Freelancer - Hire & Find Jobs

I’ve been doing work on this app for a few years now and it has gone completely down hill. You are no longer Guranteed to be paid by clients after putting in hours of work for them and when you try to get paid and report your issue to the app, they do absolutely nothing to help you. Contests have been taken over by people from Bangladesh and other countries who will steal your work and try to pass it off as their own. They wait until your design gets rated and then they go on google and flood the contest with crappy designs they stole. People like this used to get suspended but it has become so wide spread that it’s impossible to report all the fraud so they just let it happen. I am owed over $400 that I will most likely never see. I’ve reported the client multiple times because the pay for the job I did was labeled as “guranteed” but that was two months ago and they still won’t pay me for some reason.

First things first, the market is flooded with auto-reply bots making it difficult for small freelancers to compete. On top of that, there’s no way to ensure you get paid. I did a job with someone who was “payment verified” but they have completely gone dark and offline, so now my account is at a negative balance from the fee on top of having spent hours doing a job and not get paid for it. I’ve contacted customer support asking if it’s possible to cancel the fee, as I hate seeing my account be in a negative balance - None of which is my fault — why should I be penalized for the project owner NOT paying me????? Customer support sent me an automated reply email of all this BS which was completely unhelpful. I’m not disputing the pay, I’m literally asking if I can get my balance reset. I’ve had this app for months - I write long , thought-out bids — but I haven’t gotten a single “bite” due to outsiders who are willing to do the job for dirt cheap . Please find a way to localize jobs - US jobs for US freelancers.

Although I have not been a member of freelancer for very long, I am giving it five stars due to how fast I was able to find work within just a few days of joining as a freelancer and the smoothness of the hiring process. As a freelance writer often times countless hours are spent following up on dead end leads. This app takes the investigative work out whether or not the job I am interested in is legitimate or merely a bust. So with less time spent on the worthiness of the project, I am able to spend more time on the desired project itself. Ultimately resulting in happier clients, who are more likely to hire me for future work.