Deb's Web LLC

I refer to the line in the invoice that the complainant mentions which is this:sitename (new) to date and the $183.00 charge.I changed the domain name he refers to as “sitename” in the line above so as not toidentify the complainant. He must have missed the word “new” which means it’s work thatwas done for one of his sites housed on *my* server and never launched because hewanted to proceed with two others. Had it been work done on his live site it would havesaid “existing.” I cannot give links here or I could show you the difference. They’re twoseparate sites and this fee has nothing whatsoever to do with his existing site where thework was done and for which I didn’t charge him.? When the complainant found that he was unhappy with *when* I work he had theoption to terminate the contract he signed just as I did.? I refer to his comment: “If she knew what she was doing she never would have donethe work she did, the way she did it, whether it worked or not …”I do not need to justify to *anyone* how or when I work. That is my business and no oneelse’s. He is the only client I’ve ever had that tried to tell me when or how I’m supposed towork which I find very disrespectful unprofessional talk from a supposed business person. Idon’t tell him how to run his business and he doesn’t get to tell me how to run mine and it’sone of the reasons I terminated the contract.The complainant stated: “I have since had another programmer take care of the problemusing a Child Theme so the original theme remaining intact and functioning and onlycharge me a small fee to do so” only proves what I said earlier - he already has the sites asin he took them without paying me for the work I did. If he didn’t have them he wouldn’thave been able to have someone else work on them.The fact that eventually he was locked out of the sites is also in the contract, so why thiswas a surprise to him I have no idea:? If payment is not received by the invoice due date all work for the invoiced projectswill cease until payment is received. Suspension of the account and any associatedfees may be assessed.This comment is yet another that shows how he talks out of both sides of his mouth: “Ihave a perfectly acceptable hosting account that was set up for these sites she could have used.” I have at least three comments from the client referencing how he wanted tohandle the hosting:1. I have no problem using your hosting service if I am using you for the sites. Just letme know cost. I can find another use for the SiteGround account I am open tosuggestions as my preference is to host where my programmer is mostcomfortable.2. I will have to look at the SiteGround package to see what is included but I wouldrather pay more and use a host that the person doing my sites is comfortable with.3. I am ok with the 10 site deal. Lets do a quarterly to start and once we getcomfortable I will just pay it yearly.My comment … “Currently in order for me to add 10 more sites I'd have to purchase morespace for my account because I'm running tight right now. If I add even two more sites I'llbe too tight. Purchasing more is not a problem, I can do that at any time. What I can't do isto match Siteground's pricing so you're better off sticking with them money-wise.”I never told him I would be uncomfortable working on another server. I did tell him I chargean additional fee to work on one other server (host name left out and not the onementioned above) as they are a horrendous host and difficult to work on. So I didrecommend he not use one specific host. I was upfront with what I’d have to do and that hewould save money by keeping the hosting service he already had. Nobody twisted his armto host his sites with me but in order to do that I had to purchase more space & RAM whichI would not have done without sites to add to my service.The bottom line is this:1. The complainant owes me money for services performed.2. He doesn’t need what he’s stolen so his complaint is nothing more than pureharassment and an attempt to intimidate me.3. He had the same option to terminate as I did and he didn’t.4. He signed a contract which he does not wish to honor in his attempt to getsomething for nothing.It’s beyond obvious this issue is not going to be resolved via the Revdex.com. I don’t care if the Revdex.comwishes to mark it unresolved - I’m done. I’ve spent more than enough time on this whichtakes away from working for my clients and my own personal time.At this point I’m going to let the collection agency I had to hire for this handle things.

If anyone should be reporting either one of the parties in this matter to the Revdex.com it shouldbe me.Did he hire my company to do 10 websites? Yes.Did he pay up-front for hosting? Yes.Did he send me information (direction) on some theme features? Yes. I didn’t ask him to dothis and in fact was going to...

