FreelancerReviews 20,200

I am very negative on Freelancer after two tries. In the first try my account was automatically upgraded to a paid account without my consent, I started getting a monthly bill for services I wasn’t even using. In the second try I could not manage to reset my password so I started a new account. This triggered a review where I had to verify my identity. I explained to the freelancer folks that I am living in China with all my utility bills under my wife’s Chinese name. I have no mail with my address on it, everything I do is under my company name: bank, credit cards and so on. As a result I have $240 sitting in a locked freelancer account which my freelancer cannot access. The worst part is the freelancer’s account is also locked up, all his carefully built up reputation is wasted.

Unfortunately Freelancer.com supports the scammers.
For instance one the freelancer scammers called "ijustcode" fraud many people and took their money (I'm one of them) and he gave us nothing.
Freelancer.com knows about this scammer (at least from the review) and they still running his account and some employers were miss-leaded by Freelancer.com, as Freelancer.com recommended him.
I totally agree and believe that Freelancer.com is partner with such scammers by keeping their accounts.
The funny part that Freelancer.com rates this scammer as 4.8/5!

I'm an employer and have contracted about $200,000 in projects over the last 5 years with several Freelance sites. For new users I'd suggest posting/bidding at both freelancer.com and elance.com instead of trying to read all the reviews of single user experiences... it's pretty obvious elance is better after a single bid or job posting in my opinion. If you want my single experience anyway, read on...

Problems with freelancer:
1. Poor escrow system. The majority of developers insist on cash up front ("Milestone Released"). I haven't had a dispute so far and don't know why this is the case.
2. Freelancer "live chat" is offline more than half the time. When talking with a live chat person, they have been proficient in English, but are limited in what they can do. When trying to resolve something that I thought would be simple, I asked to speak with a supervisor and was told he was too busy.
3. The Freelancer payment system is clunky and confusing. The submission page that gives permission to withdraw from paypal always asks for a lesser amount than what is actually taken (I assume due to fees, but so far I haven't been able to reconcile it). If I am clicking Submit on a form saying $25.00 will be withdrawn from my paypal account, it shouldn't be withdrawing $25.61. I've also had small charges pulled, without warning, from my Paypal account when releasing an escrow payment to the employee. No warning is given that money is about to be withdrawn from my account.
4. I don't know why this is exactly, but when posting a job on Freelancer I get many bids that are copy/paste blurbs of text and huge irrelevant portfolios from people who clearly haven't read the job description. On Elance I get very specific questions, often with relevant portfolio work. I have a large number of reviews and am rated 5.0/5.0 on both sites so am not sure why this is.
5. All of the help and form submission pages on Freelancer could be improved by having an editor or technical writer review them. It's frustrating to spend time trying to find an answer to basic question (like What is the Milestone payment system?), only to discover confusing explanations with poor and inconsistent prose across the site.

All that said, several reviewers on SiteJabber have claimed Freelancer.com is a complete scam. I don't think that is true - in my opinion the owners/management of Freelancer.com have good intentions. I'm writing a negative review, and have been in contact with the Freelancer staff regarding my review, and do not fear of account retribution or anything crazy like that. I've always been able to get any issue or confusion resolved, although so far it's generally been a slower and more annoying process with Freelancer.com versus eLance.

If you found this review helpful, please vote it so. You can also message me via sitejabber with any questions (site jabber will email me, even if this review is old).
-Updated June 9,2014

Freelancer.com stole 150 USD from my 1 month old account, The story is, an employer who awarded me his project, Once the project awarded to me; freelancer.com withdrew 150 USD from my account without receiving any money yet from the employer. After that, the employer CANCEL the project, and the only result is that Freelancer.com took 10% of a money that I didn't have them yet from this project; because is it cancelled. This is a policy to steal people money and every body should work to help the humanity and Close this website. DO YOU think it is Fair or logic or correct that Freelancer.com withdraw 150 USD from me without even starting the project or having any money from the employer in my account? Of course their support didn't respond to my email, and now I will do my best to close this website, I will complain to the official government driven complaint institute ACCC. For all of you guys interested in filing a complaint, please visit www.scamwatch.gov.au

This is a place where scam employers are supported by freelancer.com team to take your time and money.
Be careful because Employer has the ability (with the support of the website admins) to take your work and your money. And just enough to say he is not satisfied and the website will give him your money and the work you done. Organized Scam. Try to pick a decent employer which is rare.

