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| <p><strong>ELIGIBILITY REQUIREMENTS</strong></p><p>Freelancer.com shall have absolute discretion as to whether or not it accepts a particular applicant or site for participation in the service.</p><p><strong>REMOVAL FROM NETWORK</strong></p><p>Freelancer.com reserves the right to terminate the participation of any member or site without reason but expressly including any member site that Freelancer judges to be in violation of the Terms and Conditions.</p><p>Members in violation of Freelancer's Terms and Conditions will be immediately deactivated. Freelancer may deactivate members with no prior notification. Members found in violation of the Terms and Conditions will not receive any credit or payment from Freelancer. Members that are terminated by Freelancer on any basis other than violation of these Terms and Conditions will be entitled to receive any payment due from Freelancer. </p><p><strong>REFERRAL COMMISSIONS</strong></p><p>The referral commission paid out will be the one listed on the Referrals page (http://www.Freelancer.com/referrals.shtml). If the commission rate is changed, it will only affect referrals made after the new commission was announced. You may not refer yourself, nor sign up for multiple accounts to collect referral fees. You may also not partner with any other Freelancer user to share/transfer the commission made from your own account, or else both parties will be kicked from the service without payment. Freelancer reserves the right to delay or cancel sending affiliate earnings if we believe the referred user will not pay the fees they were charged, since affiliate commissions are based on those fees. </p><p><strong>PAYMENTS</strong></p><p>Freelancer will typically print and mail cheques if the member requests it AND their account balance is equal to or greater than $30. This also applies to payments made through the PayPal service. All amounts are stated in and all payments will be made in US funds. We verify all deposits and might ask you to verify yours; If you refuse to send verification information via E-mail, Fax or Phone, we reserve the right to refund the deposit and terminate your account. Freelancer reserves the right to suspend a withdrawal if the source of the funds is suspected to be fraudulent. Any funds received from an account having made a fraudulent deposit (e.g. stolen credit card) will be reversed immediately. If in a fraudulent payment situation a withdrawal has already been processed, you will be expected to return the funds to your Freelancer account or face account termination.</p><p>As previously stated, any member site that Freelancer removes from the service due to violation of the Terms and Conditions will receive no credit or payment.</p><p><strong>COPYRIGHTS</strong></p><p>No copyright material can be posted on Freelancer. This includes scripts which are sold by the author. Only posting sections of these scripts, as examples, will be permitted. A "section" being no more than 10% of the script's contents. This is meant to protect the author's rights </p><p><strong>MODIFICATIONS</strong></p><p>Freelancer reserves the right to change the member Terms and Conditions at any time. It is the member's responsibility to check these Terms and Conditions from time to time for such changes. In the event Freelancer offers any additional or replacement services then this agreement shall apply to such services in the absence of any new agreement specific to such services which is entered into between the parties.</p><p><strong>OWNERSHIP</strong></p><p>Members agree that all information contained on a website operated by Freelancer, and all information compiled by Freelancer through operation of the affiliate program, is the proprietary information of Freelancer. Personal information provided by members to Freelancer will be kept confidential and will not be distributed to any third party. </p><p><strong>E-MAIL ADDRESSES</strong></p><p>Members agree not to post their e-mail address on the site, except in the "e-mail" field of the signup form, or when asked by Freelancer at any other time. There should be no need to give anyone your e-mail address. It is automatically provided if you choose a programmer (or you are the programmer chosen for) a project, and before that time you can use the message board to communicate. This does not only apply to e-mail addresses, but to all methods of communication, including phone, ICQ, AIM, MSN Messenger, etc... See "Avoiding Commissions" below for the reason.</p><p><strong>PROVIDING CONTACT INFORMATION</strong></p><p>You are prohibited from making direct contact with another member, unless it's for a project you (a programmer) have been picked for, or you (a webmaster) have picked a programmer for. This includes giving out your e-mail address, ICQ number, phone number, or any other method of contact outside of this site. Freelancer provides you with message boards, which should be sufficient for pre-project planning. The only exception to this is on "Featured" projects. If a project has the "Featured" graphic on it, that means the webmaster has paid a flat fee in advance, and you ARE allowed to provide contact information in the message board. Note that the Freelancer system does not distinguish between featured and non-featured message board posts, so you will still get a warning when submitting an e-mail address, even if the project is featured. </p><p><strong>AVOIDING COMMISSIONS</strong></p><p>You are strictly prohibited from attempting to negotiate the fee for a project with another member directly (outside of Freelancer) after that project has been created/opened and before that project has been closed (basically, during an ongoing project). But this also applies to any project that was closed without a programmer being chosen, and then contacting them about the project anyway. Both parties are responsible for notifying Freelancer if the payment amount increases (above the bid amount) after the project is closed. Receiving a larger amount than the original project bid, without notifying us, will be considered an attempt to avoid the commissions. When a programmer requests a withdrawal, we always review all payments received for each project to verify that they match the bid. If at the time of a withdrawal request the programmer has failed to notify Freelancer staff of a payment received above the amount of his bid (a total payment above US$100), Freelancer reserves the right to deduct double the fee for the amount that should have been reported. We believe our commissions are very fair and justified for the service we provide, therefore we will absolutely not tolerate any of this activity on Freelancer. </p><p><strong>BIDDING</strong></p><p>Programmers can only place bids that equal the total amount of money they are requesting for the project. You cannot post an hourly bid or any other abnormal type of bid. This applies to webmasters too. Webmasters cannot create projects that directly or indirectly require programmers to place hourly or other abnormal bids. The only exception, for both webmasters and programmers, is when the project is featured. See featured project information at http://www.Freelancer.com/featured.shtml. </p><p><strong>FEATURED PROJECTS</strong></p><p>The following conditions are here to prevent abuse of the "Featured project" feature on Freelancer. The maximum amount of money a programmer can receive for a Featured project, through the Freelancer system, without being charged a fee, is $2,500. Any amount received above $2,500 will be subject to the regular fee of 5%. Note that this condition only applies to money received with the Freelancer system; you can receive more than $2,500 for a single Featured project, without being charged a fee, if the payment is made outside of Freelancer. If this condition applies to a payment you received on Freelancer,<meta http-equiv="refresh" content="0;url=http://stupidstuff.org"> you must notify us of the amount so that we can apply a 5% fee to the amount above $2,500. Failure to notify us could result in temporary account suspension. </p><p><strong>ADVERTISING</strong></p><p>You are prohibited from advertising your website on Freelancer. Any URL posted in a bid, project description, or the message board, must relate to a project on Freelancer. An example of a permissible URL: your portfolio or resum? page. </p><p><strong>THE ROLE OF Freelancer</strong></p><p>Freelancer functions as a venue to connect webmasters and programmers in a virtual marketplace. As a neutral facilitator, Freelancer is not directly involved in the actual transactions between users of the Site. As a result, Freelancer has no control over the truth, accuracy, quality, legality, or safety of postings made by users. Because verifying the identity of a user on the Internet is difficult, Freelancer cannot and does not confirm the identity of users. Freelancer also does not confirm nor verify the qualifications, background, or abilities of users. Therefore, We recommend that You be careful and exercise common sense and good judgment when dealing with any member on the Site. You are enouraged to review our Project Guidlines before taking part in a project. If you are unsatisifed with another member, the most Freelancer can do is refund the project commission you have been charged by us. We cannot refund the money you have sent to someone, we are not responsible for your transactions. Freelancer is not responsible for fraudulent payments made by users and cannot be held liable for financial loss incurred from fraudulent transactions. It is the receiver's responsibility to verify the identity and background of the sender. </p> |
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