FreelancerReviews 20,203

CAREFUL with freelancer.com. They just lost my $5000 account because owe of $9.95!
Chat support didnt accept my stand that I never signed on membership.

My review is for the company, not the graphic artist I chose for my project. The bid price was $117, $119.99 with Paypal fee. I created one "milestone", which is a payment that is made, but withheld from the artist until the customer is satisfied and "releases" the project. I happened to check Paypal and found that I had been billed twice- and opened up a dispute for the second charge. I asked the artist why I had been billed twice- he stated that I had created a "second milestone" (I did not)- and he cancelled the second one. However, Freelancer never refunded the second charge, so it is still in dispute. Meanwhile, my Freelancer acct is suspended (because I opened a dispute), and I cannot release the project, which means my artist does not get paid and I cannot leave a review for the nice job he did. VERY thankful I used Paypal, so I can get the extra charge refunded. Totally unfair to the artist. And don't get conned into the extra $29 fee for special help, not worth it. I would have used the artist for additional projects, but won't go back to Freelancer again. NO customer service.

One of a most pathetic freelance site, I have ever experienced.

First time a client call dispute, i provided him all the evidence and they still not ask me anything and decided it in favor of that client and I lost my money.

Second time, client paid me some extra payment mistakenly and he told me about this. I don't have a way to pay back to him, so I ask him to co-ordinate with freelancer support. Freelancer staff never have an idea what to do, so they ask my client to call a dispute and created equal amount of milestone payments as start of this job. I opened dispute and saw that client wanted to pay me 0 euro from 240 euro. Client ask me to accept his offer and I accepted it. After that, I realized it they stole my 240 euro.

Basically, they usually hit freelancers to earn money. Also, whenever you accept a job on Freelancer they deduct project fee from your financial account instantly if client cancel that job you lost your money in that way either.

Stay away from these cheaters! Use Upwork instead, Upwork has a clean way to resolve disputes.

This company is a total scam. I posted one project to see how it works. First it asked you to enter a "competition" to grand a project, so that they can take more money from you. I didn't buy it. Then the freelancer asked for a price higher than what he used to bid my project. Which is ok, because I know he needs to pay a fee too. Then the weirdest part happened: four repetitive charges, for one project with one milestone (therefore should be only one charge). I emailed them to ask for a refund, and it's been a week but the issue is still not resolved. Horrible process and lousy customer service.

It's now almost a month and a half but Freelancer still has my account suspended even though I was the one who was scammed by a freelancer who took someone else's work (Disney) and pawned it off as his own. I could get sued for using the banner he made because it is a copyright infringement but Freelancer keeps quoting their terms and Conditions thinking that their small business trumps the law. They also kept telling me to do things like:

#1 - talk with the freelancer to resolve the problem which is literally impossible bc they suspended my account - and getting a reply back from them is impossible bc you can only comment once and have to wait for their reply back which can take weeks at a time

#2 - submit a ticket which is also literally impossible with a suspended account

I supplied them with an attachment of the work which was submitted and an image direct from Disney which matched it so it should have taken a day at most for them to acknowledge the copyright infringement and settle my account but they are far too incompetent for that. Instead, they just kept quoting their terms and conditions whilst conveniently ignoring their own copyright infringement policy which they obviously don't care about as much as it says they do.

They are the most unprofessional and incompetent company I have ever had the displeasure of dealing with.

The first thing you'll notice is that you need to give them your credit card details before you can do much on the site. Which if you succumb will be your downfall, I was curious about the different memberships that they advertise all over the site and clicked the Upgrade button just to see what perks it would give, but just like that with no confirmation my card was debited £40 for a months membership! (at this point I was on the trial and had no interest in paying).

So I hopped over to the customer help immediately and did manage to speak to a rep, when I explained that there had been no confirmation and I hadnt used any features she then printed out a list of the T&C's that I had signed when I registered, I kept at her, saying that I had only been registered for one day, with 30 days left on my trial why would I choose to pay for it. Eventually she managed to process a refund for me, great I thought - not too painful as I left the chat.

Except the refund she gave me was in their site credit. So with £40 in credit, I thought the easiest way around their pesky system would be to withdraw it like you would do with your earnings - nope. The withdraw system apparently doesnt work for "deposits".

