after reading the reddit thread linked to below, i wouldn't go near freelancer.com; the reddit thread caused me to wonder whether it's even a legitimate business. Three things really caused me to blacklist freelancer.com: (i) the CEO's remarks--never disputed a single fact alleged by Dustin (OP) if anything appeared to corroborate them, and concluded by saying that's how we do things here at freelancer.com; (ii) more than a few people posted to the thread who had also been treated the same way by freelancer.com--ie, cases in which the developer had completed the work, the client was happy with it and wanted to pay, indeed had in fact paid freelancer.com but freelancer refused to pass the money along to the developer; and (iii) the timing of freelancer's byzantine documentation requirement--in Dustin's case like at least a couple of others mentioned in the reddit thread, freelancer.com's requests that the developer supply redundant documentation to verify their account only occurred after the dev had done some work on a project and the client had had paid freelancer.com for that completed work.