followed up with, generating appointments, entered into the CRM, and administratively supporting company founders with marketing/strategic/operational initiatives and follow-through."

Please enlighten me!

Hi,

I used to be a freelancer in this website, and i had an issue with a project, bellow the exact details:
1- July 24th 2019: I finished the customer website as planned, he asked for the Admin password to change something. he changed the password and never answered my messages since then,
2- July 26th 2019: I waited 2 days before contacting the Support Team (See the chat transcription 1 attached) I told then That the employer is not responding, what should be the procedure, they simply asked me to try again. and that's what I did, but he still not answering. So shutdown the website, because he did not pay for it.
3- July 28th 2019: The employer contacted the Support Team to complaint about the website being down, the same day, freelancer.com locked my funds, and suspended my account without even taking into consideration my complaint.
I sent them An email to ask why my account was suspended and the answer was

"Upon checking, there are issued warnings on your account. Kindly settle these issues first in order for you to gain full access on our website."

They know I can't access my account, and keep sending me emails to update a ticket I can't even open.
And today July 31 th 2019, I received a reminder with a link to resolve the ticket, They just want to get away with the funds I have in my account.

To prove they are treating freelancers in a very bad way.
In the other hand, when you are an employer, the treatment is completely different (Check the 2019-07-29-New messages) a success manager contact you when you don't even ask for it, but as a freelancer, I have 2 days for an automatic response from their system.

Thanks,
Rad

What an absolutely horrible experience! I own an e-commerce company based in Istanbul, Turkey. We needed some changes in our Shopify website so I hired a freelancer on Freelancer.com, I deposited some funds for a milestone payment and with-in 24 hours it got cancelled by itself and I had to create the milestone again which means I paid the comission TWICE!

I let it go since it was only a few bucks, when I deposited the funds again since the project took a little longer than expect, Freelancer.com wants me to authenticate my credit card for a "small charge" (What the..?) I seriously could not get my head around this total scam so I skipped and lo and behold, I must now verify my account by keeping a number given by Freelancer.com next to my ID card or the freelancer I hired wont get paid! Absolutely pathetic.

I have been making online payments for over 10 years and this is the first time I have been asked to put my freaking ID card next to my face, right next to the number given by stupid website. Unbelievable.

I paid for membership and something went wrong and elitesingles said they would sort it and they put money in my PayPal account to pay pay again but I don't want to now with the trouble I've had I just want it refunded back to me I think it's pathetic how I've been treated and I will take it as. Far as I can it's not like it is only a pound it is a lot of money to me thanks

For the first time, I have used freelancer and they took more money from me whereas the freelancer bid was only $10. The freelancer team has deducted $24.44 from my account and now I am not able to withdraw even. This is the fraud to the client, now when I am trying to withdraw from the freelancer account I am not able to withdraw because the minimum amount is $30. How they can be so irresponsible. I want a refund for that.

Date :13 June
Task : Logo Design
My Id is @ralhanria

i am freelancer web designer on freelancer.com website. i earned ₹13835.39inr on freelancer.com, employer paid this amount to my freelancer.com account. i confirmed from freelancer support care that money will go or not ? they told me all money is mine now. after that employer closed his account and all ₹13835.39inr is gone from my freelancer account. i contacted freelancer support again and they refuse to support me and said to me that all money is gone. i need my hard earned money from freelancer.com agency. they are making fools all serious person who want to work online. i appeal t
that please take legal action against freelancer.com website and help me to get my full money that i have earned. some details: Method: Express Requested on: May 24, 2019 at 4:06 EDT Remote IP: 157.39.64.230 Amount to receive: ₹13835.39 INR freelancer support care said: "Once the funds released by the employer, the funds will be transferred to the freelancer's account. This means that the money is in your Freelancer.com account." so now how can they refuse their commitment. please help to get my full refund of ₹13835.39 inr from freelancer.com and take legal action against freelancer.com thank you rahul

Hello,
My freelancer.com account has been close since November 2018. when i have contact freelancer.com via twitter than they told me that my account close and when i ask reason than they told me that there is no reason.
I just want to know if there is no reason than why freelancer.com close my account.
My freelancer.com profile is under top 3000 profiles in freelancer.com.
I have lost all clients. Since november i am contacting freelancer.com again and again but they don't reply.
Because of this, I am job less and failed to get any part-time job. My Family depends on freelancer.com earning and now i am on road. There is no hope in my life.
I requested to freelancer.com to reopen my account again.

