The actual business - Withholding the user's money

At freelancer.com holding freelancer's money is justifiable when it is about reaching the minimum allowed amount before one request for withdrawal despite the fact that users do not like this. But this post is not about that. The victim users know that holding user's money has become a business model for freelancer.com. They apply every trick to keep the money without trying to resolve the issue regarding the disputed money.


Too many users have reported that when they placed withdrawal requests, freelancer.com limited their account and confiscated their money showing lame excuses. One of the users testified that his earning was not paid even though he completed the project. Freelancer.com showed him excuses that the employer requested chargeback. He lost $200 there.

Again after another project the marketplace authority denied to let him withdraw money telling him that the employer has issues with his account. As a result in total he lost $300. This was describe in a review titled I do not recommend work on freelancer.com under any circumstances .


English dude, English!

To linger the process of verification for withholding the money as long as possible and even creating the window to confiscate the money if the user expresses reluctance in sharing confidential data freelancer even commented that they require a driver license which should be in ENGLISH. The funny part is that the user supplied a US driver license! The user commented-

They also said my diver's license needed to be in english.... which was laughable because it's a united states drivers license and was scanned in pristine condition, what language do you think it's in?

Do they have License to confiscate money

Regarding this issue Another very insightful article was found titled ELEPHANT IN THE ROOM – WHERE IS FREELANCER.COM’S FINANCIAL SERVICES LICENCE? The writer throws some points that make its clear that freelancer.com is reluctant to prove their authority to block money. The writer argues-

• Freelancer.com does not have Australian Financial Services License issued by Australian Securities and Investments Commission, which is required for certain services provided by Freelancer.com
• It is providing financial facilities like currency conversion facility
• It is using phrase like "Milestone Payment" to avoid legal obligations that would be otherwise applicable to them if they have used the word ESCROW

Paypal testified that freelancer.com provided untrue info about transaction

Refuting the support agent's claim a user commented that if they were actually running 24x7x365 support division why her ticket was not attended for 3 days? The problem arose when 2 of her withdrawal request in last 3 attempts failed. The user stated-

I was told it was a problem of PayPal, so I called PayPal ( I have NEVER had a problem in past 6 years)l…PayPal checked my log for last 48 hrs of the time frame when the money should have gone in and assured me there was never an attempt, in fact, there was no activity at all.