Freelancer.com
reviews and complaints

I am kateryna from Ukraine and I've using this account from last year.
https://www.freelancer.com/u/kattymokh
This is my account address.
But in this month, I tried to withdraw some balance from freelancer.com and they said me to wait for 15 days until checking.
And result of that, my account was closed and total 300us$ was gone and I did not get anything
How can I do for recover my account?
My friend said that this platform may help my issue so that I present this issue.
Hoping freelancer.com team may help my issue and recover my account.

This company is a joke. First I did topup my balance , was able to post some jobs and pay freelancers.

Later they changed something forcing me to verify my creditcard. Until the credit card verification was not complete I had to switch to another service called upwork and fiverr.

Later they let me post again projects without a forced credit card verification. It took around 1 month and multiple customer support tickets.

So now I have posted some new tasks , awarded some freelancers and made some milestone payments.

Today I have tried to login again and what do I see? Account was closed!

Any email warning or notification about it.

This platform is really not suitable if you want to get some stuff done without any interruptions. What I love most about this platform is that they close your account referring to their ToS without giving a specific reason.

I still have some balance at freelancer.com so lets see if they will steal it or at least return it honestly. This entry should serve as a warning to everyone who is thinking to use freelancer.com for outsourcing tasks.

I had Freelancer account since Mar 2018, I had a lot of succefull deals with developers. Since 01/01/2022 I had no activity on my account however I had 300$ balance on my account. I have tried to withdrow my money in the begging of April 2023. I have passed the verivication procidure and send all what they asked. I was waiting for verification about 10 dayes after that I have recived the message that the application to verify my identity has been cancelled as requested. I had tried to login to my account for checking and found out that my account is closed. I had contacted to support team and got the message thet the account was closed. I tried to clerify the reason of account closure.

15/04/2023 I have got the folowing message:

We regret to inform you that your account has been closed for violating the Freelancer website in accordance with the Freelancer User Agreement found here at https://www.freelancer.com/about/terms

You accepted our Terms and Conditions when you signed up as a user on the Freelancer website. It has come to our attention that you have participated in activities that may harm the business operation or reputation of Freelancer. We have closed your account for this reason.

17/04/2023 I had send the new message to freelancer.com support and insist on appealing and reconsidering your decision to close my account and deprive me of my money!

The message from freelancer was the following: We understand your predicament over your account's closure. However, the decision to close your account is final and irreversible. We offer no recourse or rebuttal for this penalty. Succeeding messages pertaining to the same concern will also be considered closed.

We cannot go further into details about your account's closure due to our Privacy Policy. It is already being handled by the proper department; we are not privy to their information.

18/04/2023 I had send the new message to freelancer.com support where I demand more detailed explanations of closing account reasons and to pay my money back!

Unfortunatly I have no answer to my last message from freelancer support at all.

It is very sad that I lose my money and have lost opportunity to develop my projects!

My Freelancer.com account which I created many years ago earlier limited recently as me and my brother who had another account and he created it before me used the same bank account to withdraw our money from it due to issues here in our country Egypt prevented us to withdraw our money through national bank accounts.

Freelancer.com staff contacted us and asked about the reason we used the same bank ..!

We made it clear that we are family and we are using that bank account to make it easier for us to use our money.

The staff asked for re verification for our accounts.

We followed the steps and uploaded our photos holding the code with our identity.

We were told to get our problem resolved within 48 hrs .. and it's more than a week now with no response.

I couldn't contact any one in help centre as I'm only allowed to use the "message board" which I have spent days sending messages through it with no response in return from their side!

That's really annoying and unprofessional from their side.. we have been using the platform for years sticking to their roles we should be respected and at least contact us and explain why we still limited till now.

We have work to do through our accounts.

I had been a member for a month, hired a writer from freelancer.com to do a project, when the project was complete, I released the funds to the writer. Then my account got locked with the website stating they need my Identity verified which I immediately did, the caption said all documents were received successfully and it would take up to 48 hours to complete the verification, it's been almost a week and my account is still locked out with assignments pending from the writer. Also the website took back the money paid to the writer from the first project. So had no choice but to put in a cancel request to the writer for remaining pending assignments.

Freelancer suspended my account and I still dont have any idea why. Nonetheless I have sent at least 5 support tickets asking for over $350 in a milestone to be refunded since no work had started on that milestone. I can only assume this has happened to many people and seems fraudulent to me. My account was closed around Feb 8th of this year and It has been close to two months without any response from them. I dont think it should take 2 months to respond to a support ticket letting me know what is going on with my money.

