Lost considerable amount in Freelancer.com | Hacker News Reader

Lost considerable amount in Freelancer.com

12 pointsjomagmaj6 comments

I have been working in Freelancer.com for the last couple of years. earlier there were some cases where suddenly the Freelancer.com authority reversed my earning and when I sent a ticket to them requesting explanation they simply responded by saying the client utilized unauthorized source of fund, to avoid such client they have reversed the client's money.

in this way the earning and Freelancer service deducted from my fund vanished. since those amounts were less than $50 so I took no headache, but on 7 July 2018 I got the big smash. I raised the issue to the Freelancer.com authority by sending several tickets but no response received from their end. and I am sure my hard earning is totally lost.

do anybody can suggest me whether there is any way to recover the money? can I take any attempt with the help of any legal procedure? any suggestion will be of great help and highly appreciated.

jomagmaj

Write a post about your story with some screenshots, dates and all the details you remenber (what they replied by mail...). Publish it here (and elsewhere). You can do it anonymously (probably better).

Find a lawyer around you if possible.

Don't deal with them in the future.

Oh, man. Sorry to hear that. Same thing happened to me a while back. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15625028

Fortunately, I had direct contact with the client and he paid me through an online payment platform. My client had used a bank account from a different country than the country listed on his freelancer account. They banned his account without even notifying him. I couldn't even reach him through their platform.

Read through the comments on the parent thread https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15624677 Specially this https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15626790

And stay away from freelancer.com. You can always find new clients there, but contact them directly after that becasue, obviously they don't have any kind of protection for us so, why should we pay some additional fees if we are going to get screwed anyway ?

Good Luck!

Hire a lawyer and go after the client directly, if you can actually find them. If they used a stolen card to pay there’s a high chance their entire profile is fake and they’re hiding behind a proxy.

What was the amount on this one?

Depending upon that, it may be worth hiring a lawyer.

Either way, never forget you are beholden to the middle man when you play in marketplaces/walled gardens.

Also remember that if you hire a lawyer and involve the marketplace, you will surely be permanently banned.

I remember about a guy that when something similar to you from upwork.com. The article was posted on Medium and it received quite an attention, try to seek it out.

Good luck.

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