Blog #2 The Perils of Online Freelancing Sites

If you’re anything like me, you are open to new ideas. As someone with a video production business, I wanted to investigate online freelancing sites, such as Fiverr, Upwork and Freelancer.com, where I could offer my video services. With claims such as “Access a pool of top talent across 700 categories”, “Enjoy a simple, easy-to-use matching experience” and “Get quality work done quickly and within budget” offered to their customers (Fiverr,2025), why wouldn’t I or any other video professionals want to offer our services of that pool of customers?

Well, I will break down the top reasons why these sites are not useful to people like me and how they can even be dangerous.

Reason 1: The pay. If someone is offering a job on these sites, you have to ask why wouldn’t they offer it on online job listing sites (which cater to one-off jobs as well) or ask someone in the community they know? The reason is often the pay. These are sites that demand excellent experience and commitment for sub-standard pay. You are often competing with people around the world who are willing to take on jobs at a much lower rate because it’s worth more to them. There are also fees from the site, often 10-15%. You are paid through Paypal on Fiverr, which can accrue more fees.

Reason 2: Pay to participate. Sites like Upwork will use a pay to participate model. A user on the site is encouraged to subscribe to their Connects program, where they can then submit proposals to job offerers. You are often competing with dozens of other entries, which pits users against each other and encouraging a race to the bottom price (often less than minimum wage).

Reason 3: Time. Between maintaining a profile, applying to different work and exchanging communications with potential buyers, you are expected to give hours of your time each day for the chance to be considered for a low-paying freelance job that may never result in further work. You are better off working in McDonalds, where you will be paid at least minimum wage and are guaranteed payment.

Reason 4: Scams. After using Fiverr for one day only, I was forced to delete my account after being overwhelmed by bot accounts trying to get my email address to then send me a phishing email, which I would then click on and have my information stolen.

Phishing email

To their credit, the phishing emails are well-crafted and seem genuine. These are not low-level scam artists, they are sophisticated. Thankfully, I did not have my information stolen, thanks to Mozilla Firefox’s stellar phishing security protocols.

Number 4 is the reason that I had to delete my Fiverr account. I realised that I would never be able to truly tell which messages were genuine and which were scams. Plus, the sheer volume of messages flowing in were obnoxious. The anti-bot mechanisms on Fiverr are poor, there seems to be little done to protect the user from scams.

Those are my thoughts on online freelancing. High promises, low rewards.

-D.C.