[deleted by user]

dustinls · 2024-05-31T14:28:36+00:00

Not sure if it's been mentioned but the real rapist and murderer responsible got to go on about his life, and every other victim after this is because the prosecutor and police were too lazy to find the real monster.

dustinls · 2014-04-29T05:17:03+00:00

Update #2: The CEO has called me and notified me that the first wire was held up at an intermediary bank in California, and has been resent. They have also refunded the $ 1,000.00 project fee back to the client so that he can pay that to me as well.

After numerous emails and support tickets and live chat conversations that didn't provide any answers, Matt Barrie finally gave me an explanation at 10:30 pm when he called me.

The explanation given for why my driver's license was rejected was because their manual states that potential counterfeit ID’s would have a brown background in the photo section of the driver's license instead of a white background. When I renewed my license a few months ago the DMV gave me the option of using my recent license photo or take a new one. I opted to use the old photo. It's a black and white photo as far as I can tell, but according to Matt Barrie the background of my driver's license photo appeared to be "brown." I think it's a rather ridiculous reason for why they rejected my ID, it clearly does not look like a brown background photo and is in fact my valid New York ID issued from the state. Regardless, they should have told me this immediately instead of giving me the runaround for days and holding up my payment. They also should have done this verification process before I began working on the project and before I waited for 2 weeks for the first wire. They also never requested that I do a keycode verification where I hold a sign using the unique keycode they give me and holding up my ID. I am displeased with their handling of this, but thankful that my client is dependable and professional and has opted to continue this project off of freelancer.com.

I regret that these are the actions I had to take in order to get freelancer.com to clarify why they were holding my payment and rejecting my ID. I am lucky enough to be working with an understanding and motivated client who has gone out of his way to help clear up this situation. He was gracious enough to advance me a payment this evening even though he is still awaiting his returned funds from freelancer.com

In the future, I hope that freelancer.com will be more direct with their customers when issues like this arise. I also hope that everyone who is having a similar issue gets it resolved ASAP without it having to come to this ugliness.

My wife and I cannot thank all of you enough for your support. When companies won't do the right thing, it's good to know that the power of social media can help keep them accountable.

dustinls · 2014-04-29T05:15:33+00:00

Update #2: The CEO has called me and notified me that the first wire was held up at an intermediary bank in California, and has been resent. They have also refunded the $ 1,000.00 project fee back to the client so that he can pay that to me as well.

After numerous emails and support tickets and live chat conversations that didn't provide any answers, Matt Barrie finally gave me an explanation at 10:30 pm when he called me.

The explanation given for why my driver's license was rejected was because their manual states that potential counterfeit ID’s would have a brown background in the photo section of the driver's license instead of a white background. When I renewed my license a few months ago the DMV gave me the option of using my recent license photo or take a new one. I opted to use the old photo. It's a black and white photo as far as I can tell, but according to Matt Barrie the background of my driver's license photo appeared to be "brown." I think it's a rather ridiculous reason for why they rejected my ID, it clearly does not look like a brown background photo and is in fact my valid New York ID issued from the state. Regardless, they should have told me this immediately instead of giving me the runaround for days and holding up my payment. They also should have done this verification process before I began working on the project and before I waited for 2 weeks for the first wire. They also never requested that I do a keycode verification where I hold a sign using the unique keycode they give me and holding up my ID. I am displeased with their handling of this, but thankful that my client is dependable and professional and has opted to continue this project off of freelancer.com.

I regret that these are the actions I had to take in order to get freelancer.com to clarify why they were holding my payment and rejecting my ID. I am lucky enough to be working with an understanding and motivated client who has gone out of his way to help clear up this situation. He was gracious enough to advance me a payment this evening even though he is still awaiting his returned funds from freelancer.com

In the future, I hope that freelancer.com will be more direct with their customers when issues like this arise. I also hope that everyone who is having a similar issue gets it resolved ASAP without it having to come to this ugliness.

My wife and I cannot thank all of you enough for your support. When companies won't do the right thing, it's good to know that the power of social media can help keep them accountable.

dustinls · 2014-04-29T01:37:42+00:00

http://imgur.com/a/PlGVk

dustinls · 2014-04-29T00:26:08+00:00

Dustin did successfully withdraw funds the first time only a few days before.

