FreelancerReviews 20,203

I went on this website to start my work as a freelancer working on spreadsheets. They are AWFUL.

I went on and didn't have many leads, which is fine. When I finally got some work, they took out a huge portion - again, that's fine. I continued my membership, which was the cheapest one, but when I put in my credit card information, they upgraded me without my permission. It was a pain in the $#*! to get back my money.

Later, I put in a bid to do some work for someone. It was valued at about 200USD. I was given the bid on accident and then denied. Freelancer took their cut anyway, even though there was no cut to be had, since i never got the money from the project. I complained for at least a month, then finally got my SOME of my money back.

I ended up with a balance of +60, when it should have been +300. At that point, I was so frustrated I just decided to clear my account and cancel my membership. I COULDN'T EVEN PULL OUT MY OWN MONEY! They said it was tied up because I was still locked into a bid. I told them to cancel the bid and just give me my money. They wouldn't do it... eventually I just gave up and told them to keep the money, and just cancel my account.

DO NOT GO WITH THEM. If I can save one person from signing up, I think my experience will have been worth something.

Freelancer is just another web site (supposed) to put freelancers/employees in contact with employers. But lately freelancer has become a money grab. But the biggest problem is their 'Qualified' and 'Preferred' and other ratings/gimmicks. Seems to me that freelancer now employs people and use them as 'pseudo freelancers' - in other words they show EVERY sign of being a business that sub-contracts people in THEIR EMPLOY (scamming?) of various skills than a simple labour exchange that makes 'a buck' (3%+) on the side. Freelancer has got the last bit of money from me and I wait for the day they go 'belly up' very soon! Not to mention the project quality really sucks and looks like most projects are BOGUS! The Australian government should investigate them as I have serious doubts about Australia and the economy too (I still wonder how they were able to become a public company)!

Freelancer service is good but unfortunately the majority of freelancers are not!
Odds of finding a good one has dropped considerably. Have used many freelancers over the last few years. Choosing the right freelancer for the job is tough. You put in skills and exact description what you need done. Chat with freelancer. Yes I have read and can do this. Next minute they say this is a low budget and request more money, or they ask you to release milestone before they start. Majority just want to be awarded the job regardless if they know what they are doing or not. This is a BIG problem! Majority don't follow instructions. One freelancer wiped out an entire site with a canned demo and I had to restore from backup. Opened a dispute and they asked why did you open a dispute? I give all freelancers a chance. When communications is poor and they don't follow instructions I file a dispute. Feel Freelancer.com should not fool around. When a dispute is filed and communication shows evidence of complaint they should refund milestone and terminate freelancer. NO freelancer should be able to open an account without being verified. Finding allot of fake users. Like Craigslist it's win loose or draw. Best to do the work yourself and only use freelancers you have used in the past you can trust. Spent hundreds this week and not a single job has been completed. Getting bad finding help everywhere these days. Freelancer.com is no exception.

Dear colleagues,

Never ever start having a deal with this establishment.
The mechanism they steal your money is quite simple:
1) you place your bid
2) you are awarded
3) in a couple of minutes your project is marked as "Incomplete" and you are to pay 10% of its cost (which you have never received).
You have neither rights nor place to appeal.

I am sorry for those people who had money on their accounts when these "incompleteness" happened. All their savings were simply stolen.
I was lucky enough to have 50 cents at the moment. Thus, I congratulated the fraudsters with the huge loot;)
Nevertheless, the time I had spent to build my profile was gone for nothing.

Freelancer has STOLEN funds from me, making multiple significant ($100+) charges to my account despite having not authorization or cause to do so.

After having to dig through their site for nearly a day to find how to "request a refund" it took 17 interactions, 5 extremely clear demands and two whole weeks to refund the money... MINUS A DAMN TRANSACTION FEE!

On top of that, every single entry I received for jobs I posted were blatantly plagiarized from google images. I even had one guy from India literally copy my job posting, word for word, post it as his own for a lower price, in an attempt to make money for himself. He intended on making someone else do the work for my logo job, and sell it to mew for more money! Freelancer apparently believes this is ok, as even after reporting it they've never responded.

Multiple other people I have contacted who've used this site have have had the same issues. My wife and her business partner used the site at roughly the same time as I, and had multiple erroneous charges appear on their account, and have yet to be able to get their money back.

