FreelancerReviews 20,195

I am fairly new to this website and am already considering never using it again. I have used the website a few times with success but have twice had problems with the freelancers I have hired off the website. This last one though just did it for me. I need some SEO work done on my website. Instead of opening a project for bidding, I looked around for a freelancers by checking their feedback. I finally decided on one and contacted them ( seoleader1). According to their feedback, everyone raves about how they got good work done and how easy it was to work with this freelancer. He accepted the project right away after agreeing on the terms. He then told me that I need to release a milestone (pay him) before he even starts the job because everybody else that he as worked for had always done it. I was hesitant but finally said fine and went ahead and did it. Little did I know that as soon as you release a milestone, the project is marked as completed. I was concerned but he reassured me that I can trust him to get the work done and his feedback is proof. He then asked me to leave him feedback, that after a project is completed, I only have 5 days to leave feedback, that if we left good feedback for each other, we both would benefit with good reviews on our accounts. That is when i really started getting concerned and said absolutely no way I would leave feedback. I asked when he would be done and he said it would take 3wks. Just before 3wks was up, I contacted the guy to ask how my project was going and he told me that everything was ok and on schedule. A few days after the three week deadline, I contacted him again, he didn't respond for a couple days until after I threatened to contact freelancer. To cut it short. I contacted freelancer to try and get a resolution and all they told me was that its my fault that I released the milestone and there was nothing they could do. Even with evidence that this guy is a scam. Not sure what I will do to get my refund, I guess I am out $80. Be aware of this freelancer if you use that freelancer.com ( seoleader1). Total scam.

Stay away. It is terrible as an employee. The first research job I took went fine.The client was satisfied with my work, and paid me. The second one... is still on going and the woman has been stalling for over a month in paying. I didn't get the milestone from her, and the site basically told me to keep emailing her and be patient. They charged me $16 dollars when I took the job, and despite numerous complaints to them, they have only emailed her, and told me to be patient. I finally received a response from her a week ago that she had not looked at my work, and would get back to me that night. She did not.
Freelancer is a scam. They have not offered to refund my fee, and she is still operating on the site. There is no move to suspend her, or penalize her and what seems to be others who use the name in her account. I informed the site of this and got no response. She has several good reviews, but some refer to her as a male, and use a couple of different names than the one given me.

I had an account, I built up a 5 star reputation, then my account was limited and while limited, someone posted two jobs with "urgent" payment pretending it was me. The fee for the 2 works was deducted. From 360$ I was left straight away with 70$, and even that I couldn't withdraw as my account was suspended after me not giving the sensitive infos they required. I wrote them an email, but they responded that I must send them the infos to reactivate my account and only then they will investigate. I definitely would NOT recommend the site. If they were fair players, they could do a fortune by being honest only. The site is navigable and responsive, the best freelancer site I've ever met, but the staff is greedy and that will lead to tragic consequences for them I think. Forums like this one will be read by freelancers and Clients as well, it's only matter of time... but by hen, some people would become millionaire by fraud.

This was one of the best sites till few years back. But now they are too much scam there. These people deduct amount from the freelancers as soon as a project has been awarded regardless of whether the buyer is paying money or not. Using this, these people encourages a lot of people to post scam / fake projects in their site so that at any cost these people get money.

One guy has posted a project and awarded me and once I accepted it these people deducted their 10% commission. After a couple of hours that guy cancelled the project without any reason and while asking he said "he dont want the work". As there is no escrow, he just simply flew away without paying me. While reported this to freelancer, they said they are just introduced buyers and providers and they cannot do anything. After few hours that guy has posted incomplete report too.

Unlike other freelancer sites these people are real cheaters by themselves.

Site is 95% fake projects only!

Recently Joined this website, Completed two projects and guess what Freelancer.com Charged me $15 for the first project and $5 for the second without any prior notification or confirmation. They charged me from my Paypal automatically! So I paid before i start earning anything:-X. What a great website which Charge a Worker who is here to Earn money :). . Surely they are great at getting money from every user who use their service. 5 Stars for them and 1 Star for me / Freelancer who is using their service.

