what would you have done? another rip off story.
 

I have delayed posting this story for a long time even though i was majorly pissed at the time but since its about a desiger and reputation I thought I would do it now.

Back during the dot.com boom when i was new to the biz I decided that I wanted a logo done. I did my due diligence and emailed a company to ask if they wanted the work.

The company principal wrote back saying that as a company they were way to busy to take on any work but that he would ask his designers if they wanted to take on the work on a private basis.

Sure enough, a designer from the principal's company wrote back saying he could do the work on his own time. I took a look at his work; we agreed on a price; I wired him the money; and then I waited and waited.

After numerous emails/excuses the designer finally wrote back saying that he'd already spent the money and that he wasn't going to do the logo he'd contracted to do.

I then wrote the company principal outlining my experience. I made it ABSOLUTELY clear to him that I understood there was no contract between his company and myself. While I said that, I also wrote that I thought that he had a moral responsibility to act because he had a choice:

a) he could uphold his reputation and lean on his designer to repay the money because his company would not employ people who ripped off customers; or

b) he could damage his reputation and his company's reputation by knowingly continue to employ/contract such a designer.


After much hemming and hawing the company principal said that he had to employ this designer and that I was out of luck.

I said that I was not satisfied and that I would take my experience public on the boards. At this point the company principal wrote back ranting that he/she was one of the long time major players in the industry with a reputation to uphold and that if i took the matter to the boards, he would sue my ass off for defamation of character.

At the point I threw up my hands in disgust, chalked it up to experience, and moved on.

However, it has always bothered me - not so much for the money and the principle involved. Here was someone knowingly hiring a dishonest employee and yet saying that he/she had a reputation to uphold. This is particularly true now since this person posts on this board.

So.... what would you guys have done in my shoes then?
More importantly what would you do now?

Should I let it all hang out and name names or should I keep it 'in the closet' so to speak?

If you don't name the names, you will forever be known as a yellow belly, pussy, punk bitch.

If you name the names, then we all have a good laugh & you gain some cool points.

we gladly welcome homosexuals here @ gfy

but one thing we hate...is a punk bitch

so come on archer, show us what your balls are made of

let's hear it

Name names!

Mainly because similar things have happened to me, and I was also not able to do anything about them.

Take the opportunity :thumbsup

It would sound like the designer is the real prick here, and not the "reputable" company anyway. If the designer said he spent the money and wasn't doing your logo.. lol.. well why give him any respect ? Fuck him. Call that bitch out.

True, but when i send someone to (x) company for (x) service its because i truly believe in their service & vouch for them.

But not everyone lives by those rules for sure....

And yea i'd more like to hear who the designer is than this reputable big name guy....but hell lets hear both :1orglaugh

quit making us wait sissy boy.....it's about to get really gay if i have to refresh this 2 more times

drama queen

I agree with pr0

cough up that shit.

designer name and address in particular.

dude. I am sorry I spent the money. I was hurting for cash really bad. Please email me and we can work this out in private!


disclaimer* the above is not true. I am not a designer.

isn't informing fellow webmasters about companies, prickes, bitches, mother fuckers like this - the whole reason behind a webmater BBS ... (oh right the advertising revenue LOL!!!)

seriously tho ... name names!

i meant to have the focus be the actions of the individuals involved but here goes nothing: thecompany principal was Mark Tiarra and the company lumyr.com. The designer was simply was one of his contract workers.

lumyr.com

Ding Ding Ding we have another winner folks!

Not worth your time if it was just for a logo. Just write it off.

THIS IS AWESOME !!

reputable design companies exposed

AHAHAHAHHAHA

too funny

well archer hope this would wake Mark up and maybe he'll settle soemthing with ya

does the designer post here?

Mark Tiarra is not responsible in ANY way. If you go into a gas station and tell the owner the cashier came and stole $5 from you the other night, he'll tell you to fuckoff.

maybe archers not as gay as he thinks he is :helpme

no he doesn't quiet. haven't heard of him before or since. But when Mr. Tiarra started posting here a little while ago I started grinding my teeth.

As to leaving it in the past... sure....

getting the money back would be great but as i wrote originally it was the principle involved that bothered.

To me a person lives or dies by their reputation. Now sometimes shit happens - look at Dawgy. But from what i understand Dawgy is doing his damnest to meet his obligations and at the end of the day that's all you can ask for.

