Freelancer

Good site, easy to navigate, lots of job. I've never had problems using it so my review is positive.

It was great talking to Chelsea. She talked perfectly and explain everything. Best communication skills.

There are 100 of Indian cheap freelancers you can hire just from 1-2 $ hour.
Good for small budget companies

During my time on freelancer.com, I only participated in contests.

These contests were absolutely horrifying. Nearly every user who entered had (1) completely ignored the guidelines set by the contest host, or (2) essentially copied the top-rated designs and then spammed the entry. Then they create fake accounts to "like" their own images & make them more visible.

But by far, the worst offense was that a ridiculous amount of users just stole images and logos from other sites, and did so without consequence.

I actually had a contest where I was the first to enter, I corresponded with the host to improve my design, and I spent upwards of 8 hours making something they would like. But when my design became the "top pick", a good 10 or 15 designers went and copied the image almost exactly. Even so, I thought I was fine because I was still rated the top design by the time the contest closed.

And then another designer, who was clearly using images stolen from google & photoshopped (mind you, the guidelines stated it was to be an "illustration"), was awarded the prize at the last minute.

This was not Freelancer.com's fault, it was the host's decision. Regardless, that was the last straw for me. I'm not about to spend hours on an original design just to have the winner be someone who slapped together an image in 5 minutes, especially if they just essentially copied my entry. And I'm certainly not going to continue making designs for employers who couldn't care less about anything other than the end result, even if it's created illegally.

If thousands of users on a website consistently violate copyright law without consequence, why would I feel like my work was safe from suffering the same fate?

From what I've been reading, I'm at least thankful that I never gave them access to my bank account.

We hate these guys with a passion, and we've been with them since they were out of Scandinavia (and decent - at that time they were getafreelancer.com GAF) - BEFORE they became Aussie owned and decided to see how much money they can screw out of everybody. Their fees are to the point of ridiculous (another site that we use charges a FLAT RATE OF $6.95 PER MONTH and there's no draconian escrow system - how you get paid is between YOU and the CLIENT, like grown ups.) and they keep going up, and the hoops you have to jump through FOR EVERYTHING is even more ridiculous. I spend more time explaining to clients HOW to make and release payments through them than I do actually working.

Now in the last couple of months, as if their fees and hoops aren't bad enough, they've decided freelancers can't ask for their initial milestone deposits (our initial milestones are a 33% deposit to cover things like software we have to buy for the client up front) to be released up front, they have to leave them in escrow. So, basically if the client stalls the project - we're out of pocket.

Their latest control freak trip - is they're complaining about everybody's profile pic/logo - and threatening to terminate our accounts if we don't "upgrade" our look. FYI - OURS IS OUR COMPANY LOGO!

Thank goodness we only use them to pick up an occasional job maybe twice a year. I really need to take the time and find another site to replace this one...

Freelancer.com - this site used to be a marketplace for people to find work and others who want to get their work done. Just after this site got merged with scriptlance.com and vworker.com (Rent a coder - old name), the pool of freelancers increased to millions. Most of them from Indian and from Pakistan, Bangladesh. Now the situation with freelancer is that they are not interested in looking at the way projects are being posted or whether there is any minimum bid policy. People on freelancer can ask for anything that can take weeks and just post $30 to get this done. Obviously, many will jump into this to get done, but the problem comes for employers after they start work with such people. They either don't get satisfied work or get reasons from freelancer that scope is increasing. The problem is somewhere in middle, it is freelancer's bad policy if exposing others bids, others profile that make the situation so vulnerable. Is there anyone who wants to pay more for getting something done, when there is some one else who is so confident to say he can get it done.

Freelancer is just getting more and more worse day by day and they are just looking to be interested in making their UI more beautiful and fancy. Come on freelancer, focus on value which has created your base of business. Focus on your freelancer and employers who work together. See how many of them are happy. Else sooner your days are countable in fingers. People will just stop using you.

Also please stop marketing gifts, coupons etc. People come to your website for work, provide them good work place and they will be happy. Learn from elance and odesk. They know how to do business better. You have scored high only by acquiring your next competitors and showing your self big. High time to learn and you can see this page where 80% people have not scored more then 1 star for you.