Dorothee S.

I wish I had googled before... So here comes my personal horror story:
I just finished my first 200$ project and requested a withdrawel. For some "security issue" the first payout is delayed for 3 weeks (although it doesn't seem to be an issue to take my money immediately). Ha, of course, it got cancelled! I didn't even requested everything and left a bit, but won two big projects, wich freelancer booked from my account, so there was not enough left to make the withdrawel (remember: it's only a "security issue" to PAY you, TAKING your money is no problem). However, the projects were payed, i get 5-star ratings by my customers, but freelancer of course did not activated the old withdrawel, I needed to make a new one, again delayed for 3 weeks. So I am yet not paid for my first project wich was finished 5 weeks ago now.

But it could get even worse: On the billing site I saw an advertise, that users should verificate their account. As an honest freelancer that seemed legit to me and I started the verification process voluntary.
They have been sent 6 (in words: SIX!) photos of letters, wich do all apply to their terms, showing all my as well as the senders information. But guess what? That is not enough, although in their FAQ and their terms&conditions is stated that this is enough! It is nowhere mentioned, so I say thats a lie, but they insist they need to see the full documents, which are (in the first try) my bank statement and a letter from my healthinsurance. Are they INSANE? By the way: they never tell you why they reject it and just send you a $#*!ty auto-reply with no informations leaving you clueless, as long as you don't ask at least 4 times to give you a hint, what the problem is.
They further rejected: full document photos from letters of my bank, one with no private information, one with a pencil covering the part after the "THIS IS YOUR PIN: " (yeah, for sure, I will just give you my online-banking pin, I just read all this positive feedback here and totally trust you...), a full letter from my landlord (ha, no proof! Your landlord doesn't know for sure where you are living! You just rented that appartment to fool us!).
They recommend to send some bills from utility services, but seriously: are they living in the 1990's? None of them, not a single one, absolutly no one of my utility services send printed out letters! Most of them even made the contract via mail.

I wonder that they approved my mug-shot with the ID and did not request some naked photos "to make sure my head is not photoshoped on" (come on, be creative! You can invent some additional requirements spontaneously whenever you want!) as they are so very interested in the most private things.

Now I'm stuck in an endless loop with morons from the so called "support", wich obviously can't read and just closed the ticket. Okay, to be fair: maybe they can read, but just not explain, why freelancer is violating their own terms and conditions.

-----UPDATE-----
Problem solved: I'm finally verificated with a pdf. That is just grotesque, because that would be, compared to all the photos mentioned above, really easy to fake. The FAQ says clearly scan or photo. Too, this secret (?) solution came just when it was too late anyway to request a withdrawel before that delayed first one... Wich wasn't even my main intention, but it's a bit to bearish, don't you think? This is long enough, but there are some more details that clearly shows it's to get a runaround. More than two weeks in wich I spent hours on that, countless mails to your support and at last a solution that could have been given in answer to my very first mail?

As long as you can't refund stolen time or compensate it with my usual hourly fee I will not revoke that voting. And don't tell the feedback is "appreciated", when it's obviously the same problem for years! Shouldn't you just improve the customer service for every user of your site, than wasting time by searching the web and only react to those who complain in public? Btw: it's too late, when customers are already really angry and felt to be taken for a fool, that's not a very smart strategy...
But to point out fairly: I don't say scam (yet, let's see, if I get my money...), that customer-service is just unacceptable!

No impressum or contactinfos, no insight if there are any jobs and wich kind of jobs (that's not a guarantee for anything, but at least something).
You are advised to pay (or even get a monthly paid mebership, didn't read anymore from that point) before there is shown anything to you. Very shady, never ever.