Excellent comment, and truly helpful. I think we all should email the CEO and get him to resolve this. He'll be hearing from me.
Edit- got an email back from Matt in about 20 minutes, saying they are looking into it. Fingers crossed, OP - we are behind you.
They've lost my business, and I trust the rest of this community will respond in kind.
Penny wise, pound foolish, as they say.
Anyway, I think there is more than meets the eye here, and I should have given Freelancer.com a bit more benefit of the doubt. I do hope that eventually more information will become available, as this is a serious issue.