Must Read to Save your Earning on Freelancer.com
This article is written just to aware freelancers who want to work or already working on the world’s top leading job board freelancer.com but unaware of its killer policy terms and conditions that may eat freelancers hard-earned money with this unfair policy. So you are advised to read this article till the end and be careful when working with a new client on freelancer.com
Problem Scenario:
I recently came across this policy when I worked for a client who was new to freelancer.com and he posted a tiny job that was easy to manage for any WordPress Web developer for a little effort. Obviously just in few seconds there was more than 10 proposals submitted with average bid price $155 including my proposal as well.
I offered an exact solution with a delivery time of 2, 3 hours because the job was a piece of cake for me as I’m a WordPress web developer with more than 7 years of experience in the same capacity. I offered 2 milestones of $70 and $85 but when he explained the job description, I honestly told him that you don’t need to pay for 2nd milestone because the job will be completed in 1st milestone for $70.
He was happy so awarded the job to me atonce. As stated above, the job was easy to manage so I completed it within 2 hours and delivered successfully. Upon my request he released the funds to my freelancer.com account. My Client finished the job and left 5 Star positive feedback as well. I noticed that freelancer.com deducted commission from my balance amount. I was ok with that. Everything was perfect and my balance was over $70 that was more than the least withdrawal (threshold) amount.
Problem in Withdrawal from Freelancer.com
I started withdrawal process by Freelancer.com express checkout to my local bank so USD converted to PKR Rs.9350/- and i received email notification about successful request of withdrawal. After 24 hours I checked the transaction process and found there was a red mark saying “not enough funds“. Freelancer.com reversed payment to client’s account. Also charged my account for an unknown thing. I was really surpirsed about whats was going on.
I quickly jumped to the freelancer.com support and asked about the issues I noticed in a short period of time. Their response was strange. I felt a hard surprising response that was not expected from such a big industry leader. They asked me to read their terms and condition.
A killer Policy that sucks Freelancers Money !
The support told me that unfortunately the client account is closed for some kind of violation and all payments from his account is captured by the company for security purpose. I really amazed and ask them that if an account is closed for any reason, why you reversed my earned amount to his account? He replied that in this case if a client account is closed for any violation, no warning or notification is given to the client and the account is immediately closed and is deposited payment captured by company for security reasons.
What a strange stituation was that. I mean, I never expected such a meaninless answer. I asked what kind of rule is that? its a simple scam like clause. I said, I completed my job and received payment, the client was happy, I was glad then whats wrong with freelancer.com? Even the company took their commission too.
The support guy said “You’re right” but this is our policy. I protested about the commission deducted from my account for this job on completion so the guy talked to support admin for several minutes and then came back to me saying we refunded commission back to your deposit but can’t give you earned money wich was 9350 PKR.
I asked a question:
Me: so if is account is closed, why reversed my payment? i mean i earned and it shoudl be in my account.
Freelancer.com reply:
When this happens, all current projects are deleted and the acquired funds from them has been reversed to protect all freelancers who previously had any transaction with the employer from any liabilities that the account and the source of funds may bring in the future.At this point, the only thing that we can do about this now is to refund the project fee on your account. Note that usually, project fees on our site is non-refundable as it serves as a payment for the online facility that was utilized by our users; however, we will help you with your project fees in this instance.
So that means all the freelancers who work on freelancer.com should beware of this unfair killser clause in terms and conditions that is a hanging sword upon their hard-earned earning. there is no satisfactory answer given by the support so no matter you cry or protest, they will never refund your money so you need to accept it as is.
Write your comments below what you think about it or share your experience if you already have any. Thanks
Excellent article. I am dealing with some of these
issues as well..
Absolutely! They ate my money this way 2 days ago. The closed the employer’s account and reversed the payment that has been released to me with 5 star woks!!…and refused to tell me the exact reason due to the shit privacy policy!!
Very informative post for me. Thanks for sharing it.