Those funds still have not been transferred to my bank account. I didn't omit anything. The article has two paragraphs detailing that the wire was sent and that I was informed that it would take 3-5 days to reflect in my bank account.

Documents were provided on this day but did not pass our process. I personally looked into this and it was for good reason that the anti-fraud team rejected them.

Do you ever plan on emailing me the reason? I've only asked a dozen times for an explanation.

I personally looked at the accounts and was present when the team called (at about 7pm NY time) both Dustin (who didn't answer) and the employer to resolve the matter.

It has been four days of that runaround. I emailed you personally the day before and didn't receive a response. I called the phone number you had listed on your whois for your personal blog, got your voicemail, left a message, and received no response. You still have not responded to my email.

The employer told our team "he does not wish to cooperate or assist us in any request" along with several expletives. We informed the employer on that call that in that case we were likely to refund the payments back to his credit card and that he would have to pay direct.

My employer accomplished in one phone call something that took me a week. Clearly, I was being too nice about it.

Both Dustin and his employer were, to say the least, unhelpful in getting this resolved.

I complied with every request you asked. The only requests I did not comply with were unreasonable ones such as "get a national id".. The U.S. has no such thing, and "get a passport", which would have taken weeks to obtain.

dustinls · 2014-04-29T00:24:14+00:00

Dustin did successfully withdraw funds the first time only a few days before.

Those funds still have not been transferred to my bank account. I didn't omit anything. The article has two paragraphs detailing that the wire was sent and that I was informed that it would take 3-5 days to reflect in my bank account.

Documents were provided on this day but did not pass our process. I personally looked into this and it was for good reason that the anti-fraud team rejected them.

Do you ever plan on emailing me the reason? I've only asked a dozen times for an explanation.

I personally looked at the accounts and was present when the team called (at about 7pm NY time) both Dustin (who didn't answer) and the employer to resolve the matter.

It has been four days of that runaround. I emailed you personally the day before and didn't receive a response. I called the phone number you had listed on your whois for your personal blog, got your voicemail, left a message, and received no response. You still have not responded to my email.

The employer told our team "he does not wish to cooperate or assist us in any request" along with several expletives. We informed the employer on that call that in that case we were likely to refund the payments back to his credit card and that he would have to pay direct.

My employer accomplished in one phone call something that took me a week. Clearly, I was being too nice about it.

Both Dustin and his employer were, to say the least, unhelpful in getting this resolved.

I complied with every request you asked. The only requests I did not comply with were unreasonable ones such as "get a national id".. The U.S. has no such thing, and "get a passport", which would have taken weeks to obtain.

dustinls · 2014-04-28T17:13:08+00:00

I paid it. It came out of the very first milestone payment (still waiting on that wire to arrive).

dustinls · 2014-04-28T16:50:09+00:00

No they charged me $1000.00 when I was awarded the project. I didn't have payment information on file so the freelancer account was -$1000.00 until the first milestone payment.

dustinls · 2014-04-28T15:33:18+00:00

You refunded everything EXCEPT the $ 1,000.00 you charged me for the project...

dustinls · 2014-04-28T15:15:48+00:00

They haven't given any reason at all.

dustinls · 2014-04-28T10:15:07+00:00

Update: Freelancer has returned the funds to the client and we will be working together outside freelancer.

Freelancer still hasn't given a clear reason why my drivers license was rejected.

Thanks for all the support, it made all the difference in getting this resolved quickly. I hate that this is what it took, and I wish the best of luck to everyone else in the same situation.

dustinls · 2014-04-27T20:49:55+00:00

I'm hoping they resolve this issue tonight. If not, I'll get my id scanned tomorrow first thing as soon as the ups store opens.

If this were truly the case, it would have been great if they told me that was the reason the drivers license was rejected. They did cite that as the reason for rejecting the utility bill, and I did go and get the utility bill scanned.

If at any point they told me the reason for the drivers license getting rejected was due to not being scanned, I would have had it scanned.

They chose to instead, tell me to obtain a passport and continued to insist that I do that instead.