5th April 2019, Freelancer closed my account. Immediately i created a ticket, They have advised me to contact with Bryndish H. for further information.

Immediately, I sent her email. Let me copy and paste what she replies exactly.

""I closed your account because you have a duplicate account that I also recently closed.

Best of luck to you ""

I created my account probably in 2013. I am old user of Freelancer.com site. I know no Freelancer site allows duplicate account.

I immediately sent her email that, i dont have any duplicate account. And can you let me know the username associated with my account ? She never replies.

Again, i had to reply support ticket. Bryndish H. is not replying me. They tells me same thing keep contacting with Bryndish H. I sent her several emails. She does nto reply.

And Freelancer support is also stupid, they keep telling me, she will reply. She is busy bla bla bla. It has been around 15 days i got last reply and Freelancer support is keep telling me contacting with Bryndish.

I am tired with Freelancer. I dont have any duplicate account. Thats final. And If i have any kind of duplicate account, you can close other one and keep this one.

But I need to know how did you detect i have duplicate account?

For your further reference, here is details.

User name : Kristina98
Ticket Id: FUGT-6636-HAKL

I was given incorrect information on more than one occasion and treated rudely by one of your support employees. The second person was of no help whatsoever. I have written to the CEO, but it appears that freelancer welcome and satisfaction are of no importance whatsoever to you people. I asked for a manager and was never allowed to contact one. My pay was supposed to arrive on April 18th or 19th but now if I am lucky I might see it on the 23rd of April or later in the week.

Why was I lied to? Why does no one take responsibility? Why do people insist on parroting the company policy when I explain beforehand that I am not willing to take it that as an explanation?

I joined freelancer.com back in 2010 under username TRACERSA . I worked day and night to establish that profile and after so much of hard work i managed to get 787 REVIEWS, 100% completion rate, 100% on time, 100% on budget and repeat hire rate 49%

Due to an UN INTENTIONAL violation they closed my account . They closed it with a very good TRICK, infact they cheated

Some screenshots of my profile and support email where they said all is good and still they closed it

let me tell all of you what happened with complete proof

I have worked with a customer under freelancer assistance, so called a RECRUITER project and once all was done, customer reversed the payment and i asked the support to help and they said, they cannot do anything if reversal is done

after a week same customer came with new username, i worked he did the same, i didnt knew it before he again reversed the payment and told in chat, STUPID I AM THE SAME GUY, i again informed the support and they did nothing

3rd time again same guy came under new username and location. just to confirm it he is same person or not, i told him i will not work via freelancer i will work via SKRILL, just to test him and check so if he is the same guy he would have not agreed.

he was not the same person, and i took the payment via freelancer, so that i dont breake the RULE, , , then after no where a month afterwards he told freelancer support that i asked him for the payment outside, though we made payment onsite, they issued me with a warning stating i should not do this again, i said sorry and they said not repeat it and i said sure and again said sorry

then after a few days, the recruiter/support agent asked me for a skype call so that they can ask me a few questions, i did that and i was told, now all is good, i am good to work again .. i said sorry again and told them i will not repeat that mistake again and made them feel okay ..

then he asked me a few questions which REALLY shocked me

1- It is not possible to have such stats . there must me some thing fishy . These are his exact words ... i told that agent, my working technique is, i never accept the project, once i complete it, , customer is happy then i accept and take payment . that is the main reason i am able to have such stats

2- He asked me, why i am taking offsite payments, i told him, proof me or send me one screenshot where i asked for outside/off site payment except on that only occasion, he had no answer to it

NOTE: He was just trying to look for any reason to close the profile, i still dont know why

