Quote:
Originally Posted by harvey
Laurence, just to be clear:
a) the programmer contacted me after like 3/4 weeks of request it. He said everything was fine and could never explain why the site wasn't working. You know it and I have the mails to prove it.
b) you never let me finish the site, simply canceled it
c) don't you think I'd prefer to finish the site and be fully paid?
d) the price was $1000 for the design and $500 for the integration. You paid $750 and LOVED the design. You said it, not me (well, I love it too, of course). So I could say that, TO THE VERY LEAST, you still owe me $250 only for the design. It's not my fault that the CMS in question had unprofessional support that didn't like to work, you hired me for INTEGRATION, not custom programming (which I wouldn't be able to do anyway). So, as I said, I left it at that, knowing that I was losing money on that project and probably on future projects. And I kept my mouth shut, so don't know why are you bringing this when you're the one owing me money.
Anyway, you know I really respect you and like you, and that's one of the things that bothered me most when you cancelled it out of the blue, more than the money. I'll just ask you a question, answer it if you want, no big deal: did the CMS work AT ANY GIVEN POINT? dit it ever work with its default config and skin? We both know the answer, and when I do an implementation, I assume it's over a WORKING SCRIPT. If it doesn't work, it's not my fault, I'll try to help you (AS I DID) but I can't do more beyond certain limits.
Anyway, feel free to hit me up on ICQ or by mail, I really have no problem with you
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Harvey, the deal was $750 as a 50% deposit for the total job (design and integration), with the final $750 to be paid upon completion of the project.
After two months, the project was nowhere near completion.
In fairness to you, yes I did like the basic design which you showed me in the comp, however I requested some specific changes that were never made, and that one page comp represented about 5% of the total design.
As for whether the CMS ever worked, the CMS company said it did when it was turned over to you. Once you started to make changes, it had problems. It was up to you and the CMS company to fix the problems. I never touched anything.
And since you asked, after I decided to switch designers, I asked the CMS company to provide me with the name of a designer to work with. They referred me to Donnie Adamson (Big_D is his nick here). I had apprehensions, since I knew that he was a big partier, but he assured me that he could do the job.
Like you, I paid him $750, and he sent me a one page comp, which I also liked. Soon after that he too did a disappearing act. When I threatened to terminate him, he came back and promised the work in another few weeks. This dragged on for two months and then he dropped all contact.
So, I'm out a lot more money than just the $750 which I paid to you. In fact, I hired a third designer and paid him a deposit. Same results...after a few months of empty promises, he simply disappeared. Even the person who referred him to me (a major hosting company owner) tried to contact him but he isn't returning e-mails or calls.
After over six months of getting nowhere, the CMS company commited to doing a most basic design - basically I created headers that they were supposed to simply put on their templates, and then I could at least start making some money with their product (after having paid them over two thousand in license payements thus far).
After several days of waiting, and with e-mails and bot messages saying they would get to it tomorrow, I became frustrated and sent them an angry e-mail, which I thought might light a fire under their asses to get the work done. Instead they terminated my license, so basically I'm out over $6,000, and back to square one with this project (and that doesn't count the potenitlal lost income, just the actual money I paid to others).
The craziest part of it is that whomever finally comes through for me is going to have a very loyal client, whom will provide them with several more projects than just this first project.
I have really felt snake-bitten over this whole ordeal. Fortunately, I still make enough money that I can absorb these losses.
Oh well, at least it's a tax write-off.
Well, I just wanted to let off a little steam after I saw your post in here about how you are going to make someone rich. Anyway, we can deal with this offline if you still wish to.
Take care,
ADG