Freelancer.com Scam Alert

[queshadesta]

Freelancer.com has just announced that they will start accepting and paying their contractors in Bitcoin but I believe this is another one of their scams.

I started working from the Freelancer.com platform with a $0.00 balance. I got my first project on freelancer.com and completed it. My client was happy with the work and even gave me a bonus. I was paid a total of $640. Freelancer.com embargoed my earnings and refused to release the money to me for no good reason. I even tried to get my account closed but they blocked me from doing so until I withdrew the funds (which they were holding onto).

So now, after a week, I log into my account and find that I have a $-40.27 balance (a negative balance). Incredible!! On my statement it shows that they refunded the money to my client. But... without consulting me? So, what this means is that I worked for a client and instead of getting paid, I was charged the amount I was supposed to have earned?

On contacting the Freelancer.com Support representative, he said that this was NOT an error. He even threatened to suspend my account if I didn't upload the amount. So, my client is seated somewhere earning more money from the work I completed. And he has also got back the funds he was supposed to have paid me. Courtesy of Freelancer.com.

I had done everything in the powers of a low-wedge freelancer to ensure that I didn't get scammed. I had checked the client's profile before applying for the job and Freelancer.com had marked it as "Financially Verified." I had also checked the client's project history and indeed, he has paid other freelancers before me and received positive feedback. So why did they target me?

What's for sure is that I have been scammed. Sadly not by my client. But by Freelancer.com.

[ondratra]

good to know i am sorry for you. You should write this to Services forum subsection

[EarthVPN]

Sad to hear. You can try microlancer.com

[umair121]

Freelance is a Scam! Stayaway.

[nor9848]

Freelancer is a scam like paypal. They hold my money. poor customer support.

[Lethn]

A lot of these bid sites aren't necessarily scams but they're filled with scammers and dishonest people, I avoid them entirely now, what they want is to steal your work for free rather than pay you honestly, I'm still owed money for a logo I successfully got selected for, may have been paid by now but I can't be bothered going to the trouble of finding out anymore, they should have paid me months ago. I'm not surprised so many young people and entrepreneurs are into Bitcoin, the currency itself is pretty fraud proof if the two parties agree on a deal and you can't pull any excuses about not being able to pay unless you didn't have the money to begin with.

This is a very common problem for people who work on their own, a lot of deadbeats are out there: http://www.worldslongestinvoice.com/

[vnezapno]

What reason did they provide for taking away your $ ?
Sadly they've bought scriptlance and I had a pretty good profile there.

[jbutter]

I like the freelance idea, but they are too strict with the rules, and everyone is way under bidding their talent to win. If your customer doesn't like your work, or keeps changing their mind, it's painful.  I built an e commerce site for a customer that was never happy, I had to refund the customer because, I couldn't figure out how to upload the entire functional website to the freelance poof of work page. I'm glad to hear they are adopting Bitcoin, but it doesn't make them better, they will figure out a way to mess it up.

[smoothie]

I have used freelancer.co before and never really liked using it after a week or two.

[nor9850]

Don't use freelancer.com it is a scam.

[bitcoinchecker]

All the bitcoin design work that I have had done so far has been done privately by people I have found on reddit.

Set up lines of comminication, build some trust and away you go.

... and it's a good way of personally "meeting" fellow Bitcoiners.

[Matthew N. Wright]

Freelancer.com has never announced anything related to bitcoin, what the hell is OP talking about? I also question the dozen newbie accounts that only posted in this thread right after account creation. Seems like someone is trying to hurt freelancer.com (and failing miserably considering this forum doesn't give a shit).

Neerav, is that you?

http://corporate.freelancer.com/uncategorized/dont-believe-everything-you-read-on-the-internet-lies-scams-and-freelancer-com/

Edit: judging by the malformed links in OP's signature to the OP's freelancer.com competitor (http://walusimbi.com/), I'm now confident this is an extremely poorly orchestrated attempt to discredit freelancer.com by spreading lies and spam. When will spammers ever learn, that by doing so they only bring negative attention to their own businesses?

[ChaimS]

Freelancer.com has never announced anything related to bitcoin, what the hell is OP talking about? I also question the dozen newbie accounts that only posted in this thread right after account creation. Seems like someone is trying to hurt freelancer.com (and failing miserably considering this forum doesn't give a shit).