I Start a Project with melancee with both side agreement to migrate a magnto site over Shopify, I spent a day to work and send melancee update at same day after that i see melancee mark job a Incomplete and reason are very funny /not kept his promise, asking for design from me when he agreed at begging to do it him self/ melancee give me referece site to follow the design, Then melancee send me message that client need new banner he dont like banner he have on Magento site. I ask melancee to send me new banner for shopify site. I try to connect with melancee, and they are not answering my phone my messages etc, so after so many try to call i realize that they are Bloody Scamer BC..., I realize that melancee is one of my competitors and they only come to my profile to give negative feedback and descrease my reputation. So my advice to all freelancer please away from this unprofessional company melancee Big BIG BIG SCAM.

Project url:- https://www.freelancer.com/projects/shopify-site/Website-from-scratch/

We started our journey with freelancer back in August 2012 we were struggling to win some contracts to stay in the business. Eventually we found this platform quite unique as compared to other freelance websites with plenty of amazing features and support.

We got plenty of help from freelancer to grow our bsuines, now we are not using any other platform except this. We believe in honesty and quality of service, freelancer.com has these core values Its a rare thing in todays marketplace.As the years have passed and our experience has grown now we must appreciate freelancer for all the contributions towards our success

Freelancer.com is helping me work and earn money each month. Lot of projects available but at same time lot of competition from other freelancers.
There are some bad things about this site such as they charge high when exchanging currencies, the money withdraw takes few days. Also, there are lot of bad clients who try to make the freelancer work and they never pay him but that not the site mistake, each freelancer should be careful when working with clients that he does not know.
But in general, that is a good site where you can find work and earn.

When i have project, The freelancer waste your time and Free lancer website waste your money
The freelancer accepted your project and he want time to finish it after that he don't do any thing i tried 4 freelancers and every free lancer bring fake reviews about him maybe by create other accounts and award him self and make good reviews about him, the reviews not controlled at all, and freelancer Website take money for each project accepted by freelancer, i can't waste my time trying all free lancers and waste my money when i trying each freelancer

I have been a member since 2010 and have only good experiences working with freelancer.com. The easy of use, the great tools to chat and exchange info with employers/freelancers, the support team that is always available to help, the great integration with payment services to withdraw money and to make deposits, etc. All this and others good reasons, make freelancer.com the #1 Freelancing Platform

I left the following review of Freelancer's support team after they failed to address my issues.

READ THIS AND LEARN SOMETHING FOR ONCE:

This "support" ticket was filed because a contest holder assigned a random 2.5 stars to my entry following the contest handover. He told me he did it just to release the money and didn't actually look at my work. I presented undeniable proof of this in the form of pictures to Freelancer "Support" and asked to have the rating removed since it lowered my overall score and hurt my chances of finding future work.

They didn't. Kept saying "we strive to uphold the integrity of the review system." They needed the contest holder's permission but he never replied to my messages. I kept at it for days and still nothing. Freelancer sent him messages but he didn't reply to them either. I asked if I could change his score and was told "If it's from negative to positive, yes. But if not, we also need a confirmation."

So to change my score I need HIS confirmation. And to change his score I need HIS confirmation.

I asked if I could lodge a dispute and was told: "A contest dispute can only be lodged by the contest holder."

So basically, the employer has ALL the power, and the freelancer has none. That's how Freelancer treats its own people.

A few weeks before that I was ripped off by a con-artist who took my work and ran without paying me. His profile was an exact copy of someone else on Freelancer but he was still payment, profile and email verified. I didn't get my money because YOUR verification systems failed.

These and many prior experiences have made something very clear: Freelancer throws 100% of its support behind the employers and none behind its freelancers. And I'm NOT the only one who feels this way. Just Google "Freelancer.com reviews" and you'll see the scathing rebukes and horror stories.

It's not a good sign when the word SCAM is repeated throughout. And as for the reviews that say Best site ever or Dream come true. Seriously, who are you fooling?

Keep this up and eventually your social media black-eye will turn away both clients and freelancers.

It's already done that to me. Since my bad experiences, I've been using Freelancer less and less and eventually plan on stopping altogether and opening up accounts with Upwork or Guru.

So to sum up: thanks for nothing. All I asked was to have ONE bad review removed and presented incontrovertible proof as to why. But I received nothing but excuses. Every time I turn to you guys I feel cheated on top of being deceived.

Your support staff is slow, ineffective, hugely incompetent, and reply with generic talking points. I'm giving this survey 1 star to voice my dissatisfaction at your massive ineptitude, and I'm sure I won't be the only one.

As for the 1 star out of 7 that I gave. To quote one of your own talking points: "We apologize but we strive to uphold the integrity of the review system."