FreelancerReviews 20,198

I'm writing to warn any potential users of this site. In theory it should work but if you are unlucky (though this may be the norm) and end up working with a developer that blackmails you into paying before the job is done by removing the code and forcing you to write a good review before restoring your site the support group (online only) will not be of any service. After job was paid the developer had the nerve to reach out to me four days later to ask for another milestone payment otherwise he would remove some coding. Yes, he still had access to my site even though I removed his password, he was able to secretly create one. He shut down my site until I paid him again. I reached out to freelancer.com and got no help. Since then I've had to change my site. Terrible experience!

Update of my story:
Soon after my employer received their files, freelancer.com has blocked money I earned. They said that my employer had some account issues (not true because his account was fully verified). Yesterday, freelancer.com just stole money from my freelancer.com profile - money was returned to my emloyer. Now my employer received both: project and money and I have nothing. They claimed, that they returned freelancer.com fee but it isn't true.
Stay away.

I have same problem as a lot of people complaining here. I'm working on freelancer.com for more than 1 year, and completed more than 10 project there, with 100% positive ratings.
Few days ago, Freelancer.com has blocked my funds, as a reason they gave me this: "Funds originated from an account that is currently under review.".
Its second time it happened to me, but this time is more annoying because lack of contact from Freelancer.com team.
I wrote several messages to the helpdesk and did not receive ANY response, so they are blocking my money and don't want to clarify whole situation.
No contact, no explanations and no money. Just nothing. THEY JUST DON'T REPLIED FOR MY MESSAGES. How silly is that? This site is simply a SCAM.

The support team never takes your side or helps resolve the issue when you are scammed. I recently had a project up to have someone help me create a Twitter account and maintain a business social media for a company I am starting. I released payment as the freelancer demanded and no work was done.

When I talked to support about receiving no response, they yelled at me for violating the report system because they could find "no fault in the freelancer". Hello, I paid for services and did not receive them, yet I'm the one being yelled at.

I have worked on this Freelancer.com for some years now. Before, it used to be a wonderful experience, but now, it seems the site has been hijacked by the scammers. You see a situation where people just turn on their computers, register an account on Freelancer.com and start posting projects indiscriminately, genuine or counterfeit. The unsuspecting users mostly the freshers are the major victims in this regard. Scammers make them bid for those fake projects, (which are being posted almost every 20 seconds) and make them to work without doing the milestone and run away after the worker has delivered the job. One can authoritatively say that the scenario is such that 7 out of every 10 jobs being posted are scams. I have written to the Customer Support on several occasions to report this ugly development; I even suggested to them that they should introduce a policy where users will be charged certain fee to post projects. I told them that this will go a long way to curtail the menace as it will help in chasing some of these obstreperous users away. But it seems that the Freelancer.com team never valued my suggestion. Now, the situation has gotten out of hand and I'm afraid, because this is not a good sign for the company; only if the management of the company realise the implication of this problem. If not, then we are all together sitting on a keg of gun-powder. Something needs to be done urgently, because the boat is seemingly sinking!

I am going thru a hard time with freelancers, the developer made a mistake in my project after I released the funds. He claims is an addition when it really is his mistake. He also is not fixing his mistake. I reached out for help at freelancers, and they can not give a time frame to complete my project, its up to the developer that is already refusing to do it. Seven days have passed and I still dont have the project nor my money.

UPDATE (Feb 20): I finally got my refund. Seems the only way to get your needs addressed is to post a review about them or make a scene. Customer Service Score: 0.01.

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UPDATE (Feb 18): Obviously, Lara O below has seen my review. I have emailed her and got an auto-response telling me to contact the support team. The same support team that's been ignoring my emails and neglecting to respond to my follow ups for 8 days now. Not looking good so far, Lara.

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Tried a "free trial" of their Plus Membership as a newbie to the site only to have them charge my account after a month without any notice or reminder that the trial was about to end. I was unable to use the account very much and didn't agree to this auto-enrollment to the Plus Membership.

After a few emails back and forth with their customer service, they have now stopped responding to my emails and are not giving me any updates on my concern. They even took to blaming paypal for my lack of refund and even told me to follow up with Paypal's customer service. After consulting with Paypal customer service, I've learned that Freelancer.com is well within their means to issue the refund on THEIR OWN.

