Warning to ALL
 

The purpose of this post is not to badmouth anyone, but to simply share my story so that others may, hopefully, avoid my misfortune.

Here is my story:

I responded to a post on gfy from a certain individual (whose name I will not reveal--for now), who claimed to be willing to design and market an adult paysite and tgp site for me (www.wildteencoeds.com and 4porntgp.com). We agreed upon terms of $3500 per month (to design and do marketing), with $2500 up front, then another $1000 due in 2 weeks.

The contract called for this person to have both sites live within 2 weeks after the contract was signed. As agreed, I sent the first $2500 on December 20th. Even though the person failed to have either site live after 2 weeks, I agreed to go ahead and send the other $1000. This was Monday, January 17th. To this date, neither site has gone live. I last heard from him around the very beginning of February, when I sent him another $100, despite the fact that he still had not completed the sites.

The person has not responded to my emails, has not been available on ICQ. Further, after the contract was signed, the person told me that he moved, but did not provide his new address. Additionally, the telephone number that he gave me is not a working number; he gave me a new number (which he claimed was his cell), but that number simply says that it is "disconnected or no longer in service."

In short, I have paid this guy $3600 and have nothing--he has completely disappeared and refuses to respond via email, ICQ or phone (has not provided me with a valid number).

At this point, I seem to have no option but to file suit against him (fortunately, I saved copies of all of our email and ICQ correspondence, as well as receipts for all payments).

Finally, I'm not out to badmouth anyone--I just want to warn all newbies to please be careful.

people like that piss me off cause they scare potential customers fomr ever wanting to do business with someone new

This is starting to be common problem occurring recently. The best is to check references and maybe get referrals.

Hope everything works out ok for you man. :(

yea sounds intentional after a month... so i hopefully the suit will take care of him. can you cancel payments to him through the service you used (i.e. paypal, or even your bank? ) just curious.

Re:
 

No, it's too late to cancel the payments, as far as I know. They have already gone through and he has already collected the funds.

That really sucks and I'm very sorry to hear that. FWIW, like mentioned above, it's always best to check references etc, b ut then that never really gives any guarantees.

I freelance my coding abilities and as i'm just starting out, I don't have many references, and so to instill confidence, I never ask for payment up front, but will do the work and keep the scripts and designs on my server until the client is satisfied. Payment is then dealt with. If only more people would do this, it would annihilate this type of scum.
:mad: :mad:

dude POST HIS NAME so that others can know!!!

Not to say that it doesn't suck to lose that money, cause it does...but it seems like this guy went through an awful lot for $3600.


If I were going to scam someone like that, I'd go big.

You never know how many other people this person scammed. 25 x $3600 = $90,000!! :disgust

Sorry to hear

Ouch dude, better luck next time bro!

It really sucks! It's a risk you have to take when dealing with freelancers.
I'm not pointing to anyone, its just I've heard stories similar to this.

I still believe that I am not in such situation, but Q man owes me designs for more than half a thousand. I saw him onboard but still expect than all will come to happy end end and we continue our cooperation.


Topicstarter, the only wrong thing you've really done is

.

Anyway, sorry. :sadcrying

Wow that sucks
 

Sorry to hear about your misfortune. Check us out at www.theusyellowpages.com or just give me a shout directly - Natan @ 514-397-9512. I'm - [email protected]
We're with the BBBonline and have won the Golden Website Award 2003/2004. Basically, we fast, reliable and a lot less expensive than some of these other 'specialists'. We'll take the time to talk you through everything. It would be cheap to optimize/andor make :thumbsup your site!

You fucking idiot spammer.

hi bodymovin

Sorry to hear about your problem, guys like that totally wreck it for other desginers.
So he was definitely from the GYF forum??

thanks
tony

Damn.. that's alot of $ to lose..

Post that guy's info, it might ring a bell with one of us and get you more info on him.

pay everything on credit card always.

paypal accepts credit card on transactions, so do plenty of other processors, and you can always initiate a chargeback. you give paypal its 1 week or whatever to get your money back after you dont get what you want, and then you do a chargeback and paypal or whoever else it is can't do shit ***UNLESS***, you used your credit card to FUND an account first and then paid with that.

if your contractor doesn't deliver, or they send you totally not what you agreed to buy, just issue a chargeback, the onus is on the payment processing company (not you or your credit card company) to prove that goods were delivered and to spec advertised/agreed.

there's just no reason not to use credit card, you don't have to ever worry about interest rates so long as you pay before your deadlines.

What a burnout! That guy should be exposed!

sadly to say, I had a VERY commen story with my affiliate system coded 3 years ago. Though I did receive the script, it was not nearly what I expected and due to the programmer "moving", I never got to talk to him again (as if he don't have ICQ in his new house?).

Thank god I did actually get some sort of working product and I was able to modify it to my liking. In my eyes, I was ripped $4 grand, because the coding was really shitty. Now, it's pretty much 100% recoded from scratch since I learned very quickly that if you don't do something yourself, it will never get done.