Is Freelancer.com A Scam?

The more I read about Freelancer.com from various freelancers as well as project owners, greater the impression which I get with regard to the site being nothing but a sham and a scam.

Freelancer.com - Scam or Legit?

But is that really true? Have you ever worked on or worked through Freelancer.com, as a freelancer and project owner respectively?

If so, how has your experience been?

If I talk about myself, I have not worked on the site (as a freelancer or a contractor) for a very long time, in fact from the time it got rechristened as Freelancer.com, from its previous avatar of GetAFreelancer.com.

And if you ask me, the experience on GetAFreelancer.com, at least till the time I worked on it, was fairly good. Not once did I get a feeling that the whole site is nothing but a scam.

Over time though, I drifted onto Elance which is where I do bulk of my content writing projects today, for clients from around the world.

Pay on Elance is definitely many notches above what it used to be on GetAFreelancer.com to the extent that I can easily state with confidence, one CAN actually make a decent living, working full time on Elance, even as an individual freelancer. I specifically say individual because there are MANY businesses or small companies which are working aggressively on Elance and actually making as much or more money than what many other comparable businesses in the "real world" make.

As an instance, take a look at the No. 1 Elance contractor, across all project categories - SynapseIndia, a New Delhi, India based offshore custom development solutions provider which in the last 12 months alone has earned in excess of 2 Million Dollars and over its lifetime presence on Elance, has made more than 10 Million Dollars.

Clearly, these are very large sums of money in the context of a freelance platform and they clearly showcase the potential that a site like Elance holds for the entire freelance community.

Vis-a-vis that, I would very highly doubt if there is even a single freelance business on Freelancer.com that has earned a Million Dollars or above, forget about individual freelancers. On Elance I can assure you that there are many businesses which have, including some in the extremely competitive and not-so-well-paying 'Writing and Translation' category such as Words You Want.

It is against such a backdrop that the whole Freelancer.com saga comes across to me as such a BIG surprise.

These are thoughts which I had put together in a video on my freelancing specific YouTube channel, which can also be seen below:

After all, while on one hand, if you look up the Freelancer.com Wikipedia page, you will get an impression that all is hunky dory with this business and is clearly a frontrunner for being one of the biggest players in this space, especially after having acquired other businesses such as LimeExchange, Scriptlance, and vWorker, among others.

The Founder of Freelancer.com as it exists today, is an individual named Matt Barrie. Again, things seem more or alright with this person, at least as some really rudimentary Google searching reveals.

Matt Barrie, Freelancer.com Founder -
A Savvy Tech Entrepreneur  OR A Scam Artist?

But ironically, the same Wikipedia page which lists out numerous awards won by Freelancer.com also lists out plentiful scams originating from the company...scroll down the page and you will see those links for yourself.

I have myself provided you with some links here, here, here and here.

So my question is, have you worked, or are still working on or through Freelancer.com, in any capacity? If so, how is your experience going?

Like I mentioned, after having begun the entire saga of bidding on online freelance sites, on GetAFreelancer.com, I graduated to Elance.com and there has really been no looking back on my part.

For me, the biggest impediment with regard to all other sites barring Elance.com is that they do not charge freelancers to place proposals (individually, for each proposal) unlike the way Elance does.

I feel that is a very good policy to follow since it restricts the sheer number of proposals which are placed on these job sites. Otherwise, on sites like oDesk and Freelancer.com in particular, I have noted jobs that pay really very poorly getting a phenomenal number of bids. As an instance, you might have a job on oDesk or Freelancer.com which seeks out 10, 500 word articles for $10 viz. a $ an article and yet there could well be as many as 50 freelancers bidding on that job!!

Really, all this seems just so crazy and funny to me!

I mean my raison d'etre of being on Elance or working freelance this way is ONLY & ONLY to make money, not to kill time!!

But the rates at which these jokers work, I really get a feeling that they have motives other than to make a living or even to make some decent money, up their sleeves!

So my assertion to freelancers as well as project owners working (or have worked) on Freelancer.com to please share your experiences.

Let's hear some real stories so that we are reassured about the authenticity (or otherwise) of both Freelancer.com as well as the scam allegations which are made so often against the site.

In case these allegations are true, Freelancer.com should ideally be reported to the ACCC or Australian Competition & Consumer Commission (since Freelancer.com is Sydney, Australia based) which can take necessary action and ideally close the site and its entire business altogether.

But if these allegations are baseless, then action should contrarily be taken against all those parties who have made those allegations in the first place, which I wouldn't be surprised, if they turn out to be competitors of the site.

As far as my own assertions with regard to very poor pay on the site, accompanied by numerous charges and fees at practically every stage (even in those GetAFreelancer.com days, though clearly not as much as the ones that complainants have cited for Freelancer.com), I stand by them and they will remain sacrosanct.

But whether Freelancer.com is a scam outright or not...let's just have that very clearly established please.