Freelancer.com focused on employer only, they just want as many employer and project as they can regardless of their country, verification status and deposits. However all the restriction is for employee. This is the reason Freelancer didn't stop them to post project without deposit. Almost 90% projects are fake (either posted by freelancer itself or fake/fraud employers). You have to be careful. Keep following things in mind will prevent you from fraud much.
1. Don't work for Employers from India/Bangladesh/Sri Lanka/Nigeria/Israel
2. Don't work for Employers whose name looks like Indian
3. Once the project is awarded to you, don't accept it unless the employer created initial milestone. Wait for at least 12 hours after milestone creation then accept it.
4. Ask for release step by step, don't work on next milestone unless previous is not released
5. Withdraw money from freelancer as fast as you can.

Freelancer is a scamming operation, not a legitimate platform. They steal from the vulnerable. Run away from them.

This is why they are tagged with two terms; BUYER FRIENDLY & SCAMMER. They will allow you to work on a project, they will cancel the payment, they will refund the amount to the buyer & on your end you will deliver the work without payment, waste of energy, waste of time, waste of everything. I have also heard they doesn't even refund the project commission to the coder!

Do not believe any of their marketing BS
They are not running a decent business they are running a money sucking operation!
It's been over s month and still didn't get my money back, my freelancers still didn't get their salary
Freelancer should be ashamed and everyone should beware of this scam artist company!

I loss my 200$ and i see other persons and friends losing about 10k$... In simple I've also reviewed freelancer they closes my three account one by one after someone pay me. Freelancer take that money and close my account. There fee are too high they theirself are involve in scamming. They do not provide any reasonable response about scams because they know they are scamming.

If you contact support no matter what you ask they will always return you "We don't know" or "We can't do that" or "You did this that why we are doing that" or "We are sorry" or "we regret" or "Is there anything else we can help" it seems like they have a chat bot they actually don't listen. There email support is disaster. I have tickets no answer yet since couple of months. Freelancer is a $#*! itself. Never trust, Never work there. They are just there to scam you..

All those jobs you find are all bogus created by FREELANCER! Don't fall for it!

Cos they are partners of that scammers, or have a team of scammers inside of portal.

Freelancer.com is a scam.
Do not start working with the new client until you WITHDRAW and RECEIVE funds on hands, for the whole project or the first milestone.
So Freelancer.com will not reverse payment or close your account if you earn too much.

Freelancer employer asks me to deposit 4000INR initially to credit the initial payment to my account. They say it will be refunded in 15 days. Can I trust the employer?

This question is not to me, and to the support service. But there, I did not find understanding.

I am now on Freelancer, Elance and Upwork. There are things I like and things I don't like about all of them. I admit it's a pain in the axx, but one just has to learn their way around each of the websites that they are freelancing on. For me, it's a way to make a few bucks without having the same boss 40 hours a week. If I don't like an employer, I don't have to work for them again. Good luck everyone.

I think it depends on your user, if you are a new user or quite old one.