Community guidelines

FreelancerPeople ("the Platform") is a marketplace where buyers hire independent professionals for freelance work and buy digital products directly from the people who made them. Everything here is priced in USD, paid through the Platform, and backed by records both sides can rely on. None of that matters unless the people using it deal with each other honestly. These guidelines describe, in plain language, the behaviour we expect from everyone on FreelancerPeople.

They apply to everything you do on the Platform: your profile, your listings and digital products, your job posts and proposals, your messages, your deliveries, your reviews, and your reports. They sit alongside our Terms of Service, Prohibited and Acceptable Use policy, Privacy Policy, Refund and Cancellation Policy, Payment Terms and Copyright and IP Complaints Policy. Where one of those documents sets a stricter rule, the stricter rule applies. By using FreelancerPeople you agree to all of them.

1. The spirit of these guidelines

FreelancerPeople is a professional marketplace, not a social network. Sellers on the Platform are independent professionals, not our employees, and when a buyer places an order the contract for that work forms between the buyer and the seller. The Platform provides the venue, the payment rails, the records and the dispute tools; it does not initiate, select or modify what sellers offer. That model only works when both sides act in good faith.

The core promise is simple: be who you say you are, sell what you can actually deliver, pay for what you asked for, and treat the person on the other side like a professional. Honest mistakes handled openly are a normal part of doing business, and nobody gets punished for a delivery that needed another round of revisions or a deadline that slipped and was flagged early. What these guidelines exist to stop is deliberate deception, abuse, and attempts to game the marketplace at someone else's expense.

2. Be honest about who you are

Trust on FreelancerPeople starts with identity. There must be a real person behind every account, and what your profile says about that person must be true.

• Use one account. Do not create additional accounts to evade a restriction, inflate your standing, or leave reviews for yourself.
• Keep your profile accurate. Skills, experience, portfolio pieces and credentials must be yours. Presenting someone else's work or qualifications as your own is a serious violation.
• Do not impersonate any person, business or brand, and do not claim affiliations, certifications or endorsements you do not hold.
• Give truthful details in verification. Identity verification is required before earnings can be withdrawn and before escrowed funds can be released, so false identity or payout details will block your own money and may end your account.

3. Deliver what you promise

Every listing on FreelancerPeople is a promise. Whether it is a SERVE, a custom offer or a digital product, the buyer should get exactly what the listing said they would get.

• Describe your services and products accurately: scope, what is included, what is not, and what the buyer needs to provide.
• Set deadlines you can actually meet, and tell the buyer as soon as you foresee a delay rather than after it happens. Delivery timelines can be extended by agreement through the order workspace.
• Deliver original work, or work you clearly have the rights to sell. Plagiarised deliverables, pirated or "nulled" digital products, and assets you do not have a licence to resell are all prohibited.
• Do not deliver empty, padded or placeholder files to stop the clock. A delivery must be a genuine attempt to complete the order.
• Buyers have promises to keep too: describe your requirements honestly, provide the materials the seller needs, and review deliveries fairly and on time.

4. Communicate professionally

Disagreement about work is normal. Abuse is not. Every message you send on FreelancerPeople should be one you would be comfortable sending in a professional workplace.

The following have no place here, in messages or anywhere else on the Platform:

• Harassment, bullying, threats, or intimidation of any member or of our team.
• Hate or discrimination based on race, ethnicity, national origin, religion, caste, gender, gender identity, sexual orientation, age, disability or similar characteristics.
• Sexual harassment, unwanted advances, or sexually explicit messages.
• Publishing or threatening to publish someone's private information.
• Spam, mass unsolicited promotion, or using the messaging system for anything other than genuine work conversations. Sellers may message a buyer only after the buyer has made contact first.

This standard does not relax when a deal goes wrong. If an order is in trouble, use the tools built for it: request a revision, propose a cancellation, open a case in the Resolution Center, or file a refund request for a digital product. Using threats, review blackmail or dispute spam to pressure the other side is itself a violation.

5. Keep work and payment on the Platform

The protections FreelancerPeople provides only exist for activity that happens on FreelancerPeople. When you pay through the Platform, your money is held in escrow for freelance orders and recorded against your account for digital products; there is a wallet, an order record, a message history, a Resolution Center and a refund process. Take the same deal off the Platform and all of that disappears: no escrow, no refund path, no dispute support, no record we can act on.

For that reason:

• Do not ask for, offer, or accept payment outside the Platform, and do not move an engagement you found here to an outside channel to avoid the fees shown at checkout. This applies to buyers and sellers equally.
• Do not use listings, profiles, proposals or messages to advertise off-platform ways to hire or pay you.
• Once an order is active, sharing what is genuinely needed to complete the work is fine. Payment, however, always stays on the Platform.

We are honest about how this is enforced. Our messaging filter automatically hides email addresses and payment handles in chats and flags those messages for review; listings, job posts and proposals are checked for contact details before they go live. The filter deliberately does not catch everything, and something slipping through it is not permission. If someone pressures you to go off-platform, decline and report it: you will never be penalised for refusing.

6. Reviews you can trust

Reviews are the marketplace's memory. Buyers choose sellers based on them, and sellers spend years earning them, so a fake review is not a small cheat: it steals from every honest member. Reviews on FreelancerPeople can only be left after a real, paid, completed transaction, and they must reflect the reviewer's genuine experience.