Neerav, is that you?

http://corporate.freelancer.com/uncategorized/dont-believe-everything-you-read-on-the-internet-lies-scams-and-freelancer-com/

Edit: judging by the malformed links in OP's signature to the OP's freelancer.com competitor (http://walusimbi.com/), I'm now confident this is an extremely poorly orchestrated attempt to discredit freelancer.com by spreading lies and spam. When will spammers ever learn, that by doing so they only bring negative attention to their own businesses?

When I saw this, I got really pissed as you may have not sufficient info on the topic... so I registered to clarify some facts. I am one of many people who got bullied by this company and its CEO.

1. I am one of many people hurt by Freelancer.com. Want to see all the complaints? Just google it: freelancer.com scam. Search on Ripoffreport, Black Hat World, other blogs (for example like 500 of comments to article: "The Trouble With Freelancer.com")... Hope this will give you idea how bad this company is.
2. When I dared to express my anger on my blog (find Get a Hindu on Blogspot), I got tracked down, my user account got suspended and I received an email with threats from this company's most incompetent personnel.
3. Want more? My personal data got compromised on purpose and my customers got smear note about me.
4. After a few months, instead of apologies/reparation proposals I recieved... a cease and desist note as CEO got pissed because I presented how he violated my copyrights. I was not the first or only one company sent to criticizers. Find: read2learn freelancer.com scam   My statement was simple: be my guest. Haven't heard from them for about 6 months. Guessing it was long enough to file a lawsuit, huh?
5. This "Neerav"/whoever case exploded in Spring 2013. What I can tell you referring to this situation is:
a) This company/CEO hasn't presented any proof there is some scammer or so. Everything we know is there is a person claiming to be scammed by Freelancer.com and that he/she used a fake photo.
b) Judging by company's behavior towards me, I would rather assume that this is another of Freelancer.com's sad attempts to repair its totally broken reputation by falsely accusing a person who dared to protest.
c) If there was some real scammer/defacer there, why haven't they just brought him/her to justice? If it was so obvious there is some loon on rampage, it would be quite easy for an attorney, wouldn't be? Instead you see that a CEO of a multimillion business personally trashing a purported defacer. Isn't it a bit strange?

I think you just haven't checked all the bad smell around Freelancer.com. Not blaming you, but please do not think you got all the sufficient knowledge just because you read bullying CEO's note. And I am not about this Neerav identity. Just see the complaints.

peace

[Matthew N. Wright]

Freelancer.com has never announced anything related to bitcoin, what the hell is OP talking about? I also question the dozen newbie accounts that only posted in this thread right after account creation. Seems like someone is trying to hurt freelancer.com (and failing miserably considering this forum doesn't give a shit).

Neerav, is that you?

http://corporate.freelancer.com/uncategorized/dont-believe-everything-you-read-on-the-internet-lies-scams-and-freelancer-com/

Edit: judging by the malformed links in OP's signature to the OP's freelancer.com competitor (http://walusimbi.com/), I'm now confident this is an extremely poorly orchestrated attempt to discredit freelancer.com by spreading lies and spam. When will spammers ever learn, that by doing so they only bring negative attention to their own businesses?

When I saw this, I got really pissed as you may have not sufficient info on the topic... so I registered to clarify some facts. I am one of many people who got bullied by this company and its CEO.

