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benn626 · 05-01-2010, 01:02 PM

I decided to write this thread finally after MANY attempts of getting hole of Mike69 to finish the project paid for. I understand that I should have looked into his reputation before dealing with him, but I was brand new to this business and very excited to see the outcome of the program.

About 1 1/2 years ago I was looking into purchasing a custom webcam program to be made COMPLETELY from scratch. After many detailed discussions on what the program would feature, and how he would also keep it up to date and add features for low prices he quoted us 10k. He agreed that the program would be fully functional with a admin area also. We decided to do a half now and pay the remainder when the program was finished. He said the whole project would take about 3-4 months max.

From the start Mike seemed like a genuine nice guy, and I thought he actually cared about the outcome of this project, and the quality of his work. He bragged about how he used to work for adult.com as the main programmer and how he is the best in the business, and how adult.com ripped him off so he decided to do his own freelance work. I was a newbie to this business and very naive so I believed him, not to mention he had his wife Tina backing him up the whole time.

We sent the first half (5k) to him provided him with everything he needed, dedicated server etc. For the next 2 months Mike went on about how he was working 12-16 hour days on our program, and had it almost finished. He showed me some basic screen shots of his progress along the way, it looked decent to me at the time, but I really didn't know anything about programming. His wife kept calling me everyday looking for more money (even though we sent the first 50%), she said that without the remainder he would have to take other work to pay the bills. We were very reluctant at first but she kept calling and making up excuses, so we paid of the 5k balance before the program was finished (one of the worse business mistakes I ever made).

Now the real horror story begins. Once the money was sent it was almost impossible to get a hold of him or his wife Tina (the past 4 months they had been calling every day looking for more money). I decided to show a friend of mine who is a mainstream php programmer everything he did for us so far. Within 10 minutes of my friend taking a look at the script, he said "you were ripped off", Mike sold us a non functional program he created in 1998. My friend told me that the code was so bad and old, that there was no point of even trying to fix it. I wrote Tina, and Mike about it (because they wouldn't pickup my calls) saying I was going to show everyone on GFY how you ripped me off. He contacted me within 5 minutes, and said he would re do the program and finish the admin area. I decided to give him another chance because really I had no other choice (it wasn't like these scam artist are going to refund our money). Months went by and nothing! He doesn't respond to my ICQ messages, or pickup my calls. I know they started a cam site called camgirlscorner (dot) com, and is working on a payment processor.

I know a lot of you are already aware of what a scumbag Mike69 is, and how I made a lot of obvious mistakes trusting these people, but I hope it might save a few people from getting scammed in the future.

05-01-2010, 01:02 PM
benn626 Confirmed User Join Date: Dec 2005 Posts: 363	Mike69 biggest ripoff programmer" I decided to write this thread finally after MANY attempts of getting hole of Mike69 to finish the project paid for. I understand that I should have looked into his reputation before dealing with him, but I was brand new to this business and very excited to see the outcome of the program. About 1 1/2 years ago I was looking into purchasing a custom webcam program to be made COMPLETELY from scratch. After many detailed discussions on what the program would feature, and how he would also keep it up to date and add features for low prices he quoted us 10k. He agreed that the program would be fully functional with a admin area also. We decided to do a half now and pay the remainder when the program was finished. He said the whole project would take about 3-4 months max. From the start Mike seemed like a genuine nice guy, and I thought he actually cared about the outcome of this project, and the quality of his work. He bragged about how he used to work for adult.com as the main programmer and how he is the best in the business, and how adult.com ripped him off so he decided to do his own freelance work. I was a newbie to this business and very naive so I believed him, not to mention he had his wife Tina backing him up the whole time. We sent the first half (5k) to him provided him with everything he needed, dedicated server etc. For the next 2 months Mike went on about how he was working 12-16 hour days on our program, and had it almost finished. He showed me some basic screen shots of his progress along the way, it looked decent to me at the time, but I really didn't know anything about programming. His wife kept calling me everyday looking for more money (even though we sent the first 50%), she said that without the remainder he would have to take other work to pay the bills. We were very reluctant at first but she kept calling and making up excuses, so we paid of the 5k balance before the program was finished (one of the worse business mistakes I ever made). Now the real horror story begins. Once the money was sent it was almost impossible to get a hold of him or his wife Tina (the past 4 months they had been calling every day looking for more money). I decided to show a friend of mine who is a mainstream php programmer everything he did for us so far. Within 10 minutes of my friend taking a look at the script, he said "you were ripped off", Mike sold us a non functional program he created in 1998. My friend told me that the code was so bad and old, that there was no point of even trying to fix it. I wrote Tina, and Mike about it (because they wouldn't pickup my calls) saying I was going to show everyone on GFY how you ripped me off. He contacted me within 5 minutes, and said he would re do the program and finish the admin area. I decided to give him another chance because really I had no other choice (it wasn't like these scam artist are going to refund our money). Months went by and nothing! He doesn't respond to my ICQ messages, or pickup my calls. I know they started a cam site called camgirlscorner (dot) com, and is working on a payment processor. I know a lot of you are already aware of what a scumbag Mike69 is, and how I made a lot of obvious mistakes trusting these people, but I hope it might save a few people from getting scammed in the future. Last edited by benn626; 05-01-2010 at 01:08 PM..