My account was blocked for an unknown reason. They didn't even send a letter. Account has about $700. After reading the reviews here, I'm shocked. Do they just take money? How is this even possible in 2023? I need to unblock my account. As a last resort, send money to support the army of Ukraine, don't be so cruel! I worked hard to earn these unfortunate pennies. I am very crushed. No trust in anyone

This is my username @hamza0330 and this is my email: tariq.[protected]@gmail.com.

I didn't break any of your terms and conditions. In fact, I admire them, and I think they are fantastic policies from your end for working with clients in a secure and safe manner. if you let me know the conditions I refused to respect. Please give me evidence, not simply the link you sent me (( https://www.freelancer.com/about/terms

)))

If you can show me evidence that I violated your terms and conditions, I will apologize to your team; however, if you refuse to do either or refuse to reopen my account, I will launch a comprehensive paid marketing campaign using LinkedIn, Ads, PPC, Instagram, Facebook with showing all of the evidence that your team is operating illegally. and I have proof that I have not violated any terms and conditions. Also, I paid $100 for a verified badge to become a verified freelancer, But, your team member "RODRIGO "wasn't present at the meeting by the specified time. I also conveyed my concern to your team member "MARRY ". She said I forwarded your complaint and our team member will provide you the schedule link once more in a few days. however, after two days, you guys closed off my account!

It indicates that if I complained about your team member regarding rescheduling a call, your team closed my account. It's incredibly embarrassing for you people that you didn't realize that I just have this account to earn money and raise my kids, and as recently as four days ago, my family and I were in a serious state of depression. It is my sincere request to you guys that you kindly open my account again.

My Account is closed for no reason.But I didn't refund my money. Please refund.

I emailed them a lot but they didn't respond. i messaged them on facebook and instagram and they said i violated their terms and it's forever unresolved.

https://www.freelancer.com/support/freelancer/general/violations-that-lead-to-account-closure

i have read and i see i have not violated anything here

Please refund and active account.

They have closed my account without any reason 03/14/2023. And yesterday is the day my withdrawal opening is to end. I had an ongoing project there and had over $300 I have earned from many clients. They said that I did irregular activities but obviously I really didn't do anything against the freelancer rules and tried to keep the terms and conditions. Being successful as a freelancer was my greatest dream, but now I couldn't make my dream comes true. I have contacted with support team several times but they always give me some reply like this.

"Thank you for contacting Freelancer.com Support. We regret to inform you that your account has been closed for violating the Freelancer website in accordance with the Freelancer User Agreement found here at https://www.freelancer.com/about/terms

You accepted our Terms and Conditions when you signed up as a user on the Freelancer website. It has come to our attention that you have participated in activities that may harm the business operation or reputation of Freelancer. We have closed your account for this reason.

Regards"

But they are not sharing the details and I can't access my account so I can't check my ticket.

I think this is, this defies the RTI ordinances in Sydney.

Please help me.

They closed my account without any reason today.I had no any ongoing projects. They said that I did irregular activities but obviously I really didn't do anything against the freelancer rules and tried to keep the terms and conditions. Being successful as a freelancer was my greatest dream, but now I couldn't make my dream comes true. I have contacted with the support team as well but they did not answer. I request you please open my account so I start my work.

I am stefan stevanovic from serbia.

They had closed my account without any warning and any reason on 5th this month.

I completed a project with a client, and I got $500 from the client, and I tried to withdraw money to my bank.

But the day after, my account was closed, and they sent me a mail.

They said that I did irregular activities and make a violation, so they closed my account.

But I can't understand what was my fault.

Although they close the account, they should make me withdraw my money on the account.

I think it just stealing money from me.

Please help me.

This is what I've got from freelancer.com support team after I ask them to send my money in the balance.

"Hi Sergey,

Thank you for responding to our email.

Please be advised that without limiting the foregoing, we may close, suspend or limit your access to your Account:

if we determine that you have breached, or are acting in breach of, this User Agreement;

if you under-bid on any Project in an attempt to renegotiate the actual price privately, to attempt to avoid fees;

if we determine that you have infringed legal rights (resulting in actual or potential claims), including infringing Intellectual Property Rights;

if we determine that you have engaged, or are engaging, in fraudulent, or illegal activities;

you do not respond to account verification requests;

you do not complete account verification when requested within 3 months of the date of request;

you are the subject of a United Nations, Australian, EU, USA or other applicable sanctions regime, or our banking and payment relationships otherwise preclude us from conducting business with you;

to manage any risk of loss to us, a User, or any other person; or

for other reasons.

If we close your Account due to your breach of this User Agreement, you may also become liable for certain fees as described in this User Agreement.

Without limiting our other remedies, to the extent you have breached this User Agreement, you must pay us all fees owed to us and reimburse us for all losses and costs (including any and all of our employee time) and reasonable expenses (including legal fees) related to investigating such breach and collecting such fees.

