Began working with webmaster FROM THIS SITE 7 months ago, still no site! HELP!
 

Hi, we're in a bit of a weird situation. And since this thread is about a member of this site, we would like to request that he not flame us for this, as this is a genuine question, and if the members of this board say we're being too needy on this, we'll gladly give you more room.

About 6 months ago we approached a webmaster about starting a new site. We currently have a site that I run, but it's getting rather old, and the revenue has fallen significantly, so I approached this webmaster with a site theme, and he said he'd love to work with me. We had about 80 video and photo sets that we've shot over the last 2-3 years and stated that we'd shoot about 2 dozen or so by the time the site launched which I was told would be "a few months".

Well here we are, about 7 months since we started working together, I transferred the domain for this new site to the webmaster at his request, and have transferred all of the content excluding the new sets to this guy via mailing him and ext HD many months ago. To be fair to him (since I would truely like to work with this person for both our benefit), he has come up with a good looking site, well, a good looking tour, the members area is just a copy of another site he runs with one video set and 3 photo sets of mine in there. Again, I'd really like to work with this guy, but every time I push to get this site up and rolling he says that he doesn't like people pushing him, and it should just be "a few more days".

So what do yall think? Give this guy more time? Start shopping around for another webmaster? I really don't have another 7 months to sit without a site to post this new content to.

Also, will post a few ICQ conversations I've had in the last few months.

Oct 16th

Vanilla Creme: ----, u get my icq reply?
-----: no my icq is fucked
-----: everyones been calling me saying im ignoring them
Vanilla Creme: was just seeing what's up, you mentioned a complete site by monday for visa, how close are we to that?
-----: i submited it to them, so it will be fully done this week
Vanilla Creme: when are the changes going to be on the url?
-----: should be up by tomo night
Vanilla Creme: k, will check it then
-----: k

its really better if you just out him

seriously:2 cents:

Oct 21st (not sure why the timestamp says the 15th)

Vanilla Creme ‎(10/15/2008 5:57 PM): -----
Vanilla Creme ‎(10/15/2008 10:51 PM): ???
----- ‎(10/16/2008 10:41 AM): Whats up?
Vanilla Creme ‎(10/16/2008 6:10 PM): just seeing where we stand. You mentioned a complete site by monday to send to visa.
---- ‎(6:09 PM): Hey im in the middle of a confrence call
Vanilla Creme ‎(6:09 PM): np, was just checking in hit me up when you're off
------ ‎(6:27 PM): Hey whats up? havent heard anything from visa which is a good thing, that usually means they havent found any problems yet
Vanilla Creme ‎(7:02 PM): well what exactly are they looking at? haven't seen any changes on the site yet
----- ‎(7:02 PM): they just look at text and shit make sure no cp, no violations
Vanilla Creme ‎(7:03 PM): most of the text is that loren ipsum shit
----- ‎(7:03 PM): i usually dont change anything unless they ask because sometimes they ask for certain stuff sometimes it depends on who checks it from visa and how much of an ass they wanna be the text stuff ill work on tomo
----- ‎(7:04 PM): but that doesnt stop visa approving it
Vanilla Creme ‎(7:04 PM): you mentioned you'd get the site uploaded on friday, when are you going to get to that?
---- ‎(7:04 PM): the site is uploaded
Vanilla Creme ‎(7:04 PM): the content, the members area, etc
----- ‎(7:05 PM): waitin on the members area template, hes supposed to have it ready tomo
Vanilla Creme ‎(7:05 PM): the change to the web cam schedule part
----- ‎(7:06 PM): i have the image havent uploaded it yet hang on ill show u
----- ‎(7:07 PM): check it now i forgot to upload it
Vanilla Creme ‎(7:07 PM): same
Vanilla Creme ‎(7:16 PM): you trying to upload the new image?
----- ‎(7:16 PM): he sent me it and said it was the new one
hang on let me check the email
----- ‎(7:18 PM): check it now
----- ‎(7:19 PM): i uploaded to the wrong directory
Vanilla Creme ‎(7:19 PM): [/color]that did it
----- ‎(7:19 PM): [color="#000000"]sorry been a long day
----- ‎(7:20 PM): tomo ill complete the whole site so u can see it minus the members area, until i get the template tomo
Vanilla Creme ‎(7:20 PM): alright. will talk to you then
------ ‎(7:20 PM): k have a good night

And just a few min ago.