If you are a professional freelancer then you better avoid this site, it is ok if you want get experience for free.
Once you accept project you pay 10% and if the buyer of the project cancelled for any reason you will never get any money. (It is familiar there that buyer can take your work and cancel the job and you will never succeed to get any money through dispute or anything)

You want to post a project you have to pay tonnes of fees and extra fees just to protect your privacy hide project from search engines which they happily reveal to the rest of the world which looks very bad for the business.

Imagine if everyone knew where you got your logo, site etc by simply searching your brand name.

Thats exactly what happened with me and whats worst is other dodgy websites have indexed my project description and now I have to contact them not freelancer as they said they are not affiliated.

Look in conclusion If you want $#*!ty work and pay heaps of fees to get it done use freelancer if not there heaps of other freelancing websites which I will be using in the future.

Horrible Experience as a Freelancer- Unprofessional Employers and Freelancer STOLE FROM ME- No star at all!

I was happy to find a new opportunity for work on this site and thought all employers are serious and have their own companies. In the first month I have worked for a scam freelancer who was very difficult. I was making articles non-stop and he was asking me every half an hour if I am making progress. After 2 weeks I saw he was receiving great reviews and feedback for my work and was getting 10-20 more times money than I was for my work. So he was only using freelancers to take money.

After 4 tough and sleepless months I have finally made $300 to wake up on Valentine's Day with half of the amount gone and the other pending to a skrill account. I don't know how he did that because I couldn't withdraw any sum and normally it should be pending for 1-2 days. I contacted Freelancer and they haven't responded me for 4 days (!) but closed my account and sent me a message saying it's for security reasons. After that they have blocked my account and asked me different pictures to demonstrate it is my account! (As it I was complaining of theft if it wasn't!). After more than 50 messages, they didn't respond me what they have done with that email who withdraw my money, they didn't answered at any of my questions and only used a formal message to repeat the verifying process.
Now my account was released, but surprise, I can bid on different jobs but can't receive or send any messages and I already lost 2 jobs because I was informed on my mail that employers messaged me but I couldn't respond.
Do you want to know what is the bigger surprise? Freelancer doesn't reply at all now:)
They are a bunch of thieves with a phantom business, they haven't got any contact but mail, no phone at all.

Poorly designed website. Counterintuitive. Add "primitive." You can't contact prospects to make sure they understand your project completely. First project took forever due to "milestones" (now there's a joke) and getting money (well, freelancer.com ensuring that they get THEIR money). Luckily, the supplier was patient and we worked together. Dropdowns don't contain what they say they do. There MUST be better ways to engage freelancers. For a business site, these guys just do not understand business.

Long story short, Freelancer.com stole me $2000! I completed 2 big projects, one translation project worth $650 and a fully developed website worth $1350. When the funds were released, I decided to open up another account with freelancer.com, to bid on translation jobs only with one account and development jobs with the other account. 2 days later, freelancer.com closed both of my accounts, explaining me that I breached their Terms and Conditions by opening the other account. I apologized and requested the funds to be released to my paypal account. Below their answer:

"Hi,

Thanks for mailing us back.

Note that in the event of termination, Users found in violation of the User Agreement will not receive any credit or payment from Freelancer.com. Without limiting Freelancer.com's other remedies, to the extent you are in violation of this User Agreement, you must pay Freelancer.com for all fees owed to us and reimburse us for all losses and costs (including any and all Freelancer.com employee time) and reasonable expenses (including legal fees) related to investigating such breach and collecting such fees. You agree that Freelancer.com is entitled to deduct such charges directly from any existing balance in the offending Account, or any other Freelancer.com Account owned by you. Kindly review our Terms & Conditions for additional information.

We hope for your understanding.

---
Sincerely,
Chase
Freelancer.com Support"

They are not only stealing my money, but also send threatening emails. If you read between the lines, they are telling me: "Stop bothering us, or we will send you an invoice even higher than your account balance".

I filed a legal complaint against them.

Folks, do yourself a favor, and never ever use this scam.

