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OK, LOOOONG convoluted story here.
The client from http://www.customerssuck.com/board/s...ad.php?t=66233 and http://www.customerssuck.com/board/s...ad.php?t=65632 caused some MAJOR trouble last week.
My coder, who I'll call "Mervin", was out getting dinner when he was told that his PayPal card was declined. Surprised, Mervin hauled home to find out what was going on...found out that a payment from the client had been reversed.
Our contract states that if a client reverses payment, we have the right to remove all of our copyrighted material until the matter is resolved. AKA....his entire website.
Boom. We stripped his site, and notified him that until we got our money back, his site would be down. In case he was ignoring our emails, we even left a nice message on his homepage of "<client> has reversed his payments to us, as a part of the contract, his site has been removed until the situation is rectified."
He gets ahold of us, absolutely RAGING that we would do such a thing. I calmly pointed out that he was in the wrong, we had completed all of our work for him, weeks ago actually, and to suddenly reverse payments a month after the fact would not save him from his contract he accepted.
He demanded we put back up the site, as he is losing money every minute it is down. I told him no, until he removed the reversal from the Paypal payment, he would most definitely not have his site. Oh, well he did that because a month ago he emailed us about some bugs. We hadn't replied in 3 weeks, so he figured that meant we were in violation.
...Wait, what?
We checked our emails, had absolutely nothing from him. I asked him why, in god's name, if we hadn't replied in 3 weeks....he didn't simply IM me and ask if we'd gotten the email.
RAWR RAWR ITS NOT HIS FAULT, ITS OUR FAULT FOR NOT GETTING IT.
Suuure it is, pal. Ok, still not getting your site back until you give my coder the money back.
RAWR RAWR THIS IS BLACKMAIL
No, no it isn't. You violated your contract, and because of one tiny bug, which is possible, even though we tested for bugs and found none...you decided to violate the contract in a BIG way. That, was boneheaded.
Eventually he did release the hold, and I had Mervin pop the site right back on up. Mervin went further in to check on the bug, and discovered that our client was not paying attention to the character limit on a text field, and trying to go beyond it. So...not a bug. Just client trying to break the laws of the site.
I guess that wasn't all though...I haven't posted about them, but several times beforehand, this same client has ordered items, and received them....and then held my money hostage. Mervin also works as a freelancer coder, so our client would tell Mervin that I wasn't getting paid for my (unrelated) stuff, until Mervin finished his work for him. Honestly, thats illegal, as Mervin is a separate company, but I guess our client didn't care. Mervin, in an attempt to try and save me as much stress, would do the work super fast, to try and make sure he paid me for my work. It was wrong, and honestly, we sorta fed his SCness by allowing this.
So...with that, and this recent incident, Mervin was sick of it. He went onto a major forum that is frequented by almost everyone in that industry, and posted about what happened. He noted in the post that it was his opinion that our client was untrustworthy, and that it was a poor reflection onto how the site would perform.
Our client, again, went psycho. He posted some screenshots of chats with us....that had been altered to include some rather horrible stuff. Mostly, it was stuff that Mervin supposedly said about me. Funnily enough, the altered parts were in no way similar to how Mervin talks, and said some things that I personally know he would never say in a million years. So, obviously bad fakes.
They pretty much duked it out on the forum, until I told Mervin to cut it out, give them some rope, let them hang themselves with it...which they promptly proceeded to do, and in style.
First, our client accused us of delivering the site MONTHS after he ordered it.
He ordered