Herm A.

Hi. I joined Freelancer about a year ago, and I did that open eyed - means, I read the different opinions of people all over the web. Of course they were mostly negative. (Very few people take the time to think, even less write, about positive experiences. That's, how we apes tick.)
Anyway I am a paying member. And before I joined as a premium member, of course I read the TOS. I'm longer in business than most of the people active with web businesses are alive, and I feel better if I know, what's going on.
I don't employ at Freelancer, I bid on projects to sell my services. Freelancer is not of special importance for my income, I use the site as a gap filler, but I admit that I had some real fun projects here and met some actually great people. My set of skills is a rather unusual combination, and through Freelancer I have the occasion to do things, I am not required to do for my regular customer base.
I have a 5/5 rating for the 24 projects I made, and I had to kick out just one customer who constantly increased his demands up to a not longer acceptable point.

So, last week, I made a bid on an offer by one user Dom1000 (posted in lousy German) which translated would read
Writing of a Blog Text

The bid was 88EUR, I demanded 2 milestones, I got the job and Freelancer cashed their 11.1%
I delivered, as agreed, the first half of my work. A couple of hours later the employer contacted me from a second account he had opened hkayso2s and informed me that his original account was blocked by Freelancer. If I understood the scat-German he used right, this was because he issued a cash-back through PayPal, obviously for the only other project he ran through Freelancer.
The employer now wanted to use the second account to offer me 44 US-Dollars (remember: is was Euros first...) to pay me the first milestone.

As far as I remember at least when I joined USING FREELANCERs SERVICES WITH MULTIPLE ACCOUNTS FOR THE SAME ENTITY IS A VIOLATION OF THEIR TOS

I told him to wait till his original account is either back open or deleted, because I would not work for him until I got my original, first milestone. Because what is an agreement good for, if it is not kept.

I also used the FL ticket system to inform them about the case, the multiple accounts, and told them, I want the project to be cancelled WITHOUT A NEGATIVE EFFECT TO MY STATS.
My good right, I think, as I was not the one who did not deliver the employer was the one who did not pay as agreed. I even told them, they could keep the 8.80EUR they took from me.

I received a canned response, mainly telling me: We are unable to discuss any information regarding your employer's account.
I didn't want to discuss any accounts: I wanted the project to be cancelled, remember?

During some unwanted chat with the employer, he now offered to pay me outside Freelancer. THIS IS A VIOLATION OF FREELANCERs TOS.
He also tried to lure me in additional (probably unpaid?) work and gave me a link to a website, where he and his partner (with a near-east migration background like my original contact) openly offer the delivery of fake scientific work for schools and academical institutions. IN GERMANY, THIS IS A CRIME, and not long ago it costed two German politicians their jobs.
So before continuing with discussions with FL and the employer, I took appropriate actions. As of now, I am not allowed to talk about those, I will do so, when I get the green light from the authorities.

Again, I wrote to FL, and explained (again) that I want the project to be cancelled. Again, I got a canned text back, containing, if anything, the same information I already had. And Freelancer RE-OPENED THE EMPLOYERS ACCOUNT. This makes me believe, that the service personal either did not have the time to read my eMail, or wasn't able to by other reasons.

To the employer I insisted to get my first payment. And he (now, after first accepting the work) wanted additional work to be done to even be able to accept it - two days, after he got the first delivery and liked it.

Because the employer saw his prey swim away, they filed a dispute.

Again, I wrote to FL, letting them know that I won't accept any negative effects to my reputation.
FL made their job easy this time they did not respond.

The employer RE.-POSTED THE PROJECT (OF COURSE ONLY THE SECOND HALF, AS HE OBVIOUSLY WANTS TO USE MY WORK FOR THE FIRST HALF GOOD LUCK WITH THIS...)

This time, he writes right into the projects headline, Hausarbeit (homework, a term for an academical paper to be done by a student, personally...) to make clear that he not only wants somebody to help him break the law, but also that
THIS IS AGAIN A PROJECT WHICH IS ***INVALID***, AS EXPLAINED IN FREELANCERS TOS.

So, obviously, an employer requesting criminal activities for Freelancer is more important than a competent freelancer with obvious success and and also obvious very high quality of work.

Quo vadis, Freelancer.com?

For me, the problem will be quickly solved: if the dispute is not solved exactly the way I want it, means, with no negative outcome for me, just a cancellation of the project, this was it. I don't need Freelancer.com, but they urgently need more honest people on both sides of the cash-flow.

(typo edited)