UPDATE 20 MAR 2014:
The below response from Marcus (Freelancer.com Staff) is nothing else than a standard canned response by freelancer.com. With this kind of response, they want to make the reader of the reviews believe that they actually care, which they don't. After having received this response, I have contacted freelancer.com support (not Marcus, but the normal support mail), where I have been told that Freelancer.com Staff is no longer available for discussions with me. Again, nice one guys! I filed an official complaint today with the official government driven complaint institute ACCC. For all of you guys interested in filing a complaint, please visit www.scamwatch.gov.au

This is only the first step I am undertaking, I am also in contact with an Australian attorney and will go the hard way and sue the company. Hopefully we can get enough complaints to get this scam closed down by the Australian government.

What a service:-D:-D:-D

1. The site is very noob developed ( if u log out) site still shows u are logged in
2. This site switches random languages:-D
3. If you complain about something, you will get automated response ( then deleted my account) its easier to delete account then solve a problem
4. Pages are not loading properly and shows "old informations"
5. I can continue atleast to number 25, but I am not going to waste my time here

I was complaining about user "jasonluer", I was trying to get simple task from him, translate few excel files into czech language. He wrote me in chat and even before I could respond to him, he blocked the chat. I was complaining about this with support ticket and my account was deleted.

You can read in reviews, people scam other people on this site and nothing happens. I am so happy, that I didnt put any credit card information while registration, instead used paypal account.

Screens:

http://imgur.com/DRhrML7

22 minutes after
http://imgur.com/8pp29yG

Total summary = not worth 1 minute to spend on freelancer.com

Hello my account name is codersmaster
I got scammed by hsyygOPLoo with a project. I bidded something about 420$ he accepted and I was about to do the work, but he didnt communicate at all until this date. I want my money back that I had to pay for the Fee! I payed over 42$ for the fee's so I am not willing to pay it because of scam. I hope I can prevent you guys from working on the site to get money, because all they do is getting money from you! I'll share this on different sites so less people get scammed since the support doesn't change anything. I'll let you guys know if my experience with this website changes.

After many days, today i got message from Marcus.
Marcus said "I have already refunded the commission fee charged to your for project ID: ******* " themes needed if u have." "

But i received nothing, no money returned to my paypal account

Hello All, I bid for a IPSec VPN project for 100 USD and I won it. After I successfully complete the project the employer (He had around 15 positive feedbacks) paid the total with 5 star positive feedback. Later I tried to withdraw the funds which I earned from this project and freelancer rejected the withdrawal saying that "Unfortunately we were unable to process your withdrawal request. Decline reason: Funds originated from an account that is currently under review." Therefore I contacted freelancer through their support ticket system and they asked me to contact the employer and ask him to resolve his account issue. So I contacted him and begged him to resolve his account issue because I'm burning for nothing I did. What he said he, Project is over he paid the total. He doesn't want his freelancer account anymore, Simply he left freelancer. Again I contacted freelancer and said what he said. The reply was "For security reasons, the funds on the employer's account has been put on hold until the account issues have been resolved.". I know I will never receive my funds because the employer will never resolve his account issues.com asked him to submit. Finally he got what he want, freelancer got what they want (Freelancer fees. They refund the fees but I can't withdraw it because minimal withdrawal amount is 30 USD) and I lost my money. This is for you mates, don't use their site. I don't want to see this thing happen to you. I know they reply some bull$#*! for this feedback as well. But if you want proofs, please type your email address, I will forward what I got.

The site has its flaws I probably won't use it again because of the issues and the freelance workers. The workers lie about qualifications just to get you to hire them. Im sure it cant be everyone but its a good number. I would suggest they screen the eligible workers on the site to give more security to the buyers. The customer service through email. Is good and they tolerate the complaints though they should since its the consumers. I would give them a 3 out of five only because you can't speak to anyone if you are in the united states or canada which is terrible. Because my trust was destroyed by hiring someone I give a 35 percent chance I will give them another try but you can at you own risk. If they improve these things it will be much better. Just be careful who you hire and ask to see what work they've done before hiring. If not for the customer service being through email and bad service throught the freelancers I'd give this site a 3 and a half

Ticket: #BJO-253-*******: I sent money to this portal for awarding milestone to the company I employed to work - its been 3 days the milestone is not credited with the money. It was a Bank transfer and my bank says they awarded the money to Freelancer in 1 Day - there is also no timelime given on Freelancer website which says how many days will it take to ensure the amount is credited in the milestone account. Highly frustrated on the fact that - "Why did I even bother to spend money via Freelancer" could have done it the other way...