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Raaaaanty time! Can it be ranty time please? Please? 
BoB: In this industry I work in, most of the websites in this market use the same script base. Almost EVERYONE has it. Literally. Its very basic, so that can be a drawback, but that doesn't stop it from being the Microsoft Windows of its industry. (Partially, its thanks to me, lmao) We will call it "Msoft" for kicks. Msoft doesn't have many competitors, but there is a new one who is trying to take it out, we shall call it "TSS". TSS is owned half and half by Jerkface and Fargo. Guess who is nice and who is not.
A few months ago, I got this crazy good idea to launch a website that had lots of apps, addons, and widgets for the script. Worked out amazingly well, in fact.
BEGIN STORYRANT
So after a couple of months of just massive sales from the script users, we got a request from TSS to make our addons compatible with their script. We discussed it over, pretty much agreed it would be a lot of extra work to do it, but hey, why not.
So we worked and got a few of our games and addons to be compatible with TSS, even had them post an announcement to their users that they were partnered with us. Things were looking good. Fargo was all excited about it, thanked us for working with them, and tried to drive us business.
Not a single sale. Ever.
In fact! When we went to their forum to respond to some questions their users had about the apps, Jerkface went in and posted, publically, and lambasted us for not "exclusively working for them". I'm sorry, what? We politely explained that doing so would be business suicide, and he went rabid. Eventually, Fargo had to step in and e-leash Jerkface to try and stop him from making the company look bad.
The harassment continued, actually. I worked on a new premade website template, and when I made a quick post noting it on their website, Jerkface, again, publically demanded I make it exclusive for TSS. Again, I said no, and again, he went nuts until his partner told him to STFU.
Well, enter this month. Fargo sold his half of the company, sick and tired of Jerkface's antics, which have driven away almost all their customer base. Literally. There's tons and tons of blog entries, forum posts, etc with people talking about how rude Jerkface has been, how Jerkface scammed a couple of people out of their money....things like that.
This week I actually got an order from one of their customers to design his script. It would have been our first custom design for a TSS script. Note: would have been.
Turns out Jerkface banned me from their site the second he bought out Fargo.
When I frantically tried to contact Jerkface to find out WHY I was banned, especially in the middle of a project...he took five hours to respond. (Yes, he was online, I watched him change statuses several times. He flat out ignored me)
THEN, he claimed it was an automatic security feature because.....my IP range changed slightly, twice, in four months.
Now for the non-tech? Thats RIDICULOUS. IPs change quite often, especially with certain ISPs. For it to remain completely unchanged is a ridiculous idea, right up there with hoping that a million dollars will suddenly rain down from above.
I told him that was ridiculous, and told Fargo his excuse. Fargo went to log in to the forum (since he was still supposed to be an admin)....and lo and behold, Jerkface had locked him out too. Coincidence? Heck no.
I told Jerkface that I was extremely disgusted with his unprofessional behavior, and that I would no longer work with his script. Ever. On anything. I then contacted my client and passed along the conversation, letting him know that I was sorry, but we would not install the design onto the script...especially since it's hard to do that being banned and all.
Client was, understandably, quite upset with the whole thing, and tried to talk to Jerkface.
Jerkface lied almost completely to him on every single element. First, my IP had changed "multiple times in a short time period, obvious signs of an attempt to hack". Then, I had become severely impatient after waiting "only an hour or two" and become quite verbally abusive over it. The frosting on the cake was that he had "graciously unbanned me, but I refused to work with him over the incident".
BulllllllllllHOOKEY!!
I was stunned, and told the client as much. Client agreed, and said he knew he was lying, and (go, client!) he actually told Jerkface he knew he was!
I refunded the client for the coding costs, and offered to complete the design part of the project, but he'd have to get another coder. He thanked me profusely, and said he'd recommend me to anyone he could.
So yeah, now we have completely severed ties with them, removed all support for TSS completely. After spending so much time working on making sure that our apps worked for his script...cannot believe he'd turn on us like that. Sorta can, but I guess I hoped he'd have enough business sense not to tick us off like that.