1) No Live Chat Support
2) Really unprofessional way to get money from a worker / freelancer on each won bid.
3)

I don't really think anything about Freelancer is a scam. I have used them to complete many projects online successfully. I originally came from vWorker, and while the Freelancer site looks way nicer then the old vWorker site the functionality from Freelancer is terrible. VWorker required all communication was kept in the site (in case of arbitration), and all of the tools of the site were provided at no additional charge. That being said, other then paying the agreed cost of the project to the programmer, all back-end costs we the programmers responsibility. In my opinion this improved the quality and reliability of the programmer since they had to bear that burden.

Like I said, I use Freelancer daily, successfully. I miss vWorker very much and you do need to spend more time to find a quality resource on Freelancer - but it works.

Seriously the scammiest website i have ever tried. The freelancers that approached me where a plethora of "google how to do it and steal stock images" individuals. Which is fine, i guess. But when i went to withdraw my deposit after 2 weeks of really weird interactions and not being happy at all i found out that not only do you have to "negotiate" with the freelancers about how much money they get from the agreed terms (all got 0 - sorry jerks) which can take upto 4 days, I also found that you need to wait 3 weeks to get your money back?! What the hell!
What is the problem with them refunding your credit card? They are pooling money and using funds for something else, there is no WAY it takes 3 weeks for a withdrawal.
Someone should make a site like this, without all the scam and stupid waiting. Its the reason why real freelancers and employers aren't working for it.

I tried this site for about 2 weeks. I only tried out doing graphic design contest. A majority of the designers there are unprofessional and unimaginative. Most designers at freelancer.com copy others work, steel images of the internet, use stock clip art, and can not come up with original ideas. For example, if you ask for a logo for a real estate company expect to see the same image of the same house from 100 different people. And designing for someone is a guessing game. You will hardly ever get any feedback on your designs. And most clients give very vague statement about what they want.

This Website lures you in by claiming everything is free, but one or two wrong clicks and violá - you just spent 10$ on some language test.

I actually complained about this and they were nice enough to refund the Money to my Freelancer account. Since withdrawal is only Possible with 40$ or more, I deposited another 30$. However they refused to pay out 40$ and instead paid only the 30$ while also just removing the remaining 10$ from my account.

Like, I know it's "just 10$" but seriously now - where's my Money?

UPDATE Oct 3rd, 2013: Apparently, the wording in the automated e-mails I received was just a Little misleading. What they tried to tell me is that the 30$ were refunded to PayPal but the 10$ were refunded to my credit Card where they came from. This seems to be some technical Limitation.

Bottom line, I'd say this site is OK as Long as you're really careful about where you click. In my opinion, the big downside of this (and similar) Website is that there are many developers and companies from India who offer extremely low Prices and are hard to undercut. But this may also depend on which Kind of work you're looking for (I was looking for PHP related projects).

I with i had known these reviews before I registered with Freelancer.com! That would have saved me much trouble, and I could have found a site that actually offered som service! I registered to ave some work done, easily found someone to do, that part went all well. But once I paid the freelancer, my account was suspended! I wrote dusins of email asking why, but no one bothered to tell me. I was requested to first send in very sensitive information, only then would they tell me what crime I had committed! Finally succumbing to this, my account was reopened - only to be suspended again the next day, again with no explanation.

All I can say is DO NOT USE THIS SITE!

Worst experience is that they have not authentic payment gateway. Client upload payment in freelancer.com via paypal or credit card. Client released payment after getting work but after sometime client reversed the payment via paypal or credicard. Even these payments are done from freelancer.com account. Then freelancer.com should take responsibility for payment. Client reversed my $300 from freelancer.com. freelancer.com staffed deducted these $300 from my account and told me we don't take responsibility. If they don't take responsibility then why they charge project fee or gold membership cost $49. All other things are okay but too risky too work here.

Why do they limit the account when you have money in the account? Why don't they limit the account when you have no money? They would ask you for various documents including passport, pan card etc, address proof etc, and also a clear photo of you holding the id card. Then they would reject your submissions without explaining the reason. They are expecting that id card texts should be visible... Bull$#*!! They are only scamming people.

They nickel and dime you for everything. Often you will pay more to them for gaining access to a freelancer than you pay the person doing the work. They bought out Vworker, but are nothing like them. I had over 400 jobs done on Vworker and was happy with the majority of them, but on freelancer I have very few successful jobs and they just seem to attract the most poorly talented artist and programmers. It is a struggle to get your work done. What is all these stupid points for every move you make - It is like some child's game you are playing instead of trying to get some real work done by professionals. Horrible place to find workers.