I agree Archer, if that was me and a designer I had working for me pulled shit like that it would be his fucking ass. That's NO WAY to treat a customer, it's total bs...

no doubt i agree archer...
surprisingly after today alot of you guys have patience man.. if it were me id get on taht shit until iget my money hehe

btw archer where in vancity are u in

hey candyman, i'm in richmond by the dykes(no laughing, please). I'll be the first to fall into the ocean when the big one hits :(

ahahha nice richmond , honger city
i'm in vancouver ,by granville . next to the granville bridge ahaha


yeh no doubt hehehe =P

you head down to davie often ? :Graucho

Hi Archer,

you ever need anything design wise, please feel free to check out our huge portfolio at, www.webinc.com


thanks

Todd Ostrer
[email protected]

Thats too bad and it does speak to the guys character a little to knowingly continue to pay a designer who already ripped you off.. not to mention he's the one that REFERRED you to the rip-off scammer in the first place. It has the makings of a good conspiracy theory right there, if you think about the possible set-up.

I've heard nothing but good things about the guy myself from other people though, but he DID screw me over once. He held some lame contest over at the Pond to guess the name of some eyes and gave a clue. I was the first to respond, but instead he chooses someone else, a friend.. to get the free design. It was completely staged. Fake shit all around.

is it just me or

http://www.lumyr.com/

looks kinda ugh, the design site ... and some sites in the portfolio .. only good ones are karaxxx and like 2others

not trying to start beef, just thought they were huge and i expected to see something in the lines of quality like webinc

wuts up with taht .. totally diff styles, must have like a few crappy guys working in there and a good one

So... Mark Tiarra is pumping gas now...?

I love the poll results.

All of my following comments are based on the assumption that archer's story is true. I don't know anything about him, but I've seen him post plenty and he seems straight (har!) to me.

For everyone who's saying "It's not his fault! It was his designer!", etc, take your brain for a walk and come back and read the story again.

Just ask yourself a simple question: if this shit happened to you and you were told to fuck off and then threatened by someone who KNOWINGLY employed a thief and a scammer, would you put any more money in his hands? Not unless you're about six shades of stupid. He's not trustworthy, period.

When you allow things like that to go on in your business, it reflects on you and that's just the way it is. If you know that someone who is working for you is a thief and a liar and you continue to let him work for you, you're also a thief and a liar. If you own a gas station and you find out that one of your cashiers is stealing shit out of people's cars, you sack the fucker (unless you are benefiting from it or just don't care about your customers. See: not trustworthy, above).

Now, the owner of the company wouldn't owe archer any money because he just put archer and the designer together. He wasn't really involved. However, as owner of the company and being as the designer worked for him, the boss man has a minimum responsibility to try to at least lean on the employee to make things right or get the jackass out of his company. Unless, of course, he just doesn't give a fuck. See: untrustworthy above.

SpaceAce

Hahaha... where the fuck do you live? A business lives and dies on its reputation. Any gas station that allowed thieving cashiers to rip off customers and then told them to fuck would be out of business in a month.

SpaceAce

ok. PLEASE remove that signature or at least hide the asses please, i find it hard to read your posts and not have the uncontrolable urge to scroll away ......miles away.....hehehehe

Do you want me to post a big gay porn picture?

...and he'd get his windows broken.

As an employer, you are the one responsible for your employees actions. If they do something right you look good and you give them a pat on the back. If they do bad, you look like a shmuck and you give him a kick in the ass.
Mr Tiarra should have tried to sort the problem out.

If I recommend you to some one who rips you off, then I feel responsible.

Bottom line is, how long does it take to knock up a logo if you are a designer?

got to gain the cool points

got to be seen as cool by that fat fuck pr0

look at me! look at me!

:1orglaugh

I had no idea how many scams and BS was going on with the designers.
Seems everyone is getting fucked, I wonder why that area is so shady.

Wrong, he does post here. In fact he posted in another thread one minute before you mentioned his name.

Mark, is this story true?

what was the name of that designer?

I am curious...

Beautiful! Thats they way man!

You know what, yesterday i hired 5 sluts and we drank all jack daniels from our supermarket and (surprise!!) today i have no more money left. And you know what, today i feel real bad.... and i just dont feel like doing your logo... i could use some more jack daniels instead.... so can we just like.... leave this...?? Or maybe you could send some more money in???

bitch.

At least he could take the time to make up some wack story about how sick he is or anything like that.

there are always two sides to a story... usually 3 or 4 :1orglaugh

in this case it's bad timing on my part. a response could be slow in coming as it is the american turkey day long weekend.

for the whole thing was principle. don't get me wrong, i would have loved to have the money back but it wasn't the prime motivator.

from my perspective as a customer the only one in the equation with any power was Mr. Tiarra. He has the power to hire and fire. What I thought would have been the right/moral thing to do would have been to go to the designer and say "I hear you stiffed a client. I don't employ dishonest people. Resolve the situation or you'll never work on another project of mine again.

A simple, easy, effective solution.

What the fuck is it with people this week. I don't know Archer by that name anyway so I don't even know what this is about. The only logo job I recall referring out was a year or more ago and I referred it to Tony who works for Max Cash. He used to work for me but I was too busy to take the job and this guy asked for help so I told him to try Tony. If this is the same job, then Tony wasn't even working for me anymore and the only thing I'm guilty of is making a bad referral. If it's anything else then I just have no clue what this guy is talking about.

