Freelancer.com (GetAFreelancer) GetAFreelancer (GAF) Suspended account with $2.000 and above Double Bay NSW, Nationwide

My problem is the following:
Namely, www.getafreelancer.com is in the habit of suspending accounts when they have money in them. This has recently happened to me ( I have $3.000.00 on the account at the moment i am writing this ) and I am aware of others that have gone through the same problem. In addition to this they will ask for ID of proof of Country. When you provide them with the pertinent information where they can see the ID clearly but not to the point where it can be duplicated they want more. This doesn’t make any sense if its just for proof of country.
This is obviously something that this Company has been getting away with for some time. They are holding money not only in peoples personal accounts of money they have earned, but also in escrow. Its time that people take a legal action. You can start by laying a complaint with the internet crime complaint center. There are also other legal sites listed on the internet as well that you can lodge a complaint with.

Strongly recommended!
Please stay away from this company and their site www.getafreelancer.com. Always deal with people whose addresses are real, customer service real and you can get a live person on the phone. Yeah, that’s true that GAF has not phone number to be called. It sucks, isn’t it? They have a LIVE SUPPORT button on their site but all it does is take you to their email form so their support is not live particularly when they take days on end to answer, if they bother to answer at all.

Irrespective of how you want to show how your terms are violated as the reason for accounts being suspended,  I wonder why other freelancing sites such as Odesk,Guru,Elance or rentacoder don't have zillion scam alerts as GAF. If your intentions are good on suspension why are you so zealous to suspend when it hurts most rather than  during projects progress or during sign ups. You should know that we work so hard to make any coin on your site and we are partners and not people getting favors from your site.
Freelancers are what makes you pay your bills and deserve more humane treatment.

The owner of Freelancer.com said they do not suspend accounts by breaching their terms of service, chargebacks, etc.

I can say with much proof, they are liars about that. They did it to me today and that's how I found this on Ripoff Report

I am a buyer on GAF. Sometimes I do some coding, but over 2 years, maybe twice...  I've paid out about $6,000 over a few years though for .php and .net coding.  I haven't used my account for a few months, because I have been busy with other things.

Anyways, today (March 10, 2010), i received an email saying my account is suspended for "security reasons" (no other explanation given) and they are demanding my ID for verification.  I am an American, so after concluding they are up to something devious, it would not be in my best interest to give them a copy of my idea, which has my personal details on it...

Furthermore.... So what part of the TOS did I violate between January 12 and March 10, to get my account suspended? Help me out here, cause I've been on hiatus and I have had no outstanding issues at all.

The only thing I can think of is I've had $20 in the account, which is below their minimum to transfer out.

Care to explain yourselves GAF?

I have experienced the same thing. My account was suspended for 'security reasons' without prior notice and doing nothing illegal or not within the terms of use. I have submitted all documents but never received any reply or re-activation of my account.

Please so not state you have a customer support system as I have sent you over 5 mails with no reply, which is being going on for months now.

But you could find the time to renew my Gold membership and deducted it from my balance which I can not stop you from doing.

I suggest if you would really like to solve this Freelancer.com, please provide us with  legitimate means to contact you instead of en email support that is not active.

We appreciate your feedback about freelancer.com

Please note that we do not respond to customer issues on public forums.  If you would like to contact us directly our Support Team are available 24/7 here or email customer-support@freelancer.com. 

 

We appreciate your feedback about Freelancer.com

Please note that we do not respond to customer issues on public forums.  If you would like to contact us directly our Support Team are available 24/7 here or email customer-support@freelancer.com.  

If your complaint is regarding a legal or compliance issue you can email legal@freelancer.com or write to us at PO Box 1121, Double Bay NSW 1360, AUSTRALIA.

Freelancer.com is the world's largest global outsourcing platform with over two million registered users.  We value feedback from our users and would like to take the opportunity to improve wherever we can.

Kind Regards,
Freelancer Support Team

I can confirm (with frustration, anger) the truth and veracity of this posting and warning. 

Do not send them ID and beyond just the money lost from your suspended account - it seems this company based in Morocco is using the information possibly for forged passports / identity theft. 

I've reported to international authorities as well as the RCMP in Canada. I reply here to forewarn others. It is a scam. I couldn't believe it after using the site successfully for quite a while and then being taken..... seems they hide their crime behind their legitimate appearing operations. 

David 

I was a happy freelancer for over 4 years with over 50 positive feedbacks and many projects done professionally, but they suspended my account, out of no reason, they brought up the verification excuse and simply rejected my National ID card to verify me which is my first proof for identification. It's like they're intentionally do this to collect small user's deposits. I had $1550 in my account. This site is really going down, down, down the hell. I advise you guys to stay away from these so called frauds. ever since Australians bought the GETAFREELANCER.COM and wasted a lot of money on ads only to make it worse, these acts were begun. Looks like they want to compensate their advertising investments loss out of our hard earned money. I just ask you a question: How could you justify the act of suspending the account of a user who worked hard for over 4 months and bring lame excuses and when it comes to verify him, rejecting his legal ID papers just because it's not issued in an English language country, and simply grab his hard achieved reputation and hard earned money like thieves.  It's a total rip off and they brought shame upon this business. At least if you're not Australian, stay away from these washed up swindlers. I'll definitely miss the Swedish managers though. Luckily with the close competitions today, looks like they're heading straight towards the brick wall. And by the way don't waste your time by sending tickets to customer-support@freelancer.com if they don't want to settle your case based on their lame excuses, you won't get any answers. I emailed them about my issue everyday in 10 days and they don't even bother answering.