The following are prohibited:

• Buying, selling, trading or exchanging reviews or ratings in any form.
• Creating orders whose real purpose is to generate a review.
• A seller posing as a customer of their own products or services, or arranging for friends, family or related accounts to do so.
• Pressuring, bribing or threatening anyone to leave, change or remove a review, including offering refunds or extras in exchange for a better rating.
• Retaliating against someone for leaving honest feedback or for reporting a problem.

Sellers may post one public reply to a review of their work; that reply is held to the same conduct standards as the review itself. The Platform may exclude reviews from public ratings where the pattern behind them suggests manipulation, and reviews found to be fake or coerced may be removed. Members on either side of a fake review face enforcement.

7. Content standards, in short

The full list of what may not be sold, posted or shared on FreelancerPeople lives in our Prohibited and Acceptable Use policy, and every member is expected to know it. The short version: do not host, upload, share or sell content that is any of the following.

• Illegal, or promoting illegal activity, including money laundering or unlawful gambling.
• Belonging to someone else without the right to use it, or infringing copyright, trademark, patent or other proprietary rights.
• Obscene, pornographic, sexually exploitative, or invasive of another person's privacy, including their bodily privacy.
• Harmful to children in any way.
• Hateful, harassing, or promoting enmity or violence between groups.
• Deceptive: misleading about its origin, knowingly false, or designed to defraud.
• Impersonating another person.
• Threatening the security, sovereignty or public order of India or any other country, or inciting an offence.
• Containing viruses, malware or any code designed to damage or gain unauthorised access to systems or data.
• Otherwise in violation of any law currently in force.

Content that breaks these rules can be removed, and the account behind it can face the enforcement described below, whether or not anyone reported it.

8. Protecting minors

FreelancerPeople is a platform for adults. You must be at least 18 years old to create an account, buy, or sell here, and the Platform is not directed to children.

We have zero tolerance for child sexual abuse material or any content that sexualises, exploits or endangers minors. Such content is removed immediately upon discovery, the account involved is terminated, and we report the matter to the appropriate authorities as the law requires. There is no appeal ladder for this category and no second chance.

9. Reporting problems

If you see something on FreelancerPeople that breaks these guidelines, report it. Early reports protect you and everyone who would have encountered the same problem after you.

• Where to report: use the Report option where it appears, on digital products, seller stores, product reviews and job posts, and report anything else, including messages, through the Support page. Each report opens a case with its own case number.
• What to include: as much specific detail as you can. Order references, usernames, dates and the exact content at issue all help. You can attach evidence files to a report.
• What happens next: our team reviews the case and takes action where the rules have been broken. Where the law requires action on a content complaint, we act within 72 hours of receiving it. Complaints about intimate imagery shared without consent are treated with the highest urgency: such content is removed within 24 hours of a complaint.
• Tracking: you can follow the status of your reports, add evidence, and see the outcome in the My Reports section of your account.

Reports are for rule violations. If your issue is a disagreement about an order, a delivery or money, use the Resolution Center or the refund request flow on the order instead; those are the tools that can actually move funds. And report honestly: knowingly false reports are themselves a violation of these guidelines.

10. How enforcement works

Enforcement decisions are made by the FreelancerPeople team, not by other members, and not automatically by a counter. We look at what happened, the intent behind it, the harm caused, and the account's history, and we aim to respond in proportion. For most violations, enforcement follows an escalating ladder:

• Educational warning: a first, minor, good-faith violation usually earns an explanation of the rule and a chance to correct course.
• Formal warning: a recorded warning on your account, stating what happened and what changes.
• Feature restrictions: limits on specific abilities, such as publishing listings, messaging, or posting reviews, while the underlying issue is addressed. Content that breaks the rules may be hidden or removed at any step, and payouts connected to an investigation may be held until it concludes.
• Suspension: your account is closed off from the marketplace. A suspended member can still sign in, but only to contact support about the suspension; nothing else is available.
• Permanent ban: removal from the Platform. A ban is a final decision and does not come with a self-service way back in.

Severe violations skip steps. Fraud, threats, hate, content that endangers children, deliberate scams and comparable conduct can lead straight to suspension or a permanent ban on the first offence, and where the law requires it we cooperate with lawful requests from authorities.

11. Appeals

If enforcement was taken against you and you believe we got it wrong, you can appeal. Each enforcement case can be appealed once, by the person the action was taken against, with your reasons and any context you want considered.

• If your account is active and content of yours was actioned, file the appeal from the case in your My Reports section.
• If your account is suspended, sign in and open a support ticket; that ticket is your appeal channel, and it goes to the team that can review the decision.

Appeals are decided by the FreelancerPeople team. If an appeal is granted, the action is reversed: restored content comes back, and a reinstated account returns to active status. Decisions on restoring accounts and content rest with FreelancerPeople, and nothing in this section limits any right you have under applicable law.

12. A reminder, at least once a year

We are required to remind you periodically, and we will do so at least once every year, that using FreelancerPeople means complying with these guidelines, our Terms of Service and our other policies, and that failing to comply can lead to the removal of your content, the loss of platform features, or the suspension or termination of your account. Treat every update to this page, and every notice we send about it, as that reminder.

13. Questions and contact

If you are unsure whether something is allowed, ask before you act. You can reach us at support@freelancerpeople.com or through the Support page in your account.

Complaints about content or conduct on the Platform, including complaints under applicable law, can be addressed to our Grievance Officer, a designated role reachable at support@freelancerpeople.com. Every complaint receives a ticket number for tracking, is acknowledged within 24 hours, and is resolved within 15 days. For more on how we keep the marketplace safe, see our Trust and Safety page, and for the full rules that govern your use of FreelancerPeople, see our Terms of Service.