FreelancerReviews 20,203

I recently opened an account on www.freelancer.com for expand my visibility. I was happy to had found a work provided from a user nearby my working place. I completed the the first milestone, the user unlocked the money and freelancer took their fee. When i tried to move the money in my bank account, they delayed the transfer of 20 days. At the end of the 20 days they blocked my account telling me i need to explain my situation. After 4 days of continuos questions they said: its better if you ask for the money directly to the user, outside freelancer.com. I lost 1 month working to the project, freelancer gave me no insurance to get paid and now i must go directly to the customer for get paid!

I was scammed by a freelancer hired on freelancer.com who did not provide me with original design work (they copied it from the net). Upon reporting this to their help desk, they encouraged me to try and sort of out with the freelancer. The freelancer refused to give the money back and closed their account. I then contacted the help desk asking what to do next. They again told me to try and contact the freelancer off site and that there's nothing they can do. An utter disgrace! Freelancer do not take responsibility for fraudulent activity or copyright infringement. The freelancer clearly breached the sites code of conduct and the site takes no accountability. Run a mile from these crooks!

Hi All,
I recently placed a review about Freelancer and not being paid for services; to date I have still not heard back from Freelancer staff (and Lara I immediately replied to both Miguel and Joe's emails regarding NON PAYMENT OF SERVICES) and of course have heard nothing back! I am still missing $1680 payment and the Freelance Employer who scammed me has a total of 9 active projects on the site and has 14 past projects under the name Kathleen Cloeffle! Although I have done several other projects on the site and been paid for all of them I cannot sit idly by while I know that this person is still thinking that "FREE" in FREElancer means they get people to work for them at no charge! ELANCE at least protects their users from scum like this! Truly annoyed!

Lara, by the way what the f** is tier 2 support. Just like people have lever 2 technicians in Bpo's wherein, another person will be sitting next to you of the same level still will say that we are level 2 technicians. Also I have one question is it only you which gives answers to all the questions of people facing issues with your website. Stop playing with people. Please do something in order to make this website more happening and trustworthy. Or else I might have to report this to Ombudsman.

I am just reading the reviews for this website. 4/25/15 got nervous and decided to check my bank account. And to my surprise there was a pending charge from freelancer, Im really shocked as I only checked my account just now after reading these reviews.

I had just joined the website a few days ago merely not more than 3 and posted for a freelancer. I did not award or do anything.

I have never been so nervous about a website before after reading these reviews and what I can say, that if a website will make you feel this way, it might not be worth using and dealing with the headache.

There is a saying when I'm from says, "once bitten, twice shy" and it means when you got caught in a bad dealing the first time, never make it happen a second.

A note to customer service your replies seems to be somewhat a like to the over 400 one star reviews.

It's a suggestion of mine to review your business model of trying to nickel and dime your members for every action they take. I have been in online business for a long time and have never read so many bad reviews about a company. Trying to reply to each of these concerns one by one long after the damage as been done is not helping. I think I will close my account in fear of being charged, further I will ask my friends to approach this website with severe caution.

Freelancer refuses to resolve my problem. Instead, I keep getting messages from Freelancer that my account has been 'temporarily suspended' because they allege I owe them money. Here's what happened. I responded - first experience with a major project - to ghostwrite a book for a client. I thought I followed the instructions but apparently I failed. The client accepted my proposal, we had a limited exchange and then she dropped off the face of the earth. Then Freelancer asked for money from me, based on a percentage of what I would have earned on the project. I responded that the project never happened. Their response was that I should have checked whether the client had paid a milestone amount into their account. I checked then, no, no money. I tried to contact her - she said something had gone wrong with Freelancer accepting her payment. I got nowhere with the client or with Freelancer.

It's too bad because I used to pick up a fair amount of work from them - in fact, it was the beginning of a new ghostwriting career. I don't believe it is incompetence or procrastination or anything like that. I believe it is their business model - to create bizarre constraints in the process of obtaining work and payment and then to thumb their noses at you when you complain.

It is my view that I owe them nothing because the contract never materialised. I've repeatedly requested that we attempt to resolve this issue and have been resoundingly ignored.

There are plenty of fish in the sea - who needs them. Offering this feedback in the hopes that they'll learn something about maintaining relationships with the people who represent their income stream, and as a warning to others - if they can find a way of getting money for nothing they will.

Hello,

I've been working as a freelancer since 2011, and the first website I've used was VWorker (that was bought by Freelancer). VWorker was like 1000 times better. They would take care of their users by holding the money until the job was done, and if the freelancer delivered, and the employer was happy, the money was released.
But with Freelancer, that's another story. You don't have any kind of security that you will get paid for your job. I did a small project for 100$. Freelacer withdraw from my balance 25$, because I've accepted the project. I did the job, deliver it, but the employer did not paid me. In fact he just ignored me. I've tried to talk with someone from Freelancer, because I don't think it was normal for me to pay the acceptance fee, for a project I was not paid for. But nothing!

So bottom line is that I've PAID 254 do work for free!
Also, they have a habbit of withdrawing money from your paypal balance, and if you don't have money in your paypal balance, they will charge your credit card that is linked to your paypal accout, so you might want to cancel your Preapproved payments to Freelancer from your paypal account.

Later Edit: here is the username of the employer that scamed me: FoxScully

freelancer.com is worst website in world
He behave like bank, freelancer.com only interpreter not bank
But he verify identity, he hold your money, he need fee for convert money.
He close your account, he eat your hard work money.
He will cut fee when you accept project, if you not complete project or this project is fraud in any situation freelancer need his fees.
freelancer.com anytime limit your account, anytime reverse your payment and multiple type verification process like they have bank you deposit your money.
Actual this is not freelancer duty even freelancer have not any power to hold people earning or close accounts for poor reason. But they have threaten people for each and every time.
I want leagally action against freelancer.com and punish freelance admin.
And in future it is sure if continue freelancer eating people hard work money.
Money is only Employer and Worker not freelanacer and he have no any right to hold or reversal money if both agree.
freelancer.com had doing much more illegal things need to punish for that, he palying with user money.