do it myself, however he took it upon himself to do so and nowhe’s twisting it to attempt to make me look bad. I have many years of experience withWordpress themes. I told him I wasn’t familiar with the specific themes he had alreadychosen but that I was sure I could figure it out. A new theme is always a learning curve nomatter what theme it is or who’s learning it. There are thousands upon thousands ofWordpress themes and there isn’t a web designer out there that could possibly know howto work in all of them straight out of the box because that’s impossible.I did ask him for FTP access which he should have had from the original hosting service. Ittook approximately two weeks for him to give me most of it, but some importantinformation was missing. By then I’d already given up waiting for it.Did I try to set up several features that didn’t work? No. There was one feature that wasn’tworking for him but was working for me. This can be caused by many issues which typicallymust be sorted out and worked through until one find’s the solution which can be a verytime consuming process of trial and error. One reason this problem can occur is when twopeople are in the administrative screens at the same time which was the case when hereported the problem to me. I told him this and then I logged out telling him to let me knowif it worked after I logged out leaving only him logged in. He said he was on his way out andwould try later but instead promptly disappeared for about a week and was upset it wasn’tworking when he returned. I hand not been able to duplicate the problem and things wereworking fine on my end so I had no choice but to wait for him. He would have needed to tryit on his end and then provide me with some information in order to find the source of theproblem in order to fix it if in fact being solely logged in did not resolve the issue. Thisnever happened because he never let me know, he just continued to complain about iteven though I reminded him he said he was going to try it and let me know.He did send me several helpful links that although I was grateful for not having to huntthem up myself, I didn’t ask him for them. It was his choice to do this. Did I abandon the work after being questioned? No. The complainant signed a contractwhich included a clause that the contract could be terminated by either party for anyreason with a 10 day written notice to the other party. Due to his incessant questions,constant reminders of his deadlines, him telling me how I should be doing my job, saying Ididn’t know what I was doing, telling me that he could do it faster, that I should do this orthat … it was obvious to me that the two of us were simply not a good match for workingtogether. I’d previously told him if he continued treating me the way he was that I wouldwalk away so when he continued it was simply time for me to leave. His condescending,often critical comments, blaming me for him missing his deadlines and constant badgeringwas more stress than I was willing to work under for any amount of money and so Iterminated the contract. I did not abandon anything, I gave him a chance to stop hisbehavior and he didn’t so termination should have come as no surprise to him.The contract called for a $1500 retainer for which I told him I would get as far as I could onall ten sites. He agreed to this and then back-pedaled telling me no less than three timesthat he hadn’t budgeted for $1500 and that he would pay me $300 to get started and thebalance would be paid the following week. He said he didn’t like how I calculated theretainer cost which is not something he has to like, it is what it is. I never saw the remainingretainer after he paid the $300 and now he’s attempting to not only cheat me out of moneyhe’s owes me but trying to discredit me and my business via the Revdex.com.Upon my termination notice to him he replied “You are right, I don't think we are a goodmatch. I will work on getting the sites moved over the weekend and will go through theattached bill when I get some time later today or tomorrow.” There was nothing to “gothrough” the invoices are very simple and straightforward.In the beginning the client told me he was already two weeks behind getting his websitescompleted including telling me “I have lost quite a bit of time dealing with people whoapparently are learning on the job.” He told me he’d already set deadlines for sending outmailings and what not prior to him contacting me and before his websites were completedno matter who did them. I have no idea why anyone would do this since he didn’t have aset date for launching any of them nor did I ever promise him a launch date. It was obviousby his constant badgering that he expected me to fix his deadline problem, although hedenied it when I told him that I didn’t set up the deadlines and that I would do what I couldto help him but was not there to fix his problem. He set these deadlines on his own, itwasn’t my responsibility to make good on them. If he was so concerned and according tohim could do things faster and better than me, he should have just gone ahead anddeveloped the sites.Did I overcharge him for a simple change to another site? No. In fact, I didn’t charge him forit at all. I did it as a freebie. It’s not on the