Mohammad-Reza S.

I usually don't review sites on the internet. However, This website is so awesome that I decided to go on and leave a review for them here.

I found out about guitartricks.com on Google. When I first bought a guitar, I didn't have enough time to find an instructor. I couldn't just look at the guitar and don't play it, so I decided to search Google for guitar tutorials and lessons.

After viewing the freely available videos, I decided to give it a try and I bought a one-month membership. That's a decision I will never regret. Guitartricks is so good that I decided to skip private lessons and learn playing the guitar by myself.

There's lots of various stuff available, and it's more efficient than a private instructor, because you can try something new whenever you are bored. Or you can see the instructors teach you how to do things as many times as you like. It's like an instructor which is always with you.

I recommend everyone to try this website and be sure you will never regret it.

Freelancer.com was a very good website, before it turned into a scam.

I had earned around $10K in the past year by working as a freelancer there, and I was very happy with it. However, recently I have been facing many issues with them, and they are refusing to pay the $1500 I have in my account. It seems like scam to me. I am going to describe these problems.

1. They will reverse milestone payments whenever they want, and you cannot do anything about it. I had a milestone reversed two times. First was a $30 one, and another was $40. What it means is that after I have spent some time doing a project for an employer, sending them the job and receiving the money, suddenly freelancer.com decides to take the money you earned back!

I understand that probably the employer had used an unauthorized account for making the payment. However, Freelancer.com doesn't provide you with any evidence that the employer used an unauthorized payment source. They don't provide any documents proving that the owner of the payment source had asked for a refund. They just ask you to trust them that what they state is true. I did trust them, but I don't anymore, becuase of more issues I had with them recently that sound like scam to me.

2. Removing withdrawal requests!
There had been some instances (at least 10 times, all of them in the past 4 months) where they have decided not to process my withdrawal request, and remove it instead!

Once, I had my requests got removed for 2 weeks before I could successfully receive the money. I really don't understand what reasonable excuse they could possible have for doing so. Contacting the support in these instances shows they are 0% responsible and helpful for the issues happening for you.

The most tangible response I got from their support (I highly doubt that you can actually call it support) is that probably I have mistakenly removed the request. OK, maybe once, but not 10 times! Come on, I have been using this website for at least 8 months and made at least 20 withdrawal requests. All of them were processed flawlessly. How can I believe that suddenly, I'm mistakenly removing most of my withdrawal requests?

3. They will ask you to verify your identity by sending them some documents.
I am completely OK with providing them the documents, I understand that they have to review their customers' documents for money laundrying laws. I had my account reviewed 1 year ago. The process went very fast, and my account was verified in less than 24 hours. Cool!

But once again, my account was limited 10 days ago, and they asked for the same documents I provided them past year! Exactly the same ones! This is highly unacceptable to me. Didn't they already verify my identity? Didn't they review my documents?

I decided to go on and send them the documents. I had all of them at my disposal, except the photo with a verification code, which I had to take again because the code was changed.

It's been exactly 10 days since I had uploaded my documents. The message I received after submitting my documents: "Your submission was successful and is now under review. Your account will remain limited until we can confirm your identity and aim to have this resolved within 48 hours."

I was expecting the process the finish within 2 days, since it was finished in less than 24 hours last time. But I have not yet received any response from them, after 10 days!

When 2 days passed, I had created a ticket and asked them when they expect the verification to be finished. Their response:
"Hi ******,
Thank you for contacting the Support Team.
We appreciate your compliance with our requirements for lifting your account limitation.
However, you would really need to refer back to the Verification Center to follow up on your case. Kindly wait for their response.
For your convenience, the link to the Verification Center is: https://www.freelancer.com/users/limit-account/verification_center.php
Let us know if you have other concerns."

After 5 days, I was really worried about my account, since I had $1.5K there and my account was not yet verified. I created another ticket, and guess what! They have decided not to respond to my ticket, and it was closed after 2 hours! Can you believe it? They didn't respond, and closed the ticket instead!

I became suspicious they have became a scam and all of these were to steal my money. I had searched "freelancer.com scam" on Google, and as you probably know, there were tons of reviews stating that the company is a scam.:(

What I noticed in some reviews was a guy named "Valerie Scott" providing an e-mail address, and offering assistance. Great! So I decided to contact him and ask him for assistance. He responded very fast, and I was hopeful that he could help me lifting the limits on my account. However, 4 days has passed since Valerie told me he would look into the issue as soon as possible and inform me. I have replied to his email 3 times in the past 4 days and asking him for updates regarding my issue. But he was not responding anymore...

So this is how all my hope is lost on Freelancer.com, including $1500 I had earned. Freelancer.com used to be a reliable company and a good source of income for me, but not anymore. I don't think that they will every review my documents. It's a 5 minute job, which they couldn't perform in the past 10 days.

I am going to move on and not use Freelancer.com anymore. Even if they decide to verify my already verified account and pay me the money I've earned, I'm not wasting my time there anymore because they have proved they are extremely unreliable and I might lose time and money working there.

I also recommend everyone to avoid using Freelancer.com, it's no more worth it.

I will update this review if I could get my money, but I won't be spending more time contacting their useless support or working for employers anymore.