You acknowledge and agree that: (1) the damages that we will sustain as a result of your breach of this User Agreement will be substantial and will potentially include (without limitation) fines and other related expenses imposed on us by our payment processors and Users and that those damages may be extremely difficult and impracticable to ascertain; (2) if you breach this User Agreement, we may take legal action against you to recover losses.

If we close your Account for a reason other than as a result of your breach of this User Agreement, unless as otherwise specified in this User Agreement, you will be entitled to receive any payment due from us to you.

In the event that we close your Account, you will have no claim whatsoever against us in respect of any such suspension or termination of your Account.

We will now be closing this ticket as there is no further action needed on your end. Thank you for your understanding.

Regards,"

As you can see, no reason nor explanation.

Just closed account and stole my 510USD balance.

What a thief!

Hi.
My account is https://www.freelancer.com/u/VLADYSLAVMAKARO4
I am sorry to write this writings to you.
My point is that my account of Freelancer.com was closed this morning.
I don't know what's the reason.
Of course, I maybe did prohibited actions of Freelancer policy.
But it's not my intentional, that's why I don't know well about the policy.
Is there any wanna to be closed own account?
Would you please consider about my account's accident?
Please cancel the restriction.
I will follow your TOS and policy well, will be a honest freelancer.
Thanks. Best regard.

I worked with Freelancer.com over 2 years, had 60 reviews, all 5-stars, 100% of my orders were completed successfully and every my customer was highly satisfied — I provided good service and everything was fine. Then war started, I lived in Russia, so I moved to South East Asia 6 months ago and living in Vietnam now. I had 2000$ in my freelancer.com account, but when I tried to withdraw it in my new Vietnamese bank, they limited my account, asked some documents for verification, I sent documents, they didn't respond over a week and then just closed my account without any explanation. I didn't violate any rules, I just moved to another country. I'm kind of shocked by being scammed after two years of good work there.

My name is Henry Nunez @HenryNuSa (Freelancer Account). About two month i hire Roman S. (@romansokol) for a programing on freelancer.com this person make me release the money without me see the work done. And because i need that App to be develop agreed to Release the money , but when i saw the work receive, it was full of bugs, not even working. After that i hire another freelancer that seems correct. i hired Calvin L. (@leopardev1) same thing at the end i paid but the program was full of bugs and not well done. they should be a better way to check the work we receiver because we are not specialist on programing.

At the end i end up paying 250 plus Fees for @romansokol, and 500 plus fees for @leopardev1.

This website is full of scammers that take advantage from client like me that does know about programing, but we need the work done.

This is the worst platform I have ever come across. I wanted to award a project to someone, and set a milestone. So I tried to pay the amount on their app. It did not go through. It was like the payment button did not work. So after sometime I tried again. Again it did not go through. Later when I checked my bank account, I saw two transactions in my bank statement. This was 4 days ago. Since then, I have sent multiple tickets, emails, and even contacted them on chat. It has been 4 days and no response from them. And even worst part is that I cannot even see that amount in the freelancer account. This is the worst experience I have had on a platform. 4 days. No one has responded. They have a chat online. No one shows up. Twice after trying so many times, I got someone and they immediately dropped off. What crap is this?

I am Serhii Balynkyi from Ukraine. I worked as a freelance developer on freelancer.com for 2+ years.

Suddenly, freelancer.com closed my account yesterday without any warning.

I checked my email inbox, but I couldn't find any warnings or something like that.

Plus, there were ongoing projects and $180+ of money in the account.

This action is really impolite and non-user friendly.

Freelancer com have no any reply about my problem, of course, there is much follower +500 about my prost, so I have to post again.
https://www.freelancer.com/u/niko8585
My Account has been closed without any notification.

So I submit to reopen my account and know the reason why closed. After 3 days, I received an email from a Freelancer support member named John C, but there is no correct reason and no way how to reopen the account. I don't think that I violate the terms of the freelancer platform and actually, I have never been violating terms and I tried to keep up with the terms. And again passed 3 days, and there is no other response from the support team. Really I want to reopen my account and if I violated the terms, I want to know correctly about that.
As I mentioned, it was same problem.
Best Regards, Yevgen.

https://www.freelancer.com/u/Olechkashusar272

I am Olha Shliusar from Ukraine, Ternopil and have worked as freelancer at this platform.
My account has been closed at 13th of February without any specified reason.
So I have sent ticket to freelancer support team, and Joey C replied me that my account has been closed due to violating the freelancer site's terms and service.
I always tried to keep the privacy policy and terms of service at this platform.
I think if you want to close my account, you must have specified reason.
I hope this is the mistake from freelancer platform.
The important thing is that there was $1360 to withdraw to my card.
It was date that funds withdraw should be processed.
I emailed to my client but he said to me he didn't receive this fund.
Then, who has this my fund?