Freelancer.com and their scammer rafim I lost all my money for nothing!

Just a warning about Freelancer and their scammer "rafim", a programmer that Freelancer recommend, only so they can legally take your milestone payment for NOTHING!!

I have been looking for someone to do a project for me that is very important and I have limited time for this. I have a family to feed and the internet is my income, although times have been very hard, I need this project to get me out of the financial stress I am in at the moment. I submitted a project on Freelancer.com and after 1 day, I had 6 bidders and an email from Freelancer.com recommending a user called "rafim".

I spoke to rafim on Skype and awarded him the project that he said he could do in 7 days for a good price, promising me communication on a daily basis and quality work, sending me examples of his supposed work.

I made a $200 milestone payment and realized that Freelancer also took just over $12 out of my Paypal account, without really any notice about this payment to me! Anyway, I thought, it will be worth it if my project is being done on time and for the good price.

The next day, I went on Skype to ask rafim how the project was going, no reply. So I tried the next day, no reply, and the next day, no reply. I got angry and sent him a message telling him that he promised communication and I am starting a dispute. His so called brother said, he is sick. Then he removed me as a Skype contact!

I went back to Freelancer and found out that they have suspended my account without reason! The only thing I did was open a dispute because I have found out that their recommended freelancer, rafim, is a scammer!!!

So this is my situation now, $217 out of pocket, a Paypal dispute and a week behind even starting my project. Bills coming in and I just think it is disgusting that scams like this can exist on the internet when a company the size of Freelancer are obviously behind it, if not, why would they recommend a scammer, take the milestone payment, take a further $12 and then suspend my account for reporting the problem? I have also contacted Freelancer by support ticket, but cant access my tickets, no username or password supplied. I emailed them direct, no reply as of yet.

I will let you know how I get on, but be warned, Freelancer.com in y eyes right now are running a scam that works like this..

1, You post a project.
2, You get genuine bidders and a scam bidder who works for Freelancer.
3, Freelancer.com will recommend the scam bidder to you.
4, You choose the recommended freelancer (the scammer).
5, You pay the milestone and Freelancer.com get a percentage, in my case $12.
6, You realize you have given your project to a scammer and not a real worker after zero communication, having already made the payment.
7, You report this to Freelancer.com.
8, Freelancer.com suspend your account, making it impossible to post on the scammers review page.
9, You lose all your money, your project is not started and Freelancer, even if you get your milestone payment back, will get paid their percentage without any possible dispute, read their terms!!

So rafim works for Freelancer.com and Freelancer.com will recommend this fake freelancer to take your money and not do your project!

BE WARNED, FREELANCER.COM AND THE USER RAFIM ARE RUNNING A SCAM!!

 

thanks for posting this...
hope you recover your money, i heard many people saying negatives about freelancer, especially after their acquisition

 

Thank you, I have been scammed by 3 people in the last 3 months trying to get a much needed project complete or even started! I am not financially broke, as in, my last budget has been stolen because of the Freelancer.com scam. I just hope these scammers get what they deserve and lose everything. I also hope I get some backing from Paypal because I am sure my Paypal dispute is not the only one going on with Freelancer.com at the moment!

Anyway, dont trust them, they are scammers and I havent heard anything back from the dispute, only my account is now suspended on Freelancer. Disgusting company.

 

You should be protected under Paypal if you sent as payment and not gift. If all else fails, just have your credit card company file a chargeback.

 

Thank you.

I opened a Paypal dispute and this is why Freelancer.com suspended my account. It is against their terms to open a Paypal dispute or start a chargeback! Surely this is an illegal practice? This is their message to me..

"Your account "simon******" is suspended for security measures. Be aware that our system automatically suspends an account that initiates a chargeback claim for funds that have been deposited. This is because once a dispute has been filed, PayPal pulls out the questioned funds and place them on hold; meaning that the funds are currently not in our system."

So the funds are not in their system, this stops them from answering a Paypal claim?! Total BS, Freelancer.com is a scam. All they have to do is answer the Paypal claim and refund my money, but they wont. Instead, they want me to cancel the Paypal claim and then they say they will refund me, but, cancelling the Paypal claim will mean that an agreement has been struck between me and Freelancer.com, so they would be able to keep my money without paying me!!

Not cancelling the Paypal claim, in 24 hours I can escalate it with Paypal and fingers crossed I win and Paypal ban Freelancer.com for these out of order business practices!

 

This is SICK! pay-pal should give you back your money and not let this company take money from you when you've not received any type of end of an agreement
which was set out to be completed in the first place which is wasn't!

