Freelancer.com: Is it a Scam or Legit?

The site itself isn't fake or a scam. Ive used it plenty of times to find people, but you've just got to weed out the bad ones

Out of 10 project I list there, only 1 are up to professional standard.
3 are scam (Craigslist ad post)
1 are unprofessional and miss the deadline and extend turnaround time by 100% (Config Thesis Framework)
1 fake person (male trying to be female)
1 project doesn't meet promised performance requirement (vid count increaser)
1 incompetent contractor (FB viral app)
lots of overcharge bid
and the list goes on....

Freelancer.com is infested with incompetence freelance and outsource-arbitrage.
If you are starting out outsourcing, be very thorough with requirement and deadline.

janny2030 said:

I've stumble upon the net to find out freelancer.com reviews and find loads of their info....

Just be honest in here bhw friends, is it a scam or legit?

Thanks in adv for your value ideas!

Janny

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Hi Janny2030,

My name is Emir and I work for Freelancer.com.

I came across your post here and I?d like to address your concerns.

I?d like to assure that Freelancer.com is not a scam. It is a legitimate business with more than 3.7 million users of the site and hundreds of thousands of satisfied customers. And they continue to grow each day.

We have one of the largest pools of professional freelancers and reputable employers in the online outsourcing industry. As of to date, we have paid out more than $134,000,000 to freelancers all over the world.

The site has close to 500 job categories ranging from software, writing, data entry and design right through to engineering and the sciences, sales and marketing, and accounting & legal services. In addition, we have close to 20 crowdsourced offerings including logos, graphic design, web sites and more.

We?d like to invite you to visit Freelancer.com and see what we can do for you. Thank you very much.

masush200 said:

i lots 233$,NEVER NEVER go to freelancer ,when u will do any some thing whenu r a big dealer thenthey tried to find any mistake then Banned u and when u open dispute they will ask u more than 1000 question
many personal things too that they have not rights

odesk ,elance,fiver is better

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Hello. I?ve read your post here and as always we appreciate the feedback.

I?d like to assure you that Freelancer.com doesn?t just suspend accounts without any justifiable reason. Most of the time, it?s only a matter of verifying the user?s account or the transactions done through the site. If there were no clear violations made with our policies, and the proper documents were sent to our Verification Teams, then we?ll immediately lift the suspension.

To further validate a user?s identity we will ask for high quality photos of IDs and other documents to be sent. We will also ask users to provide additional details about their accounts and details.

Funds inside a suspended account will not go anywhere. It will be made available once the account and transaction verification procedures are completed.

These policies and procedures in place are meant to provide a safe environment for all Freelancer.com users and protect the site as well from unscrupulous users.

Please be assured that all information provided for the account verification and Dispute Resolution Services will not be used unless to comply to legal obligations or with your express consent.

As always, Freelancer.com would like to help further. Please send your username to the Freelancer.com Customer Support and we??ll look into your case for you and sort out the issues around your account.

I hope I?ve adequately addressed your concerns.

Thank you very much and we hope to to hear from you soon.

vivekcool789 said:

Lost around $800. they don't pay even if you verify your identity. But yeah, many get paid.

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Hello. I have read your post here and I?d like to address your concerns.

Account suspensions happen only when there are issues with the user?s account and transactions.
Freelancer.com requires users to go through verification procedures to validate their account and the transactions they made through the site. Funds inside a suspended account will be made available once the account verification procedures are completed.
Most of the time, if the account only needs to be verified, we?ll immediately lift the suspension and let the user access their funds.

I hope I?ve addressed your concerns. Thank you very much.

Freelancer.com is not a Scam. But - there may be some scammers / Spammers. You've to be careful when you start dealing in freelancer.com .

I've account there in freelancer.com and I've more than 100 feedbacks there. And - right now - I'm earning more than $100 per day from freelancer.com .
So if it's a scam - then how can I earn from there!

There are lots of professional persons & webmasters in that site too - you just have to use your brain to work there. I've 6 fixed clients there in freelancer.com who usually give me more than $1000 projects per month, and as we've build up a good business relationship so now we are working outside of freelancer.

