Matt - "First of all - we make this abundantly clear on the site - you should never, ever pay funds unless the deliverables are complete and you are 100% happy.

Matt - "First of all - we make this abundantly clear on the site - you should never, ever pay funds unless the deliverables are complete and you are 100% happy." Judging from that, the decision to pay upfront was your choice. Although what happened really sucks, it does seem like it was self inflicted and in no way freelancer.com's fault. Also, I do truly feel sorry for you, but making this post on HN is pretty low. If you hired an actual studio than chances are they have a site with contact information. You might have made an attempt at contacting them before this post, I don't know, but if that is the case it doesn't seem like you have given them the chance to respond. If their site doesn't have their contact information you can always run a whois on their domain and possibly get an email address or phone number. I know money issues usually tend to cause a knee jerk reaction but I have learned the best way to deal with problems like this is to, no matter what and before anything else, take time to calm down, relax and clear my head. Be that as it may, everyone makes mistakes and in this case it seems like both parties did make a mistake. From the sound of it, NovaStudios handled the situation just as bad (arguably worse from a customer service standpoint) as you have. Either way, it's a rough situation. I am WordPress dev and might have some free time in my schedule coming up. If you are in a bind with your site or need some more help let me know and I will see what I can do. Good luck with the situation!