Freelancer

Sad to hear that they not only still exist, but haven't gotten any better.

We had a project running there (iOS app), which looked fine at the beginning as the developer sent a video as proof of his work, we paid the first milestone.

Since we never received the finished project we didn't pay the rest of the money (sounds logical).

We wanted to use the money already in our account to pay a second developer we hired, which freelancer didn't do, because they needed additional account information. After completing the informatinos they wanted nothing happened, excpet that they were threatening us to close our account.

Sending emails and support tickets did not change anything, they wanted us to grant them permission to pay the first job (which still is unfinished). We lost approx. US$ 800.- there, our account doesn't exist anymore.

They closed the case we opened, we had to remind them many time that the dispute is not solved.

A few investigations showed that several people use freelance.com to systematically rip off people that offer them work.
The way that freelancer.com functions perfectly protects fraudsters of any kind, once you got money in an account there you will never ever get it back.

What they do and how they do it is illegal in our country.

The purpose of a site like freelance is to protect people who make business using their site, but as it looks they only care about the money that flows through their site, and giving their best to restrict withdrawals.

In generally we don't work anymore with freelancer sites, we hire freelancers directly after having talked to them on skype and after having them finished a little project (something stupidly simple like a "hello world" without any value or use). Every serious developer is more than willing to invest 30 mins in order to get a job that pays well.

Stay far away from freelance.com, roasting marshmellows over burning dollar bills is much less frustrating.

After spending over $40 on English tests on Freelancer to boost my ratings I was invited to apply for a job which I didn't feel qualified for. The only way I could see on the Freelancer site to contact the client was to accept the job and ask her more questions, as she was adamant that she wanted to hire me despite the fact that the job was for a VA position in the UK which paid $600 - and I live in CA, USA. Imagine my shock when $60 was immediately deducted from my PayPal account. When I contacted PayPal to dispute the charge, my Freelancer account was "limited for security reasons". Despite repeated emails over the past 10 days, I am still waiting for a refund. Trying to chat with the help desk just sends me back to the page telling me my account is limited. Per Freelancer instructions I cancelled the dispute with PayPal in order to get my money back. I did that. Still no response. So, between taking the tests and the $60 fee I am $100 out of pocket - which isn't as much as some Freelancers have lost - but it's a lot of money to me! Wish I'd checked out the reviews before I decided to use Freelancer. I worked on Elance for years without any problems whatsoever. I wish they were still around.
I forgot to mention that I declined the job but Freelancer still took their fee. For NOTHING!

UPDATE - on 4/6 I received a credit to PayPal for the full amount. I was thrilled, and ready to change the rating I'd given Freelancer.

However, today Freelancer has charged my PayPal account $10.48. I have NO idea what this is for as I only intended to use the Free membership on Freelancer. It seems that once this company has your PayPal details they just help themselves. I will be disputing the payment.

I feel that Freelancer is just too eager to take money for nothing - and I sympathize with those of you who've lost a lot of money by using the site. I have contacted PayPal who have blocked this company from taking any more money from my account, and who have refunded the $10.48 fee which I did NOT approve as a recurring payment.

BEWARE!

First and Last Time! HORRIBLE! Please stay away from this site!
I awarded a project to WebSky7 who agreed to take on the job the next day. The following day I contacted them around 12pm via Skype, and they stated they were in a meeting. I skyped them two hours later and was told they did not have a developer to work on my project. I told them I have to revoke the job as it was urgent to start. I went to REPOST the Job. I made another small text change and hit REPOST again. I happen to check my credit card account and found out each REPOST cost me (2x) 9.00 + some other small fees. They also took 185.00 to pay Websky7 who never started the job. All this taken out without consent/'acknowledgement or even a RECEIPT? REALLY? I had no choice but to contact their site operator who did not offer much help but just told me how everything is NON-REFUNDABLE and how I have arbitrate a dispute with WebSky7? I got news for her as I am awaiting the outcome. You see, here is the U.S., we can dispute credit card charges; especially for services NEVER rendered/received and have no problem nailing that piece of sh-t company with 25.00 chargebacks for each item.

I just signed up at freelancer.com (as a client) and as a bonus for posting my first project as a client, freelancer.com provided me a complementary recruiter service on the project. Unfortunately the recruiter - Timothy R. - just tried to sell me up on additional services. After I have told him that I would like to wait and see if I can find a freelancer for my project first he asked me to stay online for a few hours. I did this and since then he appeared "out of office". This is not even worth one star.

After contacting the support I had a chat with Kayla B. She escalated the issue and now we will se how things are going. Her help was a ok experience. As the case is still open I can not give any final feedback so far but truly hope that my experience with freelancer.com is getting better and not worse.

Edit #1: Two days have passed and no one from freelancer.com contacted me about the recruiter issue. Will keep this updated. So far would not recommend to use their services

Edit #2: After 6 days the "recruiter" from freelancer.com contacted me with the following message:

"Hi thereThe success of your project solely lies in your consistent communication with the freelancer. I encourage you to have a quick chat with them so you can check if they have additional questions regarding the project.
Let me know how this goes."

Not one word on the issues or why he (or "it" as I believe it is a bad programmed chatbot) was staying silent for a week. Also I have now two tickets at freelancer.com that are not solved and are not assigned to anyone. If you want to have a bad experience in terms of customer support and unreliable services as a client - go for it.

Edit #3: Today I had a quick chat with the team lead of the recruiter department discussing what went wrong. Even though there is nothing that can be changed in terms of the experience they have promised to improve this area to avoid that other users are having the same negative experience. As it sounded that they take this matter serious I have changed the rating from 2 to 3 stars. Will not further update this review but focus on business.