BoB: In this industry I work in, most of the websites in this market use the same script base. Almost EVERYONE has it. Literally. Its very basic, so that can be a drawback, but that doesn't stop it from being the Microsoft Windows of its industry. (Partially, its thanks to me, lmao) We will call it "Msoft" for kicks. Msoft doesn't have many competitors, but there is a new one who is trying to take it out, we shall call it "TSS". TSS is owned half and half by Jerkface and Fargo. Guess who is nice and who is not.
A few months ago, I got this crazy good idea to launch a website that had lots of apps, addons, and widgets for the script. Worked out amazingly well, in fact.
BEGIN STORYRANT
So after a couple of months of just massive sales from the script users, we got a request from TSS to make our addons compatible with their script. We discussed it over, pretty much agreed it would be a lot of extra work to do it, but hey, why not.
So we worked and got a few of our games and addons to be compatible with TSS, even had them post an announcement to their users that they were partnered with us. Things were looking good. Fargo was all excited about it, thanked us for working with them, and tried to drive us business.
Not a single sale. Ever.
In fact! When we went to their forum to respond to some questions their users had about the apps, Jerkface went in and posted, publically, and lambasted us for not "exclusively working for them". I'm sorry, what? We politely explained that doing so would be business suicide, and he went rabid. Eventually, Fargo had to step in and e-leash Jerkface to try and stop him from making the company look bad.
The harassment continued, actually. I worked on a new premade website template, and when I made a quick post noting it on their website, Jerkface, again, publically demanded I make it exclusive for TSS. Again, I said no, and again, he went nuts until his partner told him to STFU.
Well, enter this month. Fargo sold his half of the company, sick and tired of Jerkface's antics, which have driven away almost all their customer base. Literally. There's tons and tons of blog entries, forum posts, etc with people talking about how rude Jerkface has been, how Jerkface scammed a couple of people out of their money....things like that.
This week I actually got an order from one of their customers to design his script. It would have been our first custom design for a TSS script. Note: would have been.
Turns out Jerkface banned me from their site the second he bought out Fargo.
When I frantically tried to contact Jerkface to find out WHY I was banned, especially in the middle of a project...he took five hours to respond. (Yes, he was online, I watched him change statuses several times. He flat out ignored me)
THEN, he claimed it was an automatic security feature because.....my IP range changed slightly, twice, in four months.
Now for the non-tech? Thats RIDICULOUS. IPs change quite often, especially with certain ISPs. For it to remain completely unchanged is a ridiculous idea, right up there with hoping that a million dollars will suddenly rain down from above.
I told him that was ridiculous, and told Fargo his excuse. Fargo went to log in to the forum (since he was still supposed to be an admin)....and lo and behold, Jerkface had locked him out too. Coincidence? Heck no.
I told Jerkface that I was extremely disgusted with his unprofessional behavior, and that I would no longer work with his script. Ever. On anything. I then contacted my client and passed along the conversation, letting him know that I was sorry, but we would not install the design onto the script...especially since it's hard to do that being banned and all.
Client was, understandably, quite upset with the whole thing, and tried to talk to Jerkface.
Jerkface lied almost completely to him on every single element. First, my IP had changed "multiple times in a short time period, obvious signs of an attempt to hack". Then, I had become severely impatient after waiting "only an hour or two" and become quite verbally abusive over it. The frosting on the cake was that he had "graciously unbanned me, but I refused to work with him over the incident".
BulllllllllllHOOKEY!!
I was stunned, and told the client as much. Client agreed, and said he knew he was lying, and (go, client!) he actually told Jerkface he knew he was!
I refunded the client for the coding costs, and offered to complete the design part of the project, but he'd have to get another coder. He thanked me profusely, and said he'd recommend me to anyone he could.So yeah, now we have completely severed ties with them, removed all support for TSS completely. After spending so much time working on making sure that our apps worked for his script...cannot believe he'd turn on us like that. Sorta can, but I guess I hoped he'd have enough business sense not to tick us off like that.
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