If you are a professional person - then no one can scam you.

Being a website it is not fake but there are possibilities that maybe the people using it may be scammers. As a whole it is a good site and has a lot of earning potential.

skittles said:

I got scammed twice there and I never had a problem before. I paid in advance and released the payments and the freelancers never responded. However I opened a Paypal Dispute against freelancer for my payment and still a battle, it's been a month and Paypal has yet to release the payments. Has anyone ever won a case against Freelancer?

I was immediately banned upon opening a dispute and I been email back and forth with them - telling me that I should close the Paypal case and give the freelancers a chance to refund me... YEAH RIGHT ! why not let them deal with the freelancers instead ?

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I will have to quote myself on this and take back everything I said as the staff from Freelancer.com helped me to the fullest extent that I even received the best customer service via email and received until the last cent the freelancers try to get away with it. The company is good, the customer service is great but be careful with some of the freelancers. Wish I could edit my message but can't

Hello,

However, Scriptlance is now taken over (purchased) by freelancer.

I have used the site ... though, now it is more of scammers and the CS don't help enough!

Best Regards

Union said:

Totally Agree !
Same as Most of the people who are working thru Freelancer, Administration is the Biggest Scam Ever saw online

Stay away from this site...

If you need to hire somebody, take a look on Scriptlancer.com (not my site !!!) but i've got many deals there, and i've got some serious issues too, but Admin Team worked it out, later then i expected, but those guys know their job and know how to thread a customer !

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I'm using ODesk to get some freelancers to do some very simple tasks, I've laid everything out step by step so they can follow my instructions. So far they seem to be doing OK. It's just for some low paying jobs for 10hrs a week max. I have $100 free credit on ODesk so thought I'd spend the money and see what the outcome is.

I used to make some money on freelancer, odesk and elance. And not bad money for that matter. But these days going on there is a bit of a waste of time-I simply cannot compete with the prices asked by our asian brothers. You can easily see someone asking $50 for a job that would take 2 months of 24/7 work....

I got scammed there for 250$...Got my money back but had to send load of e-mails to load of different people. Still it's not fully resolved issue as it is now on the bank level. Was really disappointed with their support and the way they handle things. Not to mention that the scammer is still out there and they didn't do anything to suspend/remove him.

instead of that site why not try other outsourcing site like odesk.com perhaps?

Personally i never had an issue with any user of this site.

The problem with freelancer.com is the company itself.

The live support is completely useless, unless you have some simple questions, they will just forward you to the ticketing system.

Regarding the ticketing system, when they keep your funds blocked for couple of weeks (aka removing your withdrawals during the "pay-day" without any kind of notification) the reply to critical-priority tickets will take couple of days to 1 week (or maybe more).

emir@freelancer said:

I?d like to assure that Freelancer.com is not a scam. It is a legitimate business with more than 3.7 million users of the site and hundreds of thousands of satisfied customers. And they continue to grow each day.

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There is NO phone support in this "legitimate business" of yours.

emir@freelancer said:

Funds inside a suspended account will not go anywhere. It will be made available once the account and transaction verification procedures are completed.

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Of course not, you stash them into your accounts, receiving interest on them.

This is a ticket reply from one of your co-workers "Should we allow you to withdraw your earnings, and a potential chargeback occurs, we will be forced to ask you to re-deposit the funds that you have withdrawn."

So after 2 months since when the funds were being deposited , through wire transfer (you know what this mean right? no possible chargeback), there still is a "possible chargeback", eh?

emir@freelancer said:

I?d like to assure you that Freelancer.com doesn?t just suspend accounts without any justifiable reason.

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After the funds are being deposited through wire transfer, project is completed, the funds released by the employer upon project delivery, positive feedback left from both parties, withdrawal requested by the freelancer:

- the employer's account gets suspended and the freelancer doesn't receive any notification that hes withdrawals are being cancelled or that the employer's account was suspended "for a justifiable reason".