Canary, You should escalate it to fraudulent activity from the company (freelancer.com) as they're trying to make you pay a percentage of a deal which wasn't met.
As for freezing your account, it should no longer be in the hands of freelancer.com to decide whether to have your money back from pay-pal holdings, it should be as simple as escalating the problem to pay-pal and telling them you have no other way of getting (the agreement which was made by freelancer.com) to be finished by that user which is a point proven case that this company should not be in the process of getting your money back from pay-pal as they have completely stopped you from reading/issuing tickets on their site.

Pay-pal should refund your full amount as it is only in holding.

As for freelancer.com You're pathetic company who rip off your members and treat them like scum and try to take money from deals that ain't even completed!
You're sick! You should be ashamed of your self's and you should be shut down for allowing this to happen!

I hope you guys get your money back!

 

i wanted to post a job at
freelancer but after i read this thread
i think i will not
is elance.com good or not ?

 

I listed the same project with eLance and online 1 offer as of yet but, no offense, it is from India and they want money first! The net is full of scams, NEVER part with money to anyone until they have finished the job, it is a shame because programmers should not have to work like this, but with so many scams, it is the only way. I will use DP from now on to find programmers and will not pay anything until the job is done.

 

Tell them that you want a written (not emailed) notarized agreement from them that within 10 days after you cancel the Paypal claim they will refund all of your money. If you get the agreement, fine, if not just fight it through Paypal.

I've said it many times - some people on such sites may be legitimate, but most of them seem to not be, both those offering to do work and those asking for work to be done. I've given up even trying to find any work on them because I'm competing with people who offer to do a week's work for $100 or less.

 

I'm a programmer and if you need something i might be able to help, i would do all the work first without you having to pay me first untill i've handed over the software you require.

So what do you need? i might be able to help you!

 

Still no refund from Freelancer.com so I have escalated the Paypal dispute, will see what happens and will post the result on here...

 

I wish you good luck with the dispute! I belive that you will be able to recover your funds!
I also stoped using freelancer months ago as there are tons of negative reviews.

 

Freelancer.com is large scam site. There are too many bad reviews about them.
Hope you get back your money.

 

I got an email from them today..

Subject : Negative balance! Please deposit more funds!‏

Description :

Hi simon******,

Your Freelancer.com account balance is negative. Please deposit funds urgently!

Your account simon****** may be temporarily suspended if your balance remains negative.
Please login to your account and deposit funds here: URL HIDDEN

Your balance is:
USD: -12.00


WTF?! How are these scammers getting away with it! I was lucky to cancel my Paypal subscription with them, otherwise they would have taken more money from me!

AVOID THEM AT ALL COSTS!!!

 

Tell me what you want done, I will do that free for you, I also lose a lot of money at freelancer and i suggest you not to go there anymore. Tell me what you want done and also your deadline, I will do that in free for you. You can have a look at my portfolio at Elance, my profile name is el-irfad

Hope to hear back soon from you.

Thanks,
Best Regards,
Team - Elite.

 

That would be very generous of you, thank you! I have purchased a script from WIRSO and it does not work. It is a Facebook app installed here

http://apps.facebook.com/polls_and_voting

The only thing I need is for that to be fixed. I couldnt possibly ask you to do the entire site for free! If the viral Facebook bit is fixed, I can then make some revenue to pay you to so the main site.

Thank you

 

I wish you get all money back into your pocket. Well I have Listen so many money scam about freelancer.com. They do not provide quality services. I also do freelancing But do not like work on freelancer.com

 

Well it seems like a lot of people have been scammed on Freelancer, how the hell do they still operate? Why does Google rank them so high? Why does Paypal still allow them to trade? This is just the corruption that is involved with the "big" companies on the net.

 

There's no legal jurisdiction under which they can be stopped. The internet isn't limited to a single country.

Because there are a lot of links to them. That's how Google ranks sites.

Because it makes money on every transaction. It's a "holder in due course" - it has nothing to do with why the money is paid, only with how much is paid.

If programmers in developed nations, and people needing programming services, understood how sites like Freelancer worked, the sites would disappear pretty quickly.

 

Hello there, i work before with programers from freelancer and i want to say they suck bad ... for much money they dont want to do much work and for some small project need to wait 1 month ( all the lazy and scam people you can find there ) ...
i get boring of them ... my suggestions for you guys more better search programers here on digitalpoint.com and pay them after the job is finish, i find many good programers here to can work with ... Freelancer is making to much money and they dont care anymore about nothing ... they suck bad ( FreeLancer -1000... )