Again, seriously frustrated I messaged into the chat. This time my case was forwarded onto the finance department which returned my money a day or two later.

So in summary, if you make one wrong click on their site expect to be fighting tooth and nail to see any sign of your money again. They take every opportunity to take fees, first when the employer is paying for the contests, then again when you actually complete the work.

Avoid it at all costs, there are better websites available.

I accepted two projects,, which were completely fake profiles, After freelancer took my money for accepting those projects, those employers never replied my messages. I am sick of chasing freelancer to refund my money as I haven't got any work from those projects.
And guess, what after so many days I received email that your account is debt pay now or we will suspend account.
This is not first time happened.

Who the f*****g hell want your bull***t service.
NEVER EVER GO WITH THEM

CAVEAT! This crew has perfected the art of debiting money from accounts. To begin with, these hucksters demand an account they can debit funds from - without alerting you except in some small print boring article they know most desperate time pressed entrepreneurs will quickly breeze past. Later, when you discover their agenda and try to get them to stop debiting your account, they won't answer you, won't help you, and won't stop stealing your cash. BOTTOM LINE: had to change my account to get these creeps to quit pilfering my money.

I needed news articles written in native Portuguese so I accepted the offer to do the job from a freelancer that was marked as "recommended". That's when hell began. I sent her three precise subjects and she told me she would "scan my website" to see the content. After some hours, she submitted articles subjects that had nothing to do with what I asked. I opened a dispute to get a refund, but then she came back with subjects that looked more or less ok. I waited for 1 day, and then got the articles... Oh my! First of all, the articles were written in gibberish English (obviously some automated translation). She said if I was happy she would then "have them translated into Portuguese (another automated translation I guess). Also, the info on the news was outdated. I had no choice but to tell her she had to cancel the obligatory milestone payment I made or else I would open a dispute. Luckily she agreed, but her condition was that I didn't leave a bad review on her profile. Of course, during the process, Freelancer.com took fees in every step of this horror (they even take a fee when you cancel a project due to falling for their trap). And to add insult to the injury, I now have to wait 15 days to get my funds back on my PayPal account. So to sum it up: completely unprofessional service, completely inaccurate ratings of freelancers who are mostly dishonest people who hold your milestone payment hostage until you promise them not to give a bad review and the Freelancer.com thieves filling their pockets with fees taken on unsuspecting employers. Never again!

Freelnacer.com deducted mine money without informing me and without giving any reasons. They allow people to post project without any validation, and when you work on the tasks and get the money, and after couple of days they deducts money from your account saying that freelancer account was doing fraud activities. You will get nothing there simply wasting time on working projects posted there because at the end you will get nothing.

It was easy enough to get a freelancer to take care of a 2 minute code fix, but the moment he was done, he kept badgering me about payment every 7 seconds. Which inadvertently cause a triple billing in the process, and then, you have to go back to the employee to get them to release the "milestone". All of which is extremely confusing to a new user, which I was. I build websites and yet had a horrible time navigating that site, and ended up triple billed because it looks like you are billing once, and just confirming but you are actually posting multiple payments and milestones for things that don't exist and then you have a credit on the account. So, it is partly my fault for letting the employee badger me through the payment process so he could have it immediately, but, with professionals this would never happen, in addition, when he realized he needed to release the extra milestone, he tried to force me into giving him a tip for doing so, good ethics. And of course I didn't, so a 20.00 job, with their fees becomes 25, plus two duplicates, ends up at 60 plus dollars. Their customer service guy was nice enough, but must have been taking several calls at once and when he sorted out about 2 of the issues, he bailed mid chat. After making me wait all that time he apparently couldn't be put upon to finish the last step with me. Do yourself a huge favor. Don't go near this service. Ugh..

Just hired a writer and couldn't move things forward as he felt the freelancer's fee was too high (yes it is for a newbie). So I cancelled the project and lost 9 USD. Contractor is stuck with a -33 USD balance in his account. Freelancer has been in business for long and needs to understand the pain points of clients and contractors. They have fees for everything, exams, membership, projects, uploads etc. Stop holding fees for cancelled projects. It's just not right.