Freelancer.com literally just scammed me for $57 (company itself)

[Mr Cracker]

Earlier today I posted a project about making a software, the listing was APPROVED without issues. Next I decided to add some extras such as featured and hand picks via their staff.

Great, I thought everything was setup and waited. Within 3 minutes of taking my money ($57) I received an email letting me know my listing was denied. They pointed out some parts via their TOS about software.

I'm not going to get punchy about that as it's their platform, so I waited for an email letting me know about my refund (did not come). I forwarded the email over to the now allocated freelancer representative that was assigned to me as part of one of the extras.

To my surprise she went from super friendly before, to now arrogantly telling me I won't get a refund and to contact support. I sent an email and waited to no avail.

Later I opened a dispute with PayPal figuring a large company like Freelancer.com would see the mistake and refund it back, nope, instead someone came along and left a pathetic message about me MANIPULATING the extras.

I'm absolutely fucked off about this, has anyone else had issues with these Fuckers like this. I'd be interested to know because frankly there's ways of doing business, and this is not it.

If someone comes to my site and orders something by mistake, and I'm contacted about it they get a refund. I will not scam them and call them out for not reading through the TOS. The whole experience felt like some sort of scam.

Rant over.

Fuckers.

 

[Mr Cracker]

Edit: I'd like to add this as well... I found a listing on Google close to what I wanted. When I logged into my Freelancer.com account they have an option (post a listing like this).

Ironic don't you think being they say it's against their TOS. How can they approve my listing after OFFERING to create a similar listing, and then steal my money afterwards saying it's not allowed.

In fact, I'm going to call PayPal and tell them this and show some proofs, $57 is nothing to me, but it's the principle!

 

[slager889]

LOL, Freelancer is well known for those types of scams. A similar thing happened to me once. I was awarded a project, I accepted it, then immediately got a notification saying the project was cancelled, then another from PayPal letting me know Freelancer deducted $60 bucks for a project fee.

I called support and was also met with arrogance even though I pointed out how unfair it is to charge me for a project fee since they project was cancelled before I could even say "Hi" to the client.

I had to file a dispute on PayPal to take care of it. Here's the real funny part, PayPal ruled in Freelancer’s favor. Fortunately for me, I guess my case got escalated to someone higher during the process and they realized I had spent over 15k on their site, so the money was eventually refunded to me by Freelancer.

Long story short: Fuck Freelancer and fuck PayPal!!!

 

[Mr Cracker]

LOL, Freelancer is well known for those types of scams. A similar thing happened to me once. I was awarded a project, I accepted it, then immediately got a notification saying the project was cancelled, then another from PayPal letting me know Freelancer deducted $60 bucks for a project fee.

I called support and was also met with arrogance even though I pointed out how unfair it is to charge me for a project fee since they project was cancelled before I could even say "Hi" to the client.

I had to file a dispute on PayPal to take care of it. Here's the real funny part, PayPal ruled in Freelancer’s favor. Fortunately for me, I guess my case got escalated to someone higher during the process and they realized I had spent over 15k on their site, so the money was eventually refunded to me by Freelancer.

Long story short: Fuck Freelancer and fuck PayPal!!!

Right on, thanks for telling me. Btw, check my second post. I just contacted them about that and frankly I feel it's a VERY good point.

Indexing old listings and offering to let you duplicate it WORD FOR WORD, and then APPROVING it before taking money, nah, complete scam right there.

I wonder what PayPal will say about that when I point it out. I'll be calling them come Monday about this point.

 

[OnniChan]

Well that's the thing.... Paypal looks at their earnings first. If their income outweighs yours, they will favor client that gets more income. I learned that from my friends who was working for them as a customer support (dispute department). That's the reason why I stay away in Paypal as much as I can.

You know, if everybody stops using paypal, and would go an extra mile to use another payment processor, then they will be out of business very soon.

 

[D PNW]

Wow had no idea Paypal did shit like that.

 

[dailydollars17]

Hi

I also faced same problem with freelancer. I worked for two clients and they paid me. After some days they refunded my money to the clients because those clients are banned and that money were refunded to the cards. Here i am helpless. I worked for clients and loose money because of freelancer. When i asked support they told freelancer is not responsible for freelancers working for money loose or not. Really dumb people they are.

 

[hacko]

Not the same situation, but I'd like to add to this, since I've really grown to hate Freelancer.

I have a friend who got up to making $1500+ per month doing graphic design on Freelancer, which for him was huge since he was finally doing what he loved and for good money where he lives. Anyway, he had someone order from him multiple times and did a ton of design work for them for right about $2k. THREE FUCKING MONTHS LATER, Freelancer decides to take the $2k out of his account, leaving him with a negative balance. He was confused, as he already did the work and positive reviews were there. Turns out, Freelancer claimed there was a problem with the payment processing and they had to charge the balance back. How the fuck was this supposed to be my friend's fault - it's not he had any say in picking their payment processor, and even so, enough time has passed after those orders - why the fuck would he need to pay them back?

Turns out, the guy was using stolen cards to place the orders - which, my friend is supposed to end up working off to get rid of the negative balance, after already doing quality work and getting good reviews for it. Not the best business model for Freelancer, since you apparently can't rely on them at all even if you're trying to do legitimate business transactions. They're an absolute joke of a company, and needless to say, my friend stopped working with them.

 

[Mr Cracker]

So it seems Freelancer thought they would be stealing my money... WRONG! I just called PayPal directly and got my money back.

Word to the wise - Don't use Freelancer.com guys they are real sketchy, they tried to tell me to close the dispute and REFUSED to tell me if the money would be handed back, I called them out on this and explained it won't happen, they told me to use their (account validate) and it would be resolved within 48hrs (that was over 3 days ago now).

Freelancer.com are indexing old listings on Google and NOT highlighting anything regarding them being AGAINST THEIR TOS, thus you see an option to (post a similar listing) - you get duped into using that and it even copies EVERY SINGLE WORD USED ON THE OLD LISTING, then you get approved and if you're foolish enough and pay for extras you do not get refunded.

The whole matter seemed VERY sketchy to me being it's a large company, I'm shocked and appalled by their lack of support and willingness to refund money back, considering they are tricking customers via Google results as explained above.

Stay clear! all I have to say now is... Fuck you Freelancer, Fuck you very much!

I win.

Edit: I have also told PayPal to look into Freelacners.com sketchy tactics as well!