In short after having lots of chats and tickets etc, i was told that i am all good and can continue to work . but before that i need to finish IN PROGRESS projects with perfection

i worked days and night to finish them ASAP .. when i did and received the payments, they SIMPLY closed my account

they claim that i violated TOS many times, just to give them an answer if they are reading, , , there is no where mention in any TOS of preferred freelancer that new task cannot be taken in new project.. i have worked or served this site for 10 years i never knew this, once they informed me i never did it . and they then keep on digging into old projects like 1 year ago... hats off to their team, they clear me or inform me today that i dont repeat this and they checking 1 year or even 2 year old project if i did in old project ... Still i paid all the fee for all projects by pointing myself to get rid of it

In last 8 years i got 2 warning, , , which were not server as they are not clear or mentioned anywhere ... Even their preferred test dont have any such question which state NEW TASK from RECRUITER client cannot be taken in new project

Must add this point in your test so people can be aware of this mysterious hidden rule. I can bet you all, they will never sort this issue as they are a bunch of robbers, playing with others

I finished a project valued at $ 2400, the employer released $1800 and since then we were in discussion because he was looking for a hosting where to install the Web Manager and could not find it according to him (something which have nothing to be with the same project), meanwhile he did not release the remaining 600$ and keep me waiting 2 months already. A few days ago I had in my account $400 earned in other project, and without any notification or advise freelancer.com has blocked that money and has put my account with a negative balance of -1293$ alleging a supposed external dispute initiated by the employer (https://www.freelancer.com/u/Sean0001 canadian scammer). From that moment I have contacted support, whose answers have had long delays and without clear explanations. The most significant thing is that freelancer.com scam is practically permanent, I have seen countless complaints from programmers claiming the same, while, the staff of freelancer.com is so immune to criticism that they already have prepared answers for each accusation "We understand your .. ... but ... ". Everything is a scam, everything is disrespect, everything is abuse and abuse. I would like to find some international jury, or institution where I can sue these scammers, at least take away the impunity they profess by swindling and outraging those who really work. I have attached evidence of the prepare messages and their incredible explanation for such case. Please if somebody know where I can demand this scammer australian business, or where boycott those cheater, let me know immediately.

the issue is same as many other people are having, freelancer just reversed my earned money back to the client, i earned that money with hard working, they took it from me and return it back to the client and said to me that it is your client's fault so we suspended his accout. ok admitted, then why to take money from me back? its his fault kindly charge him not me, whats my fault that i believed in freelancer.com?
just scam! fake! disgusting! cause of shame for Australia!

This complaint is about the poor customer support service of freelancer.com. They closed my freelancer.com account which I built after 4 years of hard work, Five months ago when I had around projects worth 10,000 usd were going on I had around 1500 usd in my account.

This happened when I was giving demo to one of my client on team viewer and client liked everything he used my PC browser, logged into his account and released the milestones. Freelancer.com security system thought I have hacked his account and closed my account. That client clarified it to freelancer a week later when he found my account closed that it was his mistake not mine and requested freelancer.com to reopen my account. He did not only once but clarified to freelancer.com multiple times but they never take that into an account.in order to ignore his request they say I have done other violations but irony is they never tell you what other violations I have done. When you ask them about which violation you have done they will again send you a Right to Refuse rule. They will keep spinning you between copied emails while none of them actually knows what's problem and why this all has happened except the admins while the admins they won't talk to you either.

During all these five months I sent them 100's of emails and I received their response 7, 8 times out which most of the times it was copied from some user manual and it seemed the person replying knows nothing about the matter he is just using some pdf to reply everyone same copied messages which were not helpful at all. I used to submit a ticket and they didn't respond me in weeks due to which I had to submit another ticket and this kept on repeating for 5 months.

Later, They blocked my email account and I was not longer able to respond to any of the email. I read blog where CEO of freelancer Matt Barrie gave his email and said you can email me at any time about your problem even if it's just about saying Hi. I emailed him for a month time to time and after a month he forwarded my concern to same freelancer support about which I was complaining about. The support again sent me same copied emails that my account is permanently closed and cannot be reopened. This has been my worst customer support experience anywhere.

Now someone from support will come here and post some copied text trying to be very cooperative and share his email and would ask you to email him to resolve his matter but in reality nothing would happen they will keep spinning you around in same old copied emails until you give up at one point. My issue was simple they thought I hacked my clients account, While that client clarified it multiple times that it was him and mistake from the system but they simply don't bother considering that and won't reopen my account. I just want my account back so I could start working again!