FreelancerReviews 20,195

An employer hired me and other two freelancer for a project. So freelancer.com took the fees of being awarded from all of us. the employer didn't pay the money and still freelancer is saying this fees is not refunded even if you didn't get payed.
Conclusion they care about collecting money doesn't matter is the way or their client.
You might work for a project and deliver plus you'll pay for the time you worked to freelancer.com and you won't get payed.

DON'T lose your money or your time. This is SCAM website

I have been struggling to withdraw my earnings from Freelancer for two months now. Their system of creating a milestone is supposed to protect all parties involved as it holds the employer's deposit until the project is approved or cancelled. They strongly recommend it and I followed their guidelines. Everything went well the amount reflected in my Freelancer account after the project was approved and released but it took 2 months for me to get any information of when I will see the money in my bank. I finally got an email in the last week stating that the employer's money never cleared to begin with and they have deducted it from my account, although they happily kept the commission they took on the project even though payment wasn't made. I think firstly they shouldn't have allowed me to believe that the deposit was ready and waiting if it hadn't yet in fact been deposited. I went ahead on the job knowing the milestone would protect me and that was false information. Secondly when I try to sort it out with their support team they send you in circles and don't actually do a thing. Eventually I contacted the employer directly and he assures me that the full amount was debited from his account 2 months ago. How do I escalate this? How do I find out which side is the cause of the error? Freelancer's attitude is that it's not their problem and they're terribly sorry about that. $#@! They've honestly done nothing but cost me time and money. I do not recommend them at all. Their support team is weak and it feels like a scam to me.

This is what just happen to me! Read carefully and think about!

Hi All,

Recently I received a message on the 02/09/2015

"Hey there, I really like your experience and profile and I think you are the most qualified candidate for this job. I'm ready to hire you but before I send out the contract offer, I'd like you to pass a light background check. It is company policy to require all employees/contractors to be screened before being given access to our internal network and documents. Complete the test here: freelancesafe.com (My employer ID is 4731) As soon as I receive the background check result I will send you the contract offer and the initial work instructions. I will reimburse you for the background check cost (10$) in your first paycheck. I'm looking forward to working with you. If you have any questions, do not hesitate to contact me. Cheers, Fodor"

It sounded interesting so I decided to go further so I made the payment and completed the test, then I replied to him:

"Hi Fodor, I did the background check."

Answer from him:

"cheers Piera"

Then I wrote back to him on the 05/09/2015

"HI have you got any news? The payment has gone through. Please let me know. Cheers Piera"

Today is the 08/09/2015 and still no answer, so my conclusion is that he just stole my money.

I am very disappointed with your website, a lot of scams are posted, people asking to be part of money laundry, taking part of sexy chats, receiving package and send it abroad...
As all the other freelancer, we invest money and time to find a job, we don't play with the customers and we like that the customers with us are going to save the money, so we would like to be treated in the same way.
This is your job, you are acting as a broker so you should examine the genuine of a job post before we actually put our money and time. $ 10.00 are not a lot but think with all the people they might applied for this job... basically this guy instead to pay the freelancer he actually ends up to getting pay... so if no action will be taken that means that all of us have the freedom to still money... but do you know how it will end up? That you are going to lose a lot of customers... because freelancer does professional jobs and not theft.

I rarely do this, but this time it has reached me somewhere. This is the tenth time employers have been refunded back my money. Last time 250 pounds, 120 pounds, 250$ and others. Funds are deducted and sent back to the wrong employer and i remain with negatives in my account. I am Opening a petition to get freelancer.com closed if you agree with me, i will send the file here for the petition. They are protecting employers instead of employees. There is no need of being in Freelancer, as they cannot protect anyone

This is an awful site where payment for a contest was taken 3 times from my bank account. After submitting a support ticket it's been 3 weeks and still no resolution.

Update: Just to advise that I have now received the full refund of funds - thanks Freelancer!

Absolutely awful site - full of scammers offering non existent projects and no support from Freelancer when it goes wrong.
I have had to pay Freelancer £10 for the privilege of a scam project being cancelled due to admin costs. Freelancer very quick to withdraw the money from my Paypal account as soon as the project was accepted but it's proving not so easy to get the refund. I know its not much money but its the principal that you should receive a refund for what was originally deducted from your Paypal account.
I am just trying to make an honest living in this world and totally disheartening when you come across sites like this and you are losing money rather than making money!

I NEVER write reviews, but this site just deserves one, and if I could give it a negative star (or zero stars) I would.
I will not use the word "Scam", although they certainly are scammers, that word makes some people distrust your review, so I will instead use a more accurate word THIEVES. Freelancer.com will take away money from you no matter what.
DO NOT give them your credit card or bank account number, because without knowing you are agreeing to let them take any charge they want for "fees" from the projects you work on. What is worse is that they will add a fee to any funds that enter their site from your accounts and on top of that they will add ANOTHER FEE for an international transaction.
Also, the jobs are always extremely low-priced and the clients are some of the worst in the world. And guess what? If you enter a dispute with a client, Freelancer.com will ALWAYS favor the client. The Freelancer DOES NOT matter at all in the eyes of Freelancer.com, go figure.
STAY AWAY FROM THIS SITE. You will do a disservice to yourself even to visit that site, let alone create an account.

