Jay T.

Was being duped on https://www.freelancer.com by an Employer. Freelancer customer support is not helping in the matter despite multiple attempts. I had even emailed freelancer customer support but to which i only got automated replies. Below is my email to them which explains the entire scam:
My Email:
"Dear Freelancer.com team,

I would like to bring to you notice that,

I have been duped by an employer who connected me through freelancer.com.

I have lodged a police complaint regarding this at Police Station Manikpur, District Palghar, Maharashtra, India.

On 22nd June 2020, on your platform freelancer.com, an employer had connected with me and had asked to contact on WhatsApp, where he/she/they explained the project to me.

In the project, He hired me by my profile(username: kooljay999).

On 25th and 26th June 2020, He created multiple milestones on different projects from multiple accounts.

He then released the milestones immediately on freelancer.com, as agreed between us.

Since I had full trust in freelancer.com and your security measures I felt my money is safe in my freelancer account.

I verified that amount that was credited to my freelancer account by checking the invoices generated in the transaction history and the same did reflect in my account balance as well.

After receiving the amount in my freelancer account, I was supposed to do 2 things:

Give the employer a 5-star review with very good feedback.

Pay 50% of the amount paid to me via a freelancer's platform after the deduction of your platform fee.

For e. G: if they created and released a milestone of 50k INR, I will have to get 50k - 5k(freelancer fee)= 45k in my freelancer account

And as agreed with them I was supposed to release 50% of 45k to him as I was instructed by them on chat outside the system.

Since your system disburses our money twice a week and I had to wait until Monday after raising the disbursement request, I decided to further secure my account by adding a two-factor authentication as well as changing my password to ensure my money would lay safe with your platform until it's disbursed.

Meanwhile, around 1 pm IST on June 26,2020, I received a notification about the reversal of one of the milestones that were released earlier.

I suspected my account was hacked/compromised and I immediately reported this to your support team via chat. (I have kept a screenshot for this)

To my utter surprise, I saw an official reversal of transaction work INR 80,000. I felt that the employer was playing dirty by playing some kind of victim to get the refund while blaming me for violating some terms of service and get my account closed.

However, all those milestones were released by the employer and I right now have absolutely no information which policy have I compromised and why my account is closed by freelancer.com

I would have appreciated that your team who decided to close my account would have atleast heard my side of the story before taking the draconian step?

I understand as a platform you need to protect employers, but that doesn't mean that as an employee we should be never heard of? If they have had raised a dispute about any milestone, I feel, I as a freelancer should have been consulted before taking such a nasty step.

Had someone from your team reached out to me, I could have proved that I have completed all the obligations and milestones as agreed between them and me with proofs of bank transfers with transaction history our chat records which would have allowed you to make a more informed decision.

I have been scammed for a very large sum and I have reached out to our local authorities for criminal proceedings.

I have filed an FIR with my police to help me out to nab the scammer and for that, I would request freelancer.com to not honor any disbursement request for any milestone reversals done (I know of one as I mentioned above, if any done after your team closed my account then I have no knowledge of them) and restore my account to be able to help our police department to nab this scammer so that other innocent freelancers such as I don't get duped on your platform again."

Neither freelancer is helping me, and police has not made any progress in last 4 months. Please help.
I want my account to be reopened with my money.