Hi,

I was working on a project at freelancer.com, i was awarded a project by an employer, i before accepting the project saw the employer's profile and each and everything on his account was verified not a single thing was not left unverified on his account, so what next i accepted the project after he created full milestone on the site, amount was $200, so i worked for 7 days on the project everything moved smoothly and then the employer closed the project and released the money to me. I withdrew the money from my account to bank account. I got my money in my hand. The problem started after 7 days after withdrawing the amount, when i logged in my account i was surprised to see my account as limited, wrote atleast 10 mails to support, three mail where replied with lame and stupid replies like we understand your problem etc etc, after that verification team asked docs for verification i gave and got verified for 4 days this verification continued, then today when i logged in and saw another surprise, my funds showed -$180 ( $20 was project fee that i was refunded, total project was of $200), on seeing dashboard i see that project got deleted, how does that matter if a completed project is deleted? How can a person with sense and brain charge money for the project that was deleted after it was completed and whose payment was completed. I am a serious and professional programmer, cannot accept this foolishness. If you people look at my problem it is a total scam website, even if the project is deleted for some problem in employer then freelancer.com should bear the charges because i accepted the project from a 100% verified employer, guys do not waste on this scam website, i faced many other issues on this website that i did not mention here, so i will say that freelancer will have to bear all the charges of any mistake of employer or site administrator.

Hi everyone,
I was working on a project with my profile name sourabb on the freelancer.com website, i worked for an employer and the project was nearly 10 days old (time enough to verify anyones account either employer or freelancer), the total milestone was done by the employer, after he was happy with my work he released the milestone i withdrew nearly $180 (after paying the project fee) from my freelancer.com account. I was happy that i will be able to pay my bills as it was my month ending, but after 2 or 3 days when i logged into my account i was suprised to see nearly -$180 in my account, after contacting the support they told me that employer did not verify his account so they send back money to his credit and i need to full fill the negative balance with the project fee i. E -$200.
What the hell did i work for nearly 15 days so after withdrawing the amount i will need to work to full fill the negative balance, just can't these people allow employer to create project once they verify everything. Guys i can tell only one thing this site is so unreliable, you can never be sure when and what time this site will create an issue for you. I am still using this site a bit, but i am totally unsatisfied with the service, so be carefull if you are planing to make this site as your major source of income. I need my balance back to zero as it was not my fault to work on a project, verification is the job of freelancer admin not mine.

I signed up for freelancer 3 days ago. I quickly found this was a mistake. Hidden fees for every action. Post a job, pay a fee. Hold your money from PayPal, pay a fee. Have a dispute and want your money back? $5 fee! Then they tried getting $100 extra dollars out of my PayPal. I called PayPal and they quickly resolved the matter. Every dime Freelancer took from me was restored. They made it where Freelancer could no longer charge me for anything, and I will never deal with them again. I urge everyone who is on freelancer to take your money and run! Do no deal with these scam artists!

Hello, a few days ago i have finished a project that had 4 milestones, 2 of 30$ and 2 of 60$, all good and nice, the employer paid up /released all the milestones, i got that money 180$ withdrew, transferred them to may paypal and to my credit card, so far so good. Three days later meaning the day on which i posted this i find my freelancer.com account with a -180$ balance, WTF!, spoke with the dorks from support, they said "there is a problem with the my employer's account " i asked "ok, then if the problem is with the employer why am i being charged?" Response "There is a problem with your employer's account it was marked as fraud and banned? " of course i asked them again and also asked the to show me why is this my fault why do you(freelancer.com) taking money from my account without even announcing it via email or something? Then i saw i was talking to myself and left it be. I only hope that it happens to them to in a different circumstance. THIEVES!

I decided to use freelancer for one project, during which went terribly the user was only able to complete one of the two tasks but insisted for the final milestone payout then got really annoyed he did not get the final payment.

I find the freelancers on the site are conners and beggers the task I gave was two very simple tasks all could be solved with CSS, not really worth the $30 work, many where asking for $50+ to do one line of CSS complaining that the work would be complex and hard, even though the solution was one line.

Freelancer them selves are theives, hidden fees everwhere, you award a freelancer for work, pay us. You release a milestone, pay us. You start challenge, pay us. You delete a project, pay us. all of this is without notice and automatic making you easily lose a lot of money on a single project.

Not worth a single penny and I can assure you after this I will never use my account again lets hope closing an account does not cost anything.

So if you are thinking of using freelancer my suggestion is DON'T you will not get the desired work, reliable freelancer at a cheap cost as promised, it will be undesireable incompleted work with an unreliable and untrustworthy freelancer and will cost you an arm and a leg.

Hope this helps you if you are thinking of using freelancer and it is not just me look at all the other one star reviews on here.

Do not work there, they will charge your account from nowhere, also if you pass 500$ as payments they will ask a tons of documents to verify your account, i was paid more than 2,500 $, i managed with luck an withdraw of 400 $ and rest of the money are beeing held by them, they dont have phone number and in the chat support that is 24/7 is like you are talking alone, they give you vague answers and info. That you already know, so dont get there they will steal you.

I just started today with freelancer.com and found out that they are charging for all sorts of ridiculous fees: tests for Basic grammar test (US), Basic grammar test (UK), basic arithmetic, advanced arithmetic treating us like little kids. Worse part is you have to pay them $10 per month to be eligible to bid on some of these projects. Customer service is nonexistent as they don't give phone numbers and is relayed via a robot.