Freelancer.com is a Scam?
I was keeping quite for some time. But one comment from a fellow freelancer, on one of my posts, brings me back to say something. Freelancer.com is one of the prominent job boards for on-line freelancers. According to their own perception Freelancer.com claims to be the world’s #1 micro-outsourcing marketplace. However, my reader has posted a long message that only conveys a gloomy picture of the freelancer.com that is very shocking. In short, the post claims that the freelancer.com is nothing but a huge scam. This definitely surprises me.
The comment concludes with this: “I strongly believe that the staff of this company (freelancer.com) must be put behind the bars for ripping off the users for their hard earned money. I am sure that the promoters and staff of the company including the CEO Matt Barrie might try to stop my voice, they might also harass me further and may even try to kill me, But I am not scared of any sort of consequences and not even death, what i want is that truth must come in front of everyone.”
This kind of allegation, if it is true, can be very discouraging for freelancers. I would request the concerned parties to clarify the issue further.
About Freelancer.com
Freelancer.com is a global marketplace for online and freelance jobs where businesses connect with independent service providers and freelancers to outsource their work. Freelancer.com connects over 1.4 million employers and freelancers globally from over 234 countries & regions. Through our website, employers can hire freelancers to do work in areas such as software, writing, data entry and design right through to engineering and the sciences, sales and marketing, and accounting & legal services. Freelancer is the leader in the micro-outsourcing market, with the average job size being under US$200. This is extremely cost effective for small businesses, which often need a wide variety of jobs to be done, but cannot justify the expense of hiring full time.
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July 18th, 2011 at 10:48 pm
If you are about to use Freelancer.com, don’t, you will not have peace for the rest of your life. If you’ve done business with them, be careful, read on. Freelancer.com is harvesting your REAL data with your Photo. They will do anything so that you will submit your Government issued ID or Passport. The most common way is to suspend your account with your money inside.
In order for you to recover your account you need to submit full color high resolution Government ID / Passport. They will reject it if it’s a black and white even with high resolution. Or they will reject color ID but low resolution. Or they will reject your ID card not issued by government. Does not make sense at all.
Once you have submitted it, they will ask you to take your photo holding a code given by them and with your passport or government ID. They want to verify that you are real. Don’t you find this is fishy? This is just a freelancer website. Even website with high sensitivity and money involved (eg. Paypal, google checkout), they never ask you submit full color high resolution Government ID.
When you have this sensitive data and high resolution Gov ID, they can do anything. They can re-produce the card, apply for credit card. They literally can do anything with it. They have your email address, real name, passport id, address, date of birth etc. Using this data I can impersonate you and call your bank. This is just simple example. Spam companies or other not legit company will pay top dollar your real data.
When they refunded your money after you submitted your Gov ID, don’t be happy. Don’t think they are legit. Ask yourself why they need this? This is the first time a website ask for my Gov ID!
For my case, I have $450 in my account and my account suspended. Paypal will not help you to recover your money since this is a service. Which I’m very disappointed although it’s clearly to do with scam. The money is deposit, not purchasing any service from them. I have a choice to fight back through my bank. But definitely I will not send them my Gov ID. This company is from Australia. It’s NOT common for a company to ask for your full color high resolution Gov ID unless you deal with government agencies.
If you need freelancer website, search from google. Elance.com and odesk have good reputation. They have real people answering your phone. Freelancer.com doesn’t have phone number and no address, just PO BOX. Their online chat customer supports are from 3rd world country. They don’t speak English, they just know how to type.
Someone must investigate on this. This is alarming.
October 16th, 2011 at 12:29 am
Nice article, thanks for sharing… I’m looking forward to read this blog….