Vanilla Creme:------, are you getting any of my IM's?
------: nope didnt go through, your the second person this week to ask aboyut my icq
------: ill have to remove it and install it again
Vanilla Creme: so 2 weeks and nothing from visa?
------: it takes anywhere from 2-4 before u hear back from epoch and ccbill
Vanilla Creme: I've been told it only takes 5 days or so
------: i wish it took 5 days
------: all 10 of my new sites would be online now
Vanilla Creme: so what's the progress on getting the site complteted?
------: see what they say and then finish it off
Vanilla Creme: you said it was finished and you just need to upload it
------: the site is done, text and stuff ill email u once i have the images in place
Vanilla Creme: well I would like to see the completed site, you said two weeks ago you would upload it the next day
------: i never said that
------: anyways its saturday night, im on my way out the door talk to you monday
Vanilla Creme: ------ ‎(10/21/2008 7:20 PM):
tomo ill complete the whole site so u can see it minus the members area, until i get the template tomo
------: ya thats the site as is now, the pics and shit still need to be added
Vanilla Creme: well when I say complete site, I mean the members area, not the tour that's been up for a couple months
Vanilla Creme: you said the members area tomorrow, as in the 22nd
------: well guess its not done
------: sorry
------: we cant even launch the site anyways, there still is NOT enough content and you have yet to upload any
Vanilla Creme: ????
------: so whats the point of haveing a complete site with no content
Vanilla Creme: ------, I uploaded plenty of content, and I have 16 sets now sitting here
------: in the folder i gave u ftp access to?
Vanilla Creme: I sent you the exact number you said you needed, and I have the exact number PLUS that you need for the first update
------: there is nothing on the server
Vanilla Creme: hahaha, then where did you get the pics for the tour?
Vanilla Creme: from the sets I sent MONTHS ago
------: the pics and video i have are all from the HD u sent
------: u have NOT sent shit since
------: and like i said i gotta go, i dont work weekends, talk to you monday
Vanilla Creme: I have plenty of sets ready, to be honest I have no intention of uploading them until I see some evidence you are going to see this through.

Transferred the domain to him??

He owns the domain and has all your content?

Without knowing the whole story that right there would alarm me.

I really do want to work with this guy if his statements are legit, which is why I'm posting here. If I out him, that pretty much kills any chance of seeing anything come from the 7 months I've invested in this.... and the HD i sent him that I didn't get back :-) (I know, I said don't worry about mailing it back yet).

But there's not a working site on the domain.... so he's not profiting from it right?... It did alarm me, but no risk, no reward eh?

1) what's your URL.. kinda curious to see it.
2) it doesn't take that long for Visa if you already have sites with Epoch. Epoch can do that shit FAST!
3) just fuckin' out this dude. Do you really want other people to go thru the same thing?
4) wait.. before you do get your domain back and seriously... NEVER, EVER give up a domain like that. EVER!

So you sent him content.. why would you think the only way he'd profit is to put it on THAT domain? Couldn't he just toss it into one of his own members areas?

Well he has a lot of sites, so I'm assuming they are with Epoch even though I have no idea what Epoch is. As the last icq conversation states, he wants to talk on monday, so armed with information from members of this board I can hopefully get to the bottom of the delay and we can either get back on track.

What do you mean "transferred the domain"?

Epoch & CCBill = credit card processing for your site.

Who paid the Visa app fees?

Good point. I've been looking at the free content from the updates on all his sites though and haven't seen anything of mine, wouldn't at least one pic or clip be on the free stuff?

I agree it would alarm me too,.....

I dont even see a reason to transfer anything as long as the worker / whatever you wanna call him, has access to your server he can work on line, even if he needs to work on it in a local machine he can do so then upload the changes to the server.

I'd like to know who this person is ???

you wont be fully armed with much, unless we know who this person is???

I bought the url with godaddy, he had me go into the members area and get a code that he used to move to domain to whoever he manages them with.

Epoch is the biller.

When you build a site, you need to find a way to charge people a monthly membership fee. well, Epoch is the company you go to. They and CCbill are the 2 top credit card billers. (there are a bunch of them but epoch and ccbill are like the top 2 companies)

So this guy is using epoch. When you build a site, you build a tour and a members area. Then you show epoch and they submit it to visa for Visa to approve the site for billing. When it's approved epoch sends you a special set of code. Your webmaster will then add those codes to the tour and when someone joins they go to epoch (using those codes) and when the person signs up, epoch begins billing them at your monthly rate until they cancel.

Epoch will also gain access to a protected password file on your server and when someone joins they add the username and password to that file and that person can now gain access to the members area.

There is a bit more to it than that, but that's the basics.

Well once you have a site with them, you can pretty much add as many sites as you want to and the process is much easier the 2nd time around. The first time is always hard as you pretty much have to learn all that shit on your own, but the 2nd time is much easier and it just gets easier.

So if this guy already has sites there, then it's not going to take 4 weeks. And certainly not 6 fucking months. You can submit a site to epoch and call them and tell them you submitted and ask them to rush it thru (and weather they do or not I dunno, maybe they just say they do, and because they're so quick anyway it doesn't matter) but regardless it takes a few days for compliance to check your shit and then they send it off to Visa I guess and then about a week or so after that, you get your codes.

