Hi Dejan. This happened to me in 2014, I lost a lot of money too, I withdrew the money on a Wednesday after the client had paid me $1000 in full. Then the next day, Thursday, I got a message that my withdrawal request was cancelled and the money reversed back to employer. My account was suspended and when I asked why, I was told that the employer looked like he was fraudulent and that the money might be fraud. Up to date, I am still bitter, angry and sad over that $1000 but I never got it back and Freelancer closed the person's account and that was that. So I hope this answers some of your questions and I am deeply sorry for your loss after such hard work. All the best

This happen to me also 1 month ago for two different projects! The support answer was that there was a fraud from employer. They closed his account and never able to contact him again and they suspend my account also. Just to mention that the project was totally legal, i deliver my work on time. I lost 800$ for my work + over 300$ of templates i purchase for my employer projects.

This happened to me also but on a standard project, not competition. Freelancer allow this to happen too and offer no protection or support when it does happen.

The best thing you can do is report it to the police in whatever country you live as this is actually theft.

I face same issue about 7-8 times in this year. Freelancer.com do not take responsibility of that and they don't provide security to freelancers. I have good profile so, I can't leave this site. Every time when I face this problem I just say "ah, this is just a small business loss"

Has happened to me as well, and due to this, I have moved to other sites. Their technical support is pathetic and their system has so many glitches, and only freelancer is penalized in each scenario.

For example, An awarded and accepted project can be cancelled by employer, and as you know the money is deducted at the project acceptance time, so freelancer has no way to dispute the money, if an employer cancels a project after 10 minutes of award, you money will be lost. Has happened to me!

There are many other glitches availble as well

Support is good? Hahha dont make me laugh...

I left freelancer when I got a similar experience from the site.
I didnt loose money since It was transfered already.
But I lost my 5 star profile I made.

The site returned the amount for a project that was completed three months ago to the client on the pretext that the project did not comply with the terms and conditions of the Freelancer website. Well, they did not know about this three months before the client published the project!

Talk to support they might be able to tell you what exact happened. There might be some issue with the client account so i suggest you to talk to freelancer suppport as they are very good now.