FreelancerReviews 20,198

$#*!ing Rubbish Freelancer is a junk recently i have face a problem. I done a project and client didn't pay me. I also contact freelancer support but they $#*!ing admins are sleeping... don't join freelancer. Its a fraud. Freelancer is a name of fraud

This is one of the few sites out there where freelancers actually get scammed. Many projects are fake and requesters simply disappear after posting projects. You will pay 10% of your money upfront for any project awarded, whether it is a scam or not. My advice: stay away. Just stick to Elance, ODesk or other sites which are actually serious

They will set your account directly to the payment version and the payment is auto approved without any warning... very professional.

I have used freelancer for 5 years for various projects always been happy. Over the past 3 months they have frozen my clients accounts with no provocation. No ability to negotiate and have suspended accounts with hundreds of dollars in milestones. This action has caused frustration for both clients, freelancers that were hired and myself. I will no longer be using the service.

I am not rating the freelancers themselves I am rating the company freelancer. Who refuses to communicate to resolve issues or notify my clients why their accounts have been suspended and funds held.

Ive never had a more unpleasant experience with freelancer.com, the freelancers themselves are often quite professional. But heres what happened:

I paid someone to do a job for me. They did it, they were paid for it. I in turn did business with the same individual, they paid me for it. ALL through freelancer. I come to take the funds out and they say the want private documents from me. I said no, and asked WHY I needed to provide these when Ive already provided proof of phone number, email, social security even for the company. Instead of responding, they close my account. I try to contact *******@freelancer.com and never hear back. They have my money and I HAVE NO WAY of getting it out. No one to call or email anything. No one will respond back.

Freelancer has always had a problem with anyone I have talked to in regards to validating your account, bullying others and overcharging.

Here's a new low though, they TOOK over $500 for a project that was done over 4 months ago and never notified me! This is a very new low and we are now working on federal actions as we have heard this happening to 20 other freelancers.

Freelancer.com is 100% unethical and doing ILLEGAL actions. Why else would they do it in a sneaky way?

Again, we have had to use countless measures and assistance from my lawyer to deal with other issues but this issue right here is an all time low! If there was a problem with the employee's account and they tricked Freelancer.com in regards to money, freelancers should not have to carry the financial burden and loose the money 4 MONTHS LATER!

Freelancer is one of the worst freelancing companies I have ever worked with as an employer. I am spending a lot of money outsourcing projects and I thought I could try outsource some tasks on Freelancer too.

Bad Idea.

Freelancer is full of hidden fees and they charge you $2 here and $2 there.

One of the freelancers failed to deliver the task I've assigned to him. Freelancer.com wanted me to actually pay them a small amount of money to resolve this issue. Note that the task cost was $25. I gave $10 upfront and Freelancer.com charged me another $3 as a fee for the job(!?) WTF?

In total I was charged $13 and my task is not completed yet.

I contact freelancer.com about this, but, nothing.

They are not answering my messages

Stay away from them..

I joined them about a month ago and bid on a number of projects and now I realize why I have never been awarded anything. I have never 'deposited' any money for them to steal.

Thanks for all the reviews and letting people know. I suspected they were scammers.

I am closing my account once they confirm they have not put any charges on my credit card.

They seem to be taking very high fees PLUS charging 7.95 per month.

I will avoid using them like the plague.

My experience with Freelancer was a few years ago but I can still recall my bewilderment when I found all the unexpected Freelancer fees on my credit card. When I contacted Freelancer (e-mail only) all they told me was that these fees were something I had had supposedly agreed to (to put my job needs up front or on the fast track, etc.) by clicking on one thing or another.
I told the Freelancers people that the fees which should have been clearly visible and upfront on their website were all but completely masked by a very confusing set of options and unclear pricing information, which in hindsight I felt might have even been somewhat intentional or at least not designed in the clients' best interest in terms of being clear and simple. For that reason I felt they had failed to provide full disclosure.
I came away with the strong impression that the Freelancer site at that time (don't know what it's like now) was more about their bottom line (making money) than it was about making sure clients clearly understood all the fees that would be incurred.

