"Freelancer is a global outsourcing marketplace, founded in 2009. Its headquarters are located in Sydney, Australia, though also has offices spanning Vancouver, London, Buenos Aires, Manila and Jakarta."
Looking at their web site, I see no sign they have a US office, unless they kept some of the people in their two acquisitions of US marketplace firms. For stakes this small, it sounds like they're essentially judgement proof in the US. Which is no doubt why they can get away with such tactics.
I suppose passport holding might be more common though but everything about this still sounds ridiculous.
(OK, that was 3 decades ago and I live in the US, but it was significant, a somewhat akin nation's people zapping such a proposal.)
So right you are.
On the other hand, I suspect a lot of the tech support is in cheaper places than Australia.
Viewed rationally, it's mostly silly but "national ID" in some countries (including the US and, apparently, Australia) carries a lot of emotional baggage with it.
US courts will assert jurisdiction about any business transaction that took place in the US, whether or not the participants have an official address or not.
Keep in mind that the organization needs accounts with organizations that can transfer into and out of US bank accounts. So freelancer.com must have a US bank account, which will be subject to US court orders.
There is no such thing as "judgement-proof". Thankfully.
But to collect from one of those US bank accounts, you first have to find it. You'd either need to get info from another US freelancer ... and supplying that might get in the way of his continuing to get paid (I guess using social media you'd try to find someone who's not going to use them again), or you'd have to gotten your first payment.
A default judgement obtained in absentia also means the judge has no leverage to pry this sort of information out of the company's representatives.
True. Buy a $0.05 gimmick from them and check your bank statement.
They're not a products company and they don't seem to have any bling you can buy, but I noticed a small writing job they're highlighting on their web page for $50. You could have a friend or two do a minimal transaction through them, although you'd want to use ACH (warning!!! on an account with little money in it!) instead of a credit card so you don't have to try to squeeze the bank info out of a card company, but, yeah.
Still might be expensive to collect from an out of state bank, don't really know how that works.
This is what the small claims courts are for - although it is unclear whether Freelancer.com have any kind of presence in the US, which in this case is what seems to be the real blocker.
According to their about page [0] they are register in Australia. Couldn't he just file in the Australian small claims court though?
We accept driver's licenses as identification: http://www.freelancer.com/news/articles-verification-309.htm...