The amount hold by freelancer.com was $2000 in this case, and was released only the day i threat them to take legal action and to destroy their reputation. (which isn't great anyways)

PS. I have screenshots and video recordings of everything related to this project (tickets, chat sessions, etc).

dubstyle said:

I got scammed there for 250$...Got my money back but had to send load of e-mails to load of different people. Still it's not fully resolved issue as it is now on the bank level. Was really disappointed with their support and the way they handle things. Not to mention that the scammer is still out there and they didn't do anything to suspend/remove him.

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Hi dubstyle,

This is Emir from Freelancer.com.

We appreciate the feedback. It is unfortunate that your experience with our Customer Support was not satisfactory. We?ve taken into account your feedback about our Support services and we will push ourselves harder to improve on the work that we do.

Freelancer.com dedicates itself to keeping the integrity of its marketplace but there are unscrupulous users out there posting dubious jobs. Please be assured that once we see them, we immediately close it and suspend the user.

I?d like to help you as well. Please PM me your username. I?ll forward the information to our Customer Support Managers and we?ll assist you with your account concerns. Also, please send the username of the user that you?ve dealt with and we?ll do our investigation.

Thank you very much and we hope to hear from you soon.

emir@freelancer said:

We?ve taken into account your feedback about our Support services and we will push ourselves harder to improve on the work that we do.

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You will have to push yourselves a lot harder.

emir@freelancer said:

Please be assured that once we see them, we immediately close it and suspend the user.

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"immediately" for you means > 1 month.

And of course, keep all the available funds from both parties.

skittles said:

I will have to quote myself on this and take back everything I said as the staff from Freelancer.com helped me to the fullest extent that I even received the best customer service via email and received until the last cent the freelancers try to get away with it. The company is good, the customer service is great but be careful with some of the freelancers. Wish I could edit my message but can't

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Hi skittles,

We appreciate the feedback. We?re glad that your account issues have been resolved. We hope you continue to use Freelancer.com services.

Should you have further enquiries or concerns, please send an e-mail to the Freelancer.com Customer Support or PM me and we?ll address them promptly.

Thank you very much.

Exactly friends their support is terrible. I was recently scammed by a Bangladeshi guy and contacted the support and what i got was


Hi there,

Thank you for contacting support.

We are sorry to hear about this issue you are having with your freelancer. It is best suggested that you contact your freelancer directly and discuss this matter or make an agreement. We do not have the privilege to interfere on your transactions as we are just a venue for both parties to meet. However, the success of the project lies on both employer and his freelancer.

Should you have further concerns, please contact us again.

---
Sincerely,
Jericho
Freelancer.com Support

e: [email protected]
w: http://www.freelancer.com

I have highlighted the word Bangladeshi because this thread is full of scams from Bangladesh so stay away from them.
Thanks!

sorry bro every country have scammer not only at Bangladesh..I got 5 times scams and the countries are UK,Pak,India and also from bangladesh..
After got this bad experiences i realized that for scammed buyer also responsible coz he need as much low cost as he can buy..so its an easy thing that cheap price is also a sign of scammer..
so dont blame country wise people blame to scammers..

sherinl said:

Hello,

However, Scriptlance is now taken over (purchased) by freelancer.

I have used the site ... though, now it is more of scammers and the CS don't help enough!

Best Regards

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Hello sherinl,

We value your feedback.

Since you mentioned Freelancer.com's recent acquisition of Scriptlance, we?d like to take this opportunity to talk more about it.

With the recent acquisition, Freelancer.com is now an even stronger marketplace. Service buyers will now find a much deeper pool of world-class talent, with over 4 million skilled freelancers ready to complete your projects. Also, with over 2.3 million projects completed to date in over 450 skill categories, contractors will find bigger and better opportunities at the site.

While the site has more users, please be assured we?re committed to ensure the integrity of the Freelancer.com marketplace. We scour and scan for dubious projects and users and once we detect them, we immediately do our investigations and shut them down.

And we will continue to push our Customer Support Teams to assist users with their account enquiries, and resolve concerns as quickly as possible.

If you have any concerns , please send an e-mail to Freelancer.com Support or PM me and we?ll address them promptly.

Thank you very much and we hope to see you use Freelancer.com services.