I had NO problem with the person who actually did the work (the freelancer himself), in fact I paid him a little extra just to show my appreciation but as for Freelancer.com, they will not be at the top of my list when looking for such a service. You can check out http://alternativeto.net/software/freelancer/ for alternative similar services).
I'm in Canada and might have actually used Freelancer.ca but I believe it would have been the same as Freelancer.com (same company).

I didn't have any bad experience with Freelancer.com until 2 weeks ago when they declined my withdrawal request. I was awarded a project, worked for the employer and received milestone payment of $5000 USD. After that when I attempted to withdraw my money, they declined my withdrawal, worst of all, my account was limited. I submitted all necessary documents. Funny thing is that though they accepted all my documents, my account is still limited so that I cannot withdraw my money. Now they are saying, there are issues with milestone payment of my employer.So my account remains LIMITED for their apparently funny MILESTONE PAYMENT which means nothing at all. I cannot really trust Freelancer.com anymore and recommend anyone. They can make you suffer with your hard earned money, Customer support is slow resolving issues. Anyways, I will see the END of it and update you guys, still hoping they will realize their wrong business model.

Worst site I have ever seen regarding Freelancing business. Have been there for quite long time, Very soon going to leave it.

Two recent scenarios

1. Just recently one of my project payment has been reversed due to reason that client did violation of TOS of FL. It happened after around 14 days of project completion and even Feedback was also provided. All money was taken back from my account. I lost the Project Fee as well in this case.

2. I was awarded a project by a client and Project fee was taken from my account, but then client became unresponsive, and I have not received any reply from them for around 10 days now. Here again, I have lost the project award fee.

FL reversed the payment which has been made to my Account, and It was my money and without my consent, it was taken out, that is really great.

FL really need to improve its site structure otherwise its going to loose market very soon with all these loop holes, which favors employers and nothing for Freelancers.

Proof also attached.
Thanks

Never trust their support team they are so non professional and sick
2 worst i am telling you from huge mis behaves form freelancer by the time Australia owned it before that they are much professional
First scene:
I worked for employer in USA California... he made 2 milestones a $100 and then 200+USD milestones. One he paid me after first demo... second he paid me then... client said that work is not that worth so i want almost $100 back to my account and rest you keep and i will email freelancer to limit the budget to that amount i agreed i returned his amount on freelancer and wrote freelancer support in reply what happened my account is limited and suspended and my client all $300+ he paid me reversed to his account and i left with 0 amount plus project fee on that... still it never come to me even i asked help many times. Freelancer help keep on replying client account issue
Second Scene:
Second time an aussie client double cheat me and asked freelancer after he made the payment that devloper worked with me tries to hack my site and then he made it all okay after i asked him so i donot trust devloper( means me) and i want freelancer to block the devloper profile and reverse my money
Now sad and pathetic freelancer blocked my profile and wihtou any investigation and without my intent they reverse amount from my account and ask me for 1 month suspended account
Is this Fair?
One thing more Yearly i am giving freelancer almost *******USD to *******USD work
And they done this to me
Above all their special dept person called me and he is father of all mis behaves and not to understand person
Bad--- Worst site but i spent over it now 5 years and i want to leave site like anything but which site i join can any one tell me

We hate these guys with a passion, and we've been with them since they were out of Scandinavia (and decent - at that time they were getafreelancer.com GAF) - BEFORE they became Aussie owned and decided to see how much money they can screw out of everybody. Their fees are to the point of ridiculous (another site that we use charges a FLAT RATE OF $6.95 PER MONTH and there's no draconian escrow system - how you get paid is between YOU and the CLIENT, like grown ups.) and they keep going up, and the hoops you have to jump through FOR EVERYTHING is even more ridiculous. I spend more time explaining to clients HOW to make and release payments through them than I do actually working.

Now in the last couple of months, as if their fees and hoops aren't bad enough, they've decided freelancers can't ask for their initial milestone deposits (our initial milestones are a 33% deposit to cover things like software we have to buy for the client up front) to be released up front, they have to leave them in escrow. So, basically if the client stalls the project - we're out of pocket.