Despicable and thieving. I hope more people come to learn about your lack of care or respect for the problems that your users are encountering.

They make a way to lock in your account and take away your balance.
I have a reputable account at freelancer dot com for both employer and freelancer, the guy I hired happens to be near my place, about 1 km apart. Freelancer thought it was suspicious and made my account limited, the verification process is pretty much what criminals has to do, like a mugshot. They rejected my government IDs and asking for something more hard to get, passport is not easy for me to get because I don't travel and it'll take several months in my country to get that, so I ignored the verification for a while. I was ready to take the verification now and when I checked the history, my balance was taken for "liquidated damage charge" or $280. I was lucky to have only that much amount of money, It could have been thousands of dollars if it was there.

Overall review, They are legit and good back then, but not anymore. Greed made such company fall down steeply.

I did a few small jobs at first and got paid, all fine and good... Then I have a notice that I need to verify my information, which I promptly do, but my account is never restored. It says "aims" to have the problem resolved in 48 hours. THERE IS NO PHONE NUMBER TO REACH THEM. NO LIVE CHAT. I am broke and struggling to eat, it is not cool that they are holding my funds. The site should be shut down, or there should at least be a petition to sue these guys!

I've placed my bid on a logo design project after refreshing the browser i see that project was deleted by the owner of the project then the owner of that project hired me directly and i was glad to have hired by him for logo design project now we communicated greatly and i completed his project on time and on budget when he released the money $50 and provided a feedback, after 5 minutes that project was also deleted in which he awarded me and the $50 were gone from my account i still cannot believe that he was a real scammer and he cheated with me nd got my work that i done hardly and got the money lots of projects are posted and hired by scammers in freelancer.com and i am sad and afraid mostly freelancer are experiencing that kind of frauds and only a freelancer can understand how painful thing we feels when we see that the project that we completed so hardly is deleted by the employer and the employer got the work and the money i recommended every freelancers not to use freelancer.com you will be responsible of losing your own money! The owner of freelancer.com should be ashamed of his website he is a sinner! Please remove the option of deleting the project! Otherwise one day no one will use freelancer.com

As at all service, all looks fine when you post a job, you review the offerts and interview the freelancers to select the best one. All start when you hire a freelancer you have to configure the milestone, pay it and release it when you are satisfied with deliverables. Recently I hired a freelancer (USD600 project), and released a milestone payment, but it seems that the freelancer violated one of their rules and they closed his freelancer.com account, so before it, the freelancer told me he couldn't withdrawal the money from his account because Freelancer.com lock the transaction.

Now, I don't have the project and money neither, and the freelancer I hired couldn't withdrawal the money. So Freelancer.com has the money and doesn't refunded me the money.

I wrote them in a ticket ([#EJJ-767-*******]), but I don't have any answer yet.

I awarded a project to a freelancer, he promised a 1 day accomplishment, demanded half of the milestone released to start the project which I did.
After 3 weeks, the project was not done, the freelancer just got away. Customer support told me that the freelancer is having account issues, and that I should wait and contact the freelancer outside of freelancer which I cant since I dont have his email, or skype or other means of communication. In my opinion Freelancer has to support me by contacting their freelancer since they have their contact information which I dont have! But I receive just a lazy stupid answer from customer support: "we cannot give you personal account information". Hello! I wasnt asking for his account information, I am asking that they contact their freelancer!
My project has been delayed for 3 weeks already, and lost money, but I dont get a good solution for this.
I will never use this freelancer site anymore! Full of scams! Their customer support is no support at all, they have no solution, no good advise, no protection.

After I have done some couple of projects one day I found my account blocked after I have finished a project. I was unable to withdrew my money.
The founder of this website Matt Barrie, is just an Australian thief!

This is the WORST website for freelancing out there! You'll be charged for the simplest things, like breathing! Huh! I was awarded a 15$ project which did not work out well, so upon discussing with the client, the project was cancelled. No payments were made. But this site STILL charges 5$ from me! For what? Exactly!
I would advice anyone against using this. Trust me, there are way better websites you can earn from, for cheaper fees. Upwork is the best so far. They only charge 10% from what you earn and that too, will be charged ONLY when the client pays you.Don't make the mistake I made and spend over here even before you start earning!