So if that is the job then are you guys saying Max Cash is unreputable for having Uncle Tony as an employee?

Get real guys. The amount harmful BS that floats around these boards is absurd. I've never taken part in any of it because there is always half of the information presented and people get hurt. It's the same as the guy who gets accused of child abuse by a hateful wife or or some such and ends up with a stigma the rest of his life even if nothing of the sort happened.

And as to Brujah and the contest: I lived up to every contest I ever ran on a first email received basis. Obviously there is no way for either of us to be able to prove what email was received first but I can say that what the hell poinbt would there be in me giving one away to a friend when the hold reason for holding the contest was to build good will with NEW clients and gain business that way. Use your brains people.

yes. Mr. Tiarra that was the job.

However, it's news to me that tony was working for maxcash at the time. You never mentioned that in any of our correspondence.

I certainly couldn't tell since he always used your company's email address to write me.

There was no question that the referral went wrong(we both agreed on that) but my basic point - and the one you never acknowledged - still stands and i quote:

"from my perspective as a customer the only one in the equation with any power was Mr. Tiarra. He has the power to hire and fire. What I thought would have been the right/moral thing to do would have been to go to the designer and say "I hear you stiffed a client. I don't employ dishonest people. Resolve the situation or you'll never work on another project of mine again. "

simple, easy, and effective.

Archer, Tony never did work for me again. He was never an employee, just a contractor. And I referred you to him much like you would refer a friend to a plumber or electrician who did work for you. Would you be responsible for that workers action? Certainly you'd feel bad for making a referal that didn't work out but the worker isn't your employee.

Back then everyone I knew had TiarraCorp email addresses because I had gotten so many people started in the business. Aly, Jeff, Gerry, Mark2, Tony, Ian, Dawn, the list goes on... A couple of them kept the addresses because they had domains and such registered to them. Many of them went on to work for Max Cash or other companies and kept the addresses for a long time. Didn't make them my employees, just someone who asked me for an email address when they got started.

So again, I'll reiterate:

- Tony was not an employee.
- I referred you to Tony and my involvement ended there.
- I told you at the time that trying to attack my reputation for a job referred would be defamatory.

This is the reason why. Now I have to get on here and completely explain something that you only presented half of or misrepresented. Not only that but I have clients questioning whether or not they will be dealt with honestly now. LUMYR and I have done over 2500 sites since I began. That's a lot of clients. There will always be problems along the way... any one of us here has had them.

But, I think I can honestly say I've helped more people out and dealt with people in the most honest and upright fashion. I've never ran away from people who had problems with us and I have a long list of positive refrences from bending over backwards and going far out of my way to do extra for people and treat them well. I can count the number of relationships that were difficult on one hand and I think that's pretty damn good for the number of years and the number of clients we've had.

i don't think i've misrepresented anything. I was just stating the facts as I understood them.

i'm glad to hear that he's never worked for you again.

like i said in my original post, i was a newbie and green.

However I think you must agree that having people who you say have no affiliation with you whatsover to use your company's email address sends the wrong message to clients - in particular me at the time. When anyone writes me from a large company using that company's email address, I assume they have a connection with the company. Why would you even allow for the potential of such 'guilt by association'. I don't understand that.

I mean even as green as I was then I had my own email address.

So where's Tony now? and what's he doing?

apparently he posts here

Tony works for Max Cash, as I stated above. I think we can all agree that Max Cash is an incredibly reputable company and they don't hire crooks. We all have jobs that go bad on occasion and I can't speak for Tony but I can say that I have always done my level best to make things right if and when there was a problem with my own client. Unfortunately, a post like yours even if you can say that you didn't understand it all is still very damaging. Every time we do a job well and the customer is happy, they don't get on every board to applaud our work. One misrepresented (even unintentionally) problem comes up and it makes someone look dishonest.

I offer the guarantee on LUMYR because I know I can stand by my work. What other designer in this business will continually tweak the site and maintain a relationship with you after the site is done? I treat each job with the same care I would treat my own work and I often do plenty of extra that doesn't even get billed for. I'm happy to supply anyone with references to that effect as well.

I don't think I ever saw a post from an Uncle Tony here. Does he go by another name?

It was proven, you either didn't see it.. or didn't care. It's probably all still in the hahahahahahaha archive and you missed the board that day I guess.

Again I'll state that there would be no point in doing that. At least now I know to make a public board for people to post guesses if I ever run a contest again. That way no one can accuse me of this BS.

In any case, I'll do what I always do and that's my level best to make someone happy... what did I run that contest? I'll be happy to design whatever it was for you now.