Mark O.

Just today 11/25/2015

Officially, Freelancer.com has:

1) removed the " clarification board" for projects. So you cannot get clarification before you waste a bid.

2) you can no longer cash-in your rewards you have earned for the last couple years for anything (like more bids, taking tests, etc.) without upgrading to a paid membership

3) This is the best! Bid proposals for "free memberships" are limited to 255 characters.

UPDATE: This was their response I got this morning. 11/26/2015

Hi Mark,

Thank you for contacting Customer Support.

We are currently running a test wherein the characters on the bid proposal have been reduced from 1500 to 255. This aims to encourage bidders to submit substantial proposals.

If you need further assistance, please do not hesitate to email us back.

---
Regards,
Jude P.
Freelancer.com Support

Have you ever heard anything so absurd in your life?

END UPDATE:

I can't even wipe my $#*! in the morning with 255 letters.

After 5 years of relative satisfaction, I'm outta here. I've already for the last couple months been with guru.com and upwork.com. Much nicer website, people that post projects are genuinely looking for real developers, etc.

C-ya!

UPDATE: 4/27/2016

Well... Here it is 5 months later with UPWORK.com which has a very nice web design and interface, easily create custom savable searches, etc. But it has been a complete disaster. Let me explain.

In the last several months, new upwork project submissions seem to have come to a trickle. When I first migrated to upwork, and created my custom searches that contain things such as socket programming, TCP/IP, multi-threaded programming, Raspberry PI, Networking, Software Licensing, etc... The things I am best at, there was a good flow of new projects on a daily basis.

In the last 2 months, I have not had a single project awarded to me. Because there just haven't been that many submissions to bid on.

In the end, I bit my tongue today and had freelancer.com reinstate my cancelled account, so I can get back to work and have cash flow again.

Sorry, freelancer.com for the negative comment last Thanksgiving, but until you drive that other car for awhile, you really don't know how dependable your existing car really is.

It is good to be back.

Mark