We try to run a great marketplace based on reputation and feedback, however just like the real world unfortunately there are always a few bad seeds and occasionally things go wrong. This is why we have in place the Milestone Payment system, which protects both employers and freelancers from something going wrong.

Using the Milestone Payment system, freelancers know that there are funds in the system to pay them after they complete the work and employers have the peace of mind in knowing that if the work is not completed or not up to scratch then they can get their money back. There is a Dispute Resolution system where you have the option of getting arbitration by our disputes team. These services are part of what Freelancer.com provides in exchange to the project commission that you pay.

Today at Freelancer.com we received an email from an unhappy user:

Hello

I received an email asking for my experience with Freelancer.com. Yes, for sure I would like to tell you about my recent experiance (sic). I was ripped off totally by the freelancer whom I employed via your site. the bastard simply took my cash and did nothing for me. He basically stole my money and won’t return it, blaming the death of his programmer’s grandfather, can you believe that? Freelancer have as yet failed to respond to my dilemma which is really poor. I have notified police in India, so they may well be in touch directly, since your staff appear to be doing nothing to help. For sure I want to tell everyone about Freelancer.com and coincidentally I am currently creating a product to be released in February which details “how and where to outsource” and plan to mail my list of 130,000 subscribers when I roll out my product on the 15th.

Have a nice day.

Peter

Apparently this user had a bad experience with a provider that ran off with his funds after being paid, and didn’t deliver the work. Of course we take active measures to weed out the bad seeds in our marketplace, including a detailed reputation system, back end analytics and through community reporting. In this case we are investigating matters. However on closer inspection we discovered how this had occurred which prompted my reply. Normally I wouldn’t be so blunt but after being threatened with a mail out to 130,000 users about poor service I thought the response was justified, as well as worthy of this blog post to highlight to employers the danger of going off-site.

Hi Peter

Firstly I’m sorry to hear you had a bad experience – we try to make it very clear to people and provide numerous warnings not to release any funds until you are 100% happy with the work and have received all the deliverables.

“Caution! You won’t be able to cancel or reclaim this payment after it has been sent. We strongly recommend you do not pay in advance. If you decide to pay before the project is complete, we cannot assist you in recovering funds if something goes wrong. We recommend using Milestone Payments and only paying after the deliverables for that milestone are complete.

[ ] I understand that this payment is final and I can’t dispute this payment after I click finish below.

Please write your full name (Freelancer Quartermaster) below. This will serve as a digital signature and confirm that you know what you’re doing.

Secondly I took a quick look at your account and see that you sent the following

“Hello.

I prefer to deal without Freelancer because there is no point paying them money, I am sure that you agree, if not then that’s also fine. For faster communication, I would like to talk on Skype. My details are XXXX and my email is XXXX@XXXX.com”

If you choose to deal off site there is nothing we can do as you lose the protection we provide you. The reason we take a commission is to protect you precisely from the problems you experienced by providing a milestone payment system, dispute resolution and buyer protection.

Payment off-site and avoiding our fees are also against our Terms & Conditions.

As you can see by deliberately trying to avoid fees you have got yourself into a pickle. Unfortunately you have no one to blame but yourself. Your note has encouraged me to think about writing a blog post illustrating to employers why they should stay on site and not try to cheat the system.

Finally thank you for offering to write to the 130,000 subscribers on your mailing list as we would appreciate the publicity.

Regards

Matt Barrie
Chief Executive
Freelancer.com

Obviously we are going to follow up on this matter and take the integrity of the marketplace as paramount. We provide numerous warnings to employers telling them to not release funds until they are completely happy and the work is done. I thought however that this email was the perfect opportunity to highlight why employers should always use the protective mechanisms we put in place to ensure that they are safe if the project doesn’t work out as expected.