If you decide that Freelancer is not for you, then you may wish to cancel your account. Of course, you can simply abandon your account and not use it to bid on or post projects, but if you wish to be rid of Freelancer altogether (and I understand that there are a lot of people who feel that way!) then you must contact Freelancer support and open a new support ticket explaining that you would like to terminate your account. Account cancellation can be only be done in this way for those ever-elusive “security reasons” that Freelancer are so fond of quoting without ever actually explaining…
The official line from Freelancer is as follows:
“For security reasons, you may only cancel your account by submitting a ticket through our online support desk. To access the Support Desk, click on the Online Support button on your home page. Please note that if your account balance is negative, you will be required to deposit funds before your account can be canceled.”
As well as the point about having a negative balance, there are a couple of other things you should know before you cancel your account completely:
1) If you have credit in your Freelancer account, make sure that you withdraw it before you cancel your account, and note that since you cannot withdraw amounts of less than $30, you may need to deposit funds in order to withdraw it again!
2) Your account must be “in good standing” before you can terminate your account. If your account has been suspended, or if you are involved in any open disputes, these must be resolved before your account can be closed.
3) If you wish to open an account under another username, you MUST terminate one account properly and officially before you open a new one. You are only allowed ONE Freelancer account, otherwise you will be accused of breaching Freelancer’s terms and conditions.
With a bit of luck, and if you get someone other than Helpful Sheila answering your support ticket, your request will be honoured relatively quickly!
EDIT 3rd MARCH 2014: For an interesting follow-up to this post, please click here!