I wrote the following complaint about freelancer.com since I did not receive even a response from them for a month. But, happy to mention that after posting a complaint on sitejabber.com, I received my refund (though not to my credit card), within 2 days! Amazing effect!

I'm a free member at freelancer.com.

On 12th August 2015 morning, I had bid for a data entry project value $250 and opted for sponsorship@ $10 to be ranked higher. Subsequently, I was placed on top of the bidder's list with 1st rank. I also noticed that $10 was withdrawn from my Credit Card.

To my shock, I found that this project disappeared from my dashboard within few minutes! My question is whether it was the employer or freelancer.com that withdrew this project? In either case, why didn't they refund the sponsorship fee they withdrew for a fake project? I sent them a mail on the same day same time when the project disappeared (since I can't raise dispute!), but to date they did not bother to respond! Newcomers, beware! They try to trap you in many ways including forcing you to appear for many tests! Never fall for a free upgrade! Stay away from this site!

Preferred Freelancer Refuses to make repairs. This was our first project. Hired a different Freelancer. My experience seems similar to Stella in that I paid then, the project failed. Hired freelancer. This project was simply too challenging for him. I filed 3 different concerns to support during the project, but no one intervened. Paid for the project. About a week later my clients started complaining the system failed with lots of issues. Orders were wrong, things were not working. The freelancer thought it was funny. I requested my money back ($1300). He refused. I want my fund back! Not fair to have to hired a 2nd freelancer to fix all of these things.

They continually come up with reasons to cancel my first withdrawal so that I can never reach the 15 day time period and have to keep starting over on the withdrawal process. Most recently I talked to a support person and was assured that this current withdrawal would go through and then today, when it was supposed to, it was canceled again. I'm absolutely furious and am going to contact government organizations in the areas they have offices to fight this.

First I would like to say Freelancer is legit. I mean real employers are able to look up real freelancers, hire them and pay them.
I have worked with freelancers as an off jobs and have made over 500$ that I have been able to cash out.

However people that decide to work at freelancer need to do there due-diligences. This company is not perfect, and there are some flaws with the system.

I hope with time the freelancer support team will work even harder to correct it's reputation.

That being said Freelancer is not a scam and if you use a little common sense you should be fine!

You get a payment. Then all of it gets reversed and you get left with a negative amount.

Apparently, the employer is using "fraudulent means" to pay you. YOU, the employee, the one WHO WORKED THEIR $#*! OFF, has to pay the negative funds.

What if the Freelancer staff just made an account with fake payment methods and hired some poor random victim and said that they had to pay the negative fees?

They simply close the fraud account and say that the person who worked has to pay. What the heck?

Also, the employer who paid me had a "verified" payment method according to Freelancer.com. That is complete bullcrap.

Experience with freelancer as a employer is very bad. In my first project, payed one guy with perfect feedback 500 dollar in advance, nothing at all happened. Every time ask him for progress, it will be next day. After a month Freelancer.com can't do anything for my lost. I saw maybe I was just bad luck, I re-post the project, and paid $25 dollar for recruiter service, doubled the project budget, quote me 20 days to finish, after 3 month still not done, then told me they already meet all my requirement, if want them to continue, I will need to pay more?!? I have released $500 already, basically lost another 500. When you paid Freelancer.com will ask you to agree the money will not be refund. BUT even they did the part of the work, how would employer know they would be able to finish the rest? They using the money you already paid for kidnap, until you finally give up the hope for them. Waste money and TIME!

About customer support: after ticket create #CFD-660-*******, not a single updates after two weeks, chat with support people, the support people ask me to read the ticket, then tell me it is handle in another department, he know nothing about.
Again, their support is about nothing when you need.

When i have completed job according to a milestone(Completed translation of 7500 words. $ 250 USD), and sent him part of completed translation for verification, Employer demanded that i should deliver completed job to him for free (for 0(ZERO) payment). After i refused to deliver completed job FOR FREE, for 0(zero) payment, and sent him part of completed translation as a proof of its completion, then Employer elected job to a Dispute.
After Dispute was elected for Arbitration, Freelancer.com staff declared Employer as a winner, on the grounds that he was not satisfied since he did not received my job for free.
Quote from Freelancer.com Dispute Team:
"Milestone Payments are intended to be released upon the completion of all project requirements relevant to the Milestone. This includes the buyer's satisfaction with the seller's output."
It was a translation job that has taken 5 days to complete(10 000 words), and Employer was satisfied with translation of free sample he provided. After that Freelancer.com Dispute Team simply confirmed that i should have worked for free without any payment, and refused to release payment for me, solving dispute in favor of fraudulent Employer.
I have lost $25 for bidding on $250 worth job, and lost additional $12.50 for electing disptute to arbitrage. At all i have lost 5 full working days and $37.5 USD, thanks to Freelancer.com Dispute Team staff, who it seems support fraudulent Employers, since this simple fraud scheme got $25 (10% from bid on project fee) directly in Freelancer.com deep pockets.
Avoid Freelancer.com like a plague.

I am a freelance web developer I bid on a project posted by an indian employer to integrate paypal payment in his website. After finishing the work he didn't have accounts to test the payment, and said he was going to pay as he saw the site working in the sand box, but he didn't release the milestone.
I fired a dispute and attached all evidence that the work is done and he promised to pay, but freelancer ended up saying that I didn't finish on time and refunded milestone to the indian one.
If you want to be scammed go to freelancer.com