1. I am one of many people hurt by Freelancer.com. Want to see all the complaints? Just google it: freelancer.com scam. Search on Ripoffreport, Black Hat World, other blogs (for example like 500 of comments to article: "The Trouble With Freelancer.com")... Hope this will give you idea how bad this company is.
2. When I dared to express my anger on my blog (find Get a Hindu on Blogspot), I got tracked down, my user account got suspended and I received an email with threats from this company's most incompetent personnel.
3. Want more? My personal data got compromised on purpose and my customers got smear note about me.
4. After a few months, instead of apologies/reparation proposals I recieved... a cease and desist note as CEO got pissed because I presented how he violated my copyrights. I was not the first or only one company sent to criticizers. Find: read2learn freelancer.com scam   My statement was simple: be my guest. Haven't heard from them for about 6 months. Guessing it was long enough to file a lawsuit, huh?
5. This "Neerav"/whoever case exploded in Spring 2013. What I can tell you referring to this situation is:
a) This company/CEO hasn't presented any proof there is some scammer or so. Everything we know is there is a person claiming to be scammed by Freelancer.com and that he/she used a fake photo.
b) Judging by company's behavior towards me, I would rather assume that this is another of Freelancer.com's sad attempts to repair its totally broken reputation by falsely accusing a person who dared to protest.
c) If there was some real scammer/defacer there, why haven't they just brought him/her to justice? If it was so obvious there is some loon on rampage, it would be quite easy for an attorney, wouldn't be? Instead you see that a CEO of a multimillion business personally trashing a purported defacer. Isn't it a bit strange?

I think you just haven't checked all the bad smell around Freelancer.com. Not blaming you, but please do not think you got all the sufficient knowledge just because you read bullying CEO's note. And I am not about this Neerav identity. Just see the complaints.

peace

Thank you for that. I've been using Rentacoder for years, and when they were bought out and changed to "Freelancer.com", I've not experienced anything bizarre with them (aside from the normal onslaught of non-talented hacks from India trying to get pre-payment for services they have no intention of delivering on-- "I MAKE GOOD SITE FOR YOU YES SEND MONEY FIRST").

It is a logical fallacy to think that a company's lack of lawsuits against a random person in a random country means they are not in the right on an issue. Regardless, evidence is king. All I'm seeing so far is anonymous forum accounts saying things. I'm not blaming you, just saying.

[ChaimS]

...

Thank you for that. I've been using Rentacoder for years, and when they were bought out and changed to "Freelancer.com", I've not experienced anything bizarre with them (aside from the normal onslaught of non-talented hacks from India trying to get pre-payment for services they have no intention of delivering on-- "I MAKE GOOD SITE FOR YOU YES SEND MONEY FIRST").

It is a logical fallacy to think that a company's lack of lawsuits against a random person in a random country means they are not in the right on an issue. Regardless, evidence is king. All I'm seeing so far is anonymous forum accounts saying things. I'm not blaming you, just saying.

Well... been their customer for a few years. But something started rotting there. Not going to spam you with all the claims and complaints. I think it will be enough to say that their help desk has just gone down the drain. People complained as they pay for all that stuff and they got right to expect to be treated like kings, not like worms (you can feel that while having money account locked and asked to send them your real life photo (by the way: knew they export those data abroad?). Can assure this is not about the counterparty risk (if you check the complaints, you will see that only a fraction of those are about blaming the middleman for bad customer or freelancer).

Then the anonymity stuff. Most opinions on open forums are expressed anonymously. Is it bad? Yes, I know there may always be a case of malicious astroturfing etc., but why should there? Major Freelancer.com's competitors (alternatives in plain language) are: oDesk and Elance. Check their reviews... still bad, but no huge flood of pure hate and despair. So we got two options: either there is some major conspiracy against Freelancer.com or the company gets what it asked for while mistreating its customers. As I saw their ugly side, I can promise: you can bet all your money on the second option.

By the way: can privately produce my full name and country I live in if you ever needed. Just don't feel like publishing them around.

...whoops... Freelancer.com did it already (look for my article: "Freelancer.com, Privacy Policy... and Gerontophilia"). Could you imagine a bank, hotel or airline doing something like that? This is how poor this company is. I am angry with it, so warning everyone: Freelancer.com is dangerous.

Speaking of legal actions:
What I was driving at is this company (its management, to be precise) is acting just irrationally. Why? They used to send C&D letters to bloggers like me pretending they feel defaced while justifiably criticized. But when faced with the real big time purported defamation (search for: Freelancer.com Scam – Part I : How $10 cost me $14000), they not only don't react properly and legally, but their CEO engages into some remote fights. It is not only unprofessional... this is just illogical. As they have been throwing mud at me just because I published an article they didn't like, I am simply assuming there goes another situation when they are blaming all the world except themselves.


Phew... haven't been intending to make such long statements or so. Just wanted to make a point

[efreeti]

I hire freelancer before.

People there are hard to deal with.