Yes I am well aware of that site. Unfortunately Kent is not allowing us to respond to the users to sort out their problems.
Is this why?
from the post in question above:
Update #3 (November 2012)
Freelancer.com complained to my hosting company to try to get me to take down my entire website. Isn?t that crazy?! Hah! They accused me off violating the copyright and trademarks of Freelancer.com, in addition to defaming the company. Wow...."
(Freelancer is trying to get that honest review removed because they don't like it. Here's another excerpt further down in that same section:
They even want me to remove all the comments on this blog post. Hah why? Its an open forum, people can say whatever they "want (including all the customer service reps from Freelancer.com that have left comments.) Plus I highly doubt anybody is lying in the comments because everybody is saying the same exact thing."
Now, let me tell you about my experiences with Freelancer.com
I signed up as a freelancer while the site was still free. I don't know how (maybe its all the great ODesk feedback I have that I flaunted on my freelancer profile), but I won the first bid I placed for a writing job. It was a quick article for $30. Yes, if you look enough, you can find decent jobs there. BUT, as decent as that was, I got scammed out of my money. That client paid, no problem, so I bid on a few other jobs. One of them was for a few articles, and I bid a certain amount based on my specific knowledge of the article genre (I am a specialist in this area). The next day, I get an email saying that the client had chosen me, accepted my terms, and I had to accept the offer. I did accept it because it was for the amount I wanted (and I wanted half upfront), and I was under the assumption that because the client accepted, that the milestone would be put in escrow.
However, about an hour after accepting, I receive an email from the client saying that the job was no longer available, and that instead I would have to write twice as many articles for a different topic - one that I would never have bid on in the first place. Then I received an email within a minute after that one saying that the client denied my upfront. I replied to the client to find out what had happened, and he stated that he didn't want the articles anymore, so he wanted me to write the other topic because he thought that with my writing experience, I could get the job done quicker than anyone else. The problem was that he wanted twice as many articles for the same price on a topic I know noting about. I replied saying that I bid on a specific project, and that was the project I was going to work. He didn't respond after that, so I contacted Freelancer support to let them know I was getting scammed, and I requested that they reprimand the client and return my fees.
(Freelancer makes money from the clients and the workers), and this is part of the response I received:
...once a project has been awarded and accepted by a freelancer, whether the project would be completed or not, we charge them immediately for project commission fee and it is nonrefundable. Applying fees according to this process is stated in Section 4 of our Terms of Service, which you agreed with upon voluntarily registering your account on our site.
That means that the workers are paying Freelancer to harbor scammers.
...We suggest that you continue contacting your employer to resolve this issue... basically we just provide the portal where employers and freelancers meet to do projects and subsequent payments and whatever is the outcome of the project will rely solely on the hands of the employer and freelancer and we will not be able to intervene on it in any way possible.
I did contact the client numerous times, and he refused to answer me after the above mentioned email, so what now? I lose money, the client gets away with scamming me out of a job, and Freelancer does nothing. The way I see it is,
we are taking all the risk, and Freelancer is taking all the money. Sure some workers get paid, but of late, especially since they've acquired Rent a Coder/VWorker, its gotten worse, and there are more "freelancer scam" reviews than ever.
The company takes advantage of workers who are oftentimes in a bad way, and they do so knowing almost none of us have neither the resolve nor the funds to fight them and because of that, the company continues to get away with it - legally. That was the second and last time I used the site, which is fine because I have such a great following from ODesk, I don't need them - I don't have to fight for half a penny a word jobs either, and ODesk will help if there is a problem, as they have before when a client didn't pay.