Their latest control freak trip - is they're complaining about everybody's profile pic/logo - and threatening to terminate our accounts if we don't "upgrade" our look. FYI - OURS IS OUR COMPANY LOGO!

Thank goodness we only use them to pick up an occasional job maybe twice a year. I really need to take the time and find another site to replace this one...

I am a employer that was also duped by freelancer. They will not refund the closing balance that was in my account after I requested them to close my account because of their fraudulent practices. After 4 months they reverse the payment if an employee I paid for their hard work. How does this work after an account has been closed. I did not request for this to be done and I saw in one of the complaints below that a Freelancer employee is claiming that the employer requested it. Now this is one big LIE. I wonder why will they reverse a payment when it was not requested by the employer. And if the account of the employer is closed where does this money goes. Does it just devolve to matter? They are claiming terms and conditions but they are forgetting terms and conditions and any consumer agreement has to be according to law. And the law clearly describe this practice as stealing.
We have to unite and come as one to make this case stinger to put a stop to the illegal, fraudulent practices of freelancer.com

I advise all the people here with complaints to start an investigation as I did to https://www.consumersentinel.gov

More info can be found on

Onhttp://www.ftc.gov/enforcement/consumer-sentinel-network

Complete $#*!s! They charged me $400 as project fee then £49 for my gold membership... top of this they charged me $150 for converting $ to INR and the transaction was declined, I asked them to revert back to USD. I'm sure we all know this is cryptocurrency not actual currency is converted! They should have easily convert back to USD if they really cared about customers, but they being $#*!s and focus on money! I HATE freelancer DONT work with them, they charge for every single thing... no customer loyalty.

I would like Marcus C. [Freelancer Rep] to respond on the following question:
What's this new stupid Freelancer.com policy that is forcing users to put their own images (face) on their profile photos? No logos or other images allowed otherwise your bid amount will be lowered and after that the account closed / suspended.
Do you think that is normal to get my bids restricted while I have my ongoing paid premium subscription? Meaning you're lowering my bid amount (because I do not have my face photo on my profile) which I'm PAYING for every month!
And do not bother to respond that other images might be subject to copyright, this would be silly response.
Also, you well know Freelancer is running a kind of survey on the dashboard that you will be pointed to every time you log in. General questions like "how you like freelancer" or bla la bla - seem acceptable but this new question I see now on the screen "WHAT'S YOUR SKYPE USERNAME?"
Are you kidding me? How far can you go with these nonsenses?
ASX listed company should act "friendlier" than you do.

I am out of pocket by nearly $150 due to this scam website. They say they are legit employers who pay a milestone, but then you have to wait 2 week to receive that milestone, by that time you have payed the money out yourself and the employers account is on hold and being investigated so the money that is there waiting for you is frozen.

Lots of rubbish about specialist teams involved in dealing with said employer but is a lot of lies and the employer doesn't reply and the situation is never resolved.

Do not use this company, it does not work and is a complete scam. I am not out of pocket and will not get any sort of refund. Marcus their only person who replies on here will no doubt say please contact me. Complete scam!

I started working on freelancer.com 2 months ago (graphic design), and after 7 completed projects (about $400 in various currencies), i decided to make a withdrawal. I requested a withdrawal, but i also left about $100 to make sure i'll have enough for commissions. I was requested su submit some copies of various papers (including drivers license or passport), to verify my identity. During the withdrawal process i was really scared of losing my money(i read a lot of bad reviews, including on this website). After about a week the money i requested was sent to my paypal account.

STOP, STOP STOP, WORK NOW
IT Useless
I am start work on freelancer.com and i complete 10 job, and i also got payment from my client. But now i my all money reverse.
It not happened one it continue one bye one and reverse my money same replay from freelance support team "YOUR CLIENT account issue "
Be careful,

If you work one day your money are reverse from you. So why you work here.

Stop work here, FREELANCER.com is Dangerous,
Stop, stop stop STOP, STOP WORK NOW.
Here "Marcus"

Please stop command here,, I am not here to listen your lectures.