Serioja M.

After having massive trouble by trying to hire freelancers at freelancer.com, I discovered Envato Studio. It has a very simple and intuitive interface, no complicated payment systems, no hidden fees. At least for somebody that is hiring freelancers, it is very pleasant to work with. You just pay the freelancer after he did his work, and do not have to pay any kind of separate fees (as at freelancer.com that was a permanent scam - they just took money for every little step you did!).
The professionals working through envato are just a few, compared with freelancer.com, but they are real professionals, polite, with a good english. Quite a difference to a lot of scammers from freelancer.com (I met people that were males, but put female photos in their profile, lying about their identity and location, etc.!).
It costs a bit more, but you are shure you get your job done, with quality.

I bought a one-year subscription for Bitdefender antivirus, one year ago, and it was obviously done over "Avangate" (which takes care of the selling).
This year, I was surprised to discover that Avangate simply took money from my paypal account without my permission.
I wrote them emails, and I NEVER received any other answers but these ones, that are simply bad jokes and a total MOCKERY to the client:

(update below)
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Sehr geehrtes Avangate Team,

Bez. Ihrer automatischen abbuchung eines betrages von meinem paypal-konto,
Ersuche ich Sie, mir zu beweisen, wann ich Sie denn dazu autorisiert habe?

Datum: (,,,), abgebucht von paypal konto (...)

Ich habe Avangate nach meinem wissen nie für automatische verlängerung von verträgen autorisiert.

Sollte da von Ihrer seite keine antwort kommen, werde ich bei PayPal diese zahlung reklamieren.

Mit freundlichen grüßen,
(,,,)

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Your request was marked as solved.

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This is a bad joke!
How did you mark my request as resolved, without answering anything to me?
If you further refuse any serious answer, I will have to forward this case to the consumer protection from my country.

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Hello,

Did we help? We'd love to hear your thoughts on our customer service.
How would you rate the support you received?

Wie würden Sie den erhaltenen Support bewerten?

O Gut, ich bin zufrieden.
O Schlecht, ich bin unzufrieden.

Here's a summary of your request:
I warn you for the last time to answer my question!

***

UPDATE: After opening a case in paypal, they wrote just this, and denied to pay back the sum they simply stole from my paypal account:

"Thank you for contacting us. Regarding this issue please contact the software publisher.
Software publisher contact details:
Support Email: http://www.bitdefender.com/contactform
Support Phone: *******655 (US); *******405 (CA)"

UPDATE 3: if you try to take out money that you sent into your freelancer.com-account, it is extremely complicated: I waited two weeks to get the money back, then, suddenly, they told me it was a wrong request what I did and did not explain clearly what they did with the money, but the money simply disappeared from the freelancer-account. Only after filling a support request, I understood that they sent the money to my credit card, and not to my paypal, as I requested, letting me wait a few additional days (added to the already waited 2 weeks!). But when I wanted to take the money out from the freelancer account, there was no option to send it to my credit card, but just an option for paypal. Incredibly stupid! They have complicated internal rules that are not transparent, not easy to understand and not explained in advance. Only when you need a transaction, there are popping out a lot of "you can do it just like this" things, and the solution is always to your detriment. Considering they have millions of users, and they delay the payments from their accounts to the outside world for at least a few days, one can imagine what earnings they have just by using this money that is blocked there. They probably are able to use it permanently (in the meantime), like a bank does this too. But freelancer.com is not a bank.

UPDATE 2: I tried to use "envato" instead of freelancer. It worked very simple, with no unneccessary fuss regarding the payment methods and no hiring bureaucracy. They have even an escrow system, which makes it very secure. All in all it was really pleasant, compared to freelancer. And the costs were not higher (at least in my case).

UPDATE1: after being contacted in a very polite manner by another member of the support team, I will give freelancer a second chance. Still, it is difficult to understand the way the user interface works, regarding payments (at least in my case it was so!), and it is of course unpleasant to have to go through such unpleasant discussions with the support, and that only after appealing and making a case out of it, the complaint is accepted and corrected. But, who knows, perhaps it was an exception. Let's hope so. I'll give them a second chance. I will give them two stars more (3 instead of 1) and... let's see.
Anyway, I just read another complaint about the guy called David S., which was the same way of total rudeness to another customer:

"I tried contacting support team through Chat. The Support Executive name is Dave. S and he was very unprofessional, ethic-less, rude and *****. "

***

I just put here below a transcript of the chat I just had with a guy from the helpdesk. You can see yourself how they treat customers.

They ask for money for every little financiary step you do (each time some 5 or more), and they have a very bad user interface, which leads you to do mistakes and loose your money. There is no way to reverse wrongly done payments.

Chat with "support desk", which is rather a "frustrated desk", heightening the anger of the customer that tries to contact them:

Dave S.: How can I help?
Me: I am new here and wanted to release a milestone (start of work) but I payed the whole invoice.
Me: How can be this reversed?

19:05Dave S.: What is the ID or the URL of the project related to your concern?
19:06Dave S.: Please provide the information being requested. [! Here he starts to be the "bad guy" - without any reason!]

Me: https://www.freelancer.com/...

Me: the project is just starting, but it is marked "completed"! Nothing was done, I was just requested by the worker I hired, to release the first milestone. (in order for him to start work)

Dave S.: This is a Fixed-Price project. Invoices can only be used for Hourly Projects. Well, we do not encourage making upfront payments. The funds that have been released can be reversed once the freelancer contacts us to give their confirmation. We always recommend employers on our site only to release Milestone Payments once the freelancer completes the project and they are satisfied with the submitted work.

Me: ok, but I am new here and I was friendly and accepted the proposed solution. AND your system told me absolute bull$#*!, that made me very confused and determined this big error.
So how can I get my money back?

Dave S.: Freelancer.com does not tolerate abusive language.
Dave S.: We have an obligation to conduct our business in accordance with all applicable rules, regulations and laws as we are committed to helping all users act in a way that preserves trust and respect within the site.
Dave S.: I suggest that you refrain from sending statements containing abusive language.

Me: The worker told me "he is on his phone and he cannot see anything related to payments on his phone" and that "I should not worry".

Dave S.: This serves as your first warning.

Me: I am sorry, but I am VERY ANGRY because your system gives contradictory advices! AND I Hope that "customer friendliness" includes to accept that I am really angry and have a lot of trouble because your USER INTERFACE is bad.

Dave S.: Further violation will result in disciplinary actions.
Dave S.: The process on how the payment you released can be returned has already been advised to you.

Me: ok, so I am here in the army, or where? I did not say anything wrong about you, I told it about the system. And "bull$#*!" is really a usual word in english language, quite mild.
I am highly dissapointed about the way there is no customer politeness from the side of "freelancer"!

Dave S.: Your frustration is understandable. However, it is not necessary to use such words.

Me: You could say this from the beginning, and not talk to me in this condescendent, totally unfriendly way!

Dave S.: You have been warned against using abusive language.
Dave S.: I will now have to end this chat session.
Dave S.: Feel free to email *******@freelancer.com if you'd like to discuss this further.

I wanted to tell him that he is really, really a total idiot, but I could not, because he just closed the session! I was already very angry because their site gives you bad and contradictory recommendations when trying to pay someting, and then I was also being degraded to someone who just uses "abusive language" instead of being helped.

This is the way "freelancer.com" behaves when a customer is really pissed of because of their stupid website! I will of course work on getting my money back and then take care not to come back there again!