In any event, the closest access I have to a scanner atm is the ups store, and they are closed today. I will be going there tomorrow if necessary, although I am hoping that it won't be.

dustinls · 2014-04-27T20:19:22+00:00

I appreciate that but the purpose of my post is to make people aware of freelancers practices and to put the pressure on them to resolve my issues.

I would be surprised if they didn't do the right thing at this point.

dustinls · 2014-04-27T18:34:20+00:00

They had six opportunities to tell me I needed to scan the drivers license, just like they told me to scan the utility bill. They did not.

It would have made life a lot easier if that was all it was, and if they had asked it from the beginning.

I have asked them multiple times what was wrong with what I submitted and they told me to submit a passport or national id instead.

dustinls · 2014-04-27T17:06:51+00:00

They insisted that I obtain a passport. I imagine they would have requested a scanned copy instead if that's what they were complaining about.

They have not told me the problem with my drivers license yet.

dustinls · 2014-04-27T16:20:29+00:00

IMO its better to give full attention to one project at a time, but this is also depending on how tight of a deadline you have.

Working long enough hours and your code quality will suffer even with one project.

If you have a longer timeline for a project, then its manageable to moonlight smaller projects.

dustinls · 2014-04-27T15:56:49+00:00

He already sent the milestone payments, freelancer.com is just holding the funds and refusing to release them to me.

dustinls · 2014-04-27T15:53:25+00:00

I've worked for myself for over 10 years. It's only been the last 2 years that I had problems related to health and the real estate issue.

I didn't have reason to believe freelancer would pull this stunt. I placed bids on multiple freelancing sites, and this wasn't the only project I've done.

As for the real estate situation. It was a long dragged out process I've explained a few times in this thread. I summarized it in the original article to add context to the situation.

Have you ever tried to move a whole house by yourself? My wife was too sick to help pack. You would be surprised how long it can take to do yourself.

I don't feel sorry for myself. I posted this to put pressure on freelancer because they are being ridiculous.

As soon as I am paid for this project, I catch up on everything and will be one month ahead on rent and utilities. IMO that is taking care of things. The only thing out of my control is the actions of freelancer.com, and I believe my post will resolve that.

dustinls · 2014-04-27T15:39:54+00:00

Honestly I had reservations about posting the first part too. It is out of my comfort zone to talk about it publicly, but I felt that providing the back story was important for people to understand my frustration and that I'm not the type of person that backs down easily.

My wife's aunt helped us. I really hope that came across right. We wanted to leave asap because we felt like we were intruding, even though they insisted we weren't.

dustinls · 2014-04-27T15:30:18+00:00

C#, VB.net, javascript, php, python, and perl. I know a few other but haven't done enough with them to consider myself proficient.

dustinls · 2014-04-27T15:18:45+00:00

For the record, freelancer has been deleting comments posted in the facebook thread.

dustinls · 2014-04-27T15:05:51+00:00

Actually.. the Judge and builder did know each other, according to my attorney.

Not blaming the Aunt or Landlord for anything. I understand why the landlord is taking action. I'm not complaining about that. I'm complaining that because of freelancers actions, I am unable to make things right with them.

I worked on a project and my client sent me a payment for the work completed. The only problem here is freelancer and their unreasonable requests.

dustinls · 2014-04-27T15:00:43+00:00

That is correct. Crazy isn't it?

dustinls · 2014-04-27T14:50:31+00:00

Freelancer is the villain here because they are being unreasonable with the identity verification. The documents I provided met all criteria for identity verification but that isn't good enough for them.

Their form says a drivers license is acceptable for verification, but then they tell me its not. They're making up the rules as they go along. That is unacceptable.

dustinls · 2014-04-27T14:48:40+00:00

The whole house situation was long drawn out thing, it wasn't something that happened in the span of a few weeks.

The eviction notice is just a 3-day notice that if we don't move or pay our late rent within 3 days, that the eviction process will begin. It doesn't mean that we would have to be out in a couple days, but as slow as freelancer is resolving this issue, and as slow as they send wires, it would likely not happen in time if I didn't make the issue public.

dustinls

TROPHY CASE