invoices so I don’t know where he got this. In the beginning he told me several times before he signed the contract that “I have noproblem paying for a couple hours of your time to look at it.” I told him an hour’s worthwould be fine and that if I went over I would then bill him for any additional time once wegot going. I did then charge him for just under 30 minutes time when the review ran overthe hour I thought it would. He offered two hours and got by with an hour and a half andnow he’s complaining and saying I overcharged him?Did I only work on his sites on weekends? No. I was upfront with him when I told himseveral times that I do projects (initial site development is a project) on weekends andduring the week I take care of smaller things/continuing with a site once it’s got the basicsdone. His sites were just to the point where I was beginning to work on them during theweek but he kept harping at me about only working on his sites on weekends. I also toldhim that to do site development during the week would just delay his projects rather thanmaking them happen faster. He seemed to think it was his right to tell me how to run mybusiness and schedule my workload which was part of the reason we were not a good fit towork together. I don’t tell my clients how to do their jobs and they don’t tell me how to domine. This has worked for the 22 years I’ve been in business, it’s called having respect forone another.Did I lock him out of his sites? Yes, but only *after* he stole the work I did that he hasn’t yetpaid for. After I terminated our contract he told me that he’d work on moving the sitesover the upcoming weekend. I (mis-)trusted he would honor the contract and pay mewithin the contract termination time frame so I didn’t lock him out at that point. Insteadtwo days later I find he’s already moved the sites to another host and I’m still not paidwhat’s owed. What he did with the work he stole, I don’t know. The sites had been movedand were showing being hosted elsewhere. Now when I check he’s switched the domainback to my hosting service and the sites don’t display under their original domain names. Isuspect that since he had quite a number of domain names already purchased he’s usingmy work on other sites. I don’t have a record for what those domain names are so I can’tcheck.Additionally, it’s common practice for web designers to suspend their accounts if they don’tpay their bills. Had I locked him out and had he then paid his bills I would have released hissites to him. By not paying his bills he caused his own lockout.I don’t understand how anyone can say they received an inflated invoice when they did notdo the work. This to me is how this client decides for himself what he’s going to pay andwhat he’s not going to pay in his attempt to get something for nothing. He gets people towork for him, treats them badly so they leave and then refuses to pay his bills.When I generated his final invoice I credited him back the hosting fees he’d already paid. Ihave never refunded/credited hosting fees past one month’s service but he received a full $150 credit. In addition, I’m a reseller for hosting services. It cost me money to have myserver upgraded to accommodate his ten sites for which I didn’t charge him. In order toreverse that it will cost me more money for which I have not charged him. I have no ideawhere he gets the $450 figure since his outstanding pending collection action balance isjust $203.21. Even after the fees for preparing his account for collection ($75.00 per invoiceand there are 2 invoices) are added his outstanding balance will be $353.21.There’s no need for me to give him my work. #1 he hasn’t paid for it and #2 he’s already gotit because he stole it.Below are a few clauses in the contract he signed and then violated:Cancelation or Termination: Both parties have the right to terminate an individual projector this agreement. Project cancelation may be given via email. Terminating this agreementrequires a 5-business day written notice to the other via fax or U.S. Mail. All outstanding feesowed to the Sub-contractor for work already performed are due and payable in full via PayPalwithin 5 business days of the date on the notice of termination. All previously paid retainers arenon-refundable and remain the property of the Sub-contractor. Any credit on the Contractor’saccount will be deducted from any outstanding balance due at the time of termination.? On request, the Sub-contractor will provide a ballpark estimate for each project, obtainwritten email approval to proceed and receive a retainer from the Contractor beforeproceeding with any project. At the end of a project any excess retainer funds will beapplied as an account credit to the Contractor’s account to be used for future work.? A retainer for each project is required before work will begin. Retainers and payments ofany kind are non-refundable. Remaining funds at the end of a project are credited to theContractor’s account.? When a project retainer is depleted remaining work for the project is billed monthly.? If payment is not received by the invoice due date all work for the invoiced project willcease until payment is received. Suspension of the account and any associated fees maybe assessed.That pretty much sums it up.