Fee will be taken out even if the freelancer is not paid by the employer - this is called justice at Freelancer.com

A very important point is that even if the employer does not complete project and leaves the freelancer without paying a penny, Feelancer.com will charge the worker for just accepting the project. The definition of justice at Freelancer.com seems to be very uncommon compared to that of the rest of the world. At freelancer after a project is being posted, freelancers place their bids. The project owner reviews their bids and choose the right one. Now its the chosen freelancer's turn to act. He/she will accept the project and start working on that.


At this point just after accepting the project freelancer charges project fee and that is 10% for a project of $200. So at the beginning of the project when the worker got nothing from the employer, the site authority is done with their fee of $20.


What happens next if the employer abandons the project? Here is the testimony from a victim user of freelancer.com -

If you accept a project that is set to earn you, say, $500 dollars, 10% is instantly taken from you. $50. Say the employer never gets back to you, follows up, or anything even results (no work is even done, etc), you CANNOT get back your $50.

It is very unfortunate that even freelancer.com which is one of the biggest outsourcing market place relies on looting. The logic is simple, the worker got nothing from the employer. Then why they he/she should be charged? When the employer fails to continue the project why should the worker be punished? This may sound rational for rest of the world but at freelancer.com this is how they define justice. This practice is seen as- Bad System of Taking Project Fees.

Someone trying to get his money back got the following reply from freelancer customer care that he/she should contact the employer and insist to the employer to correct the situation given that by this time the employer left the site and even deleted the project. Such suggestion by the Freelancer.com customer care is nothing but a lame excuse-

… instead they ask you to produce things that are just not in your control to produce (like getting the employer to take some action or notify them, really? like if you knew the employer first hand, or he lived next door…) 

Fee will be taken out even your earned money is reverted back

One instance states that when a user completed the project and got paid from the employer, freelancer intercepted the payment. The money was sent back to the employer who had the project completed successfully. Later freelancer told the worker that the account has negative balance and he should pay them the money. From this example it seems that even if the worker gets paid from the employer, the worker may not get the payment ultimately.