In the meantime you generally start building your promo shit so while Visa approves, you're not just sitting around with your thumb up your butt.

Also visa does not do approval on the sites until they are done and ready. just a fyi.
As in finished members area and tour.

true dat. We can tell you to stay with him, or... call a lawyer.

I'm assuming he did. I never sent him any money.

Wow, and there's no way they can "approve" it without pictures in the blank boxes, and actual text in there instead of that "lorem ipsum" stuff right?

If I were you I would go ahead and get back all of my material, and find someone a lot more professional than this guy.

Even if he isn't a crook, he definitely sounds like he's pushing you around a bit, as if your too timid to confront him.. which is very "amateur night" of him, especially if your paying him to do the job.

:2 cents:

That was my gut feeling on that as well..... there is absolutely no members area, it's just a copy of the members are from another site.... and the tour has no photos in the boxes saying latest updates, etc, just a white space.... and the text is all "Lorem ipsum...." This is the good info I need when talking with him.

Whats your icq?... Get your shit back now!

you say you had a site that had done pretty well but you don't know who Epoch/CCBILL are or how long it should take to get VISA approval? was this site a paysite? if so what credit card processor were you with?

so you met a webmaster who is a GFY poster that runs some successful paysites, told him your idea for a new site and that you already had a fair bit of content and would shoot more - the deal was a partnership - you provide the content and he'd build it and market it within his program? correct? and it's 7 months since you gave him enough content to start the site and he's giving you the runaround on ICQ?

well it sounds like he's alot like many webmasters - not in any great hurry and you are.
the content doesn't belong to him - transferring the domain to him was dumb. why can't you do the site on your own?

say who it is - not like he's a thief - at worst it looks like he's lazy and not going to make a very good partner for you.

I never paid him any money, this site was going to be added to his "network" of sites, and I was to get a small percentage of the profits.

Thank you for the honest assesment. you are correct, I used a different biller, Verotel, and all I did with them was give them a username and password and they set everything up, it seemed easier than ccbill at the time.

And I am certainly hoping he's not a thief, I would just like to get the truth, if he doesn't want to do the site, just tell me and I'll find someone else. But everytime I talk with him he says it'll just be a few more weeks. It's like a rock and a hard place, if I leave him be, like I did for about 2 months, I see no change, or I could message him every week like I have the last month and there's the runaround thing....

What? Jesus how small of a precentage?

uummmm... I feel like someone confessing my salary to a coworker..... 25% of what's left over after hosting, affiliate, etc.... not sure what that translates to from the gross, maybe 10%? 8%?

is this the "designer"?

http://tinyurl.com/5dyo2g

Dude, what does your gut instinct tell ya?,..

I mean you just said You left him alone for a few months and got shit...

What makes you think leaveing him alone for a few more months or whatever will make a diferrence???

No, that's who did my old site.

oh jesus - please no - hahahahaha - dude if that's him just forget it, take the content and do the site on your own. 25% of nothing whether it's before expenses or after expenses still adds up to nothing.

My instinct unfortunately is not being very positive.

Not him. He did offer to do the site for me though if this falls through..... I take it you don't reccomend him? Jon Clark right? Or was that a fake name?

Get your shit back now. That is all I will say. I'm sure he/she will have a story as to why this and that and blah blah blah. But you aren't probably looking for more stories at this point. 7 months is long enough to get up a site. In my experience, any problems that a biller finds is a small one and should be a minor fix...as in a "within the hour" fix. If it walks like a duck, quacks like a duck...etc.

sounds like you are getting a shitty deal on every level. get your domain back and run.

oh - it's not him. if you're only getting 25% after all expenses i really don't think you'd make much with anybody but a top notch program and still maybe not - top notch programs really don't need to be doing partnerships.

I think there is a slim to no chance I will get anything back.... the domain would be nice, but as someone already stated, that is unlikely.....

This is a very popular program/person on this board, which is why it was so appealing.... irony is that when we were negotiating he said I could trust him, and used this board as a reference.

How do I get my content back?

looooooool

I would imagine you have the originals with full documentation so all I gotta say is DMCA and or lawyer

Say you gave it some thought and did not send your originals and only copy of them.

If so, pretty please and hope for best.

Excuse me?
A DMCA has no part of this and would not - unless that person began using the material without the others consent. Nothing to do at all with the potential cival matter at hand. - assuming worst case.

yep, originals, documentation, and the two bodies that are in most of the content....

So with DMCA I'm assuming I have to get a lawyer and file some sort of suit?

Oh yeah, it was just a copy. Originals are sitting on my computer and a copy on the server that is hosting our current site.

Unrelated... IMO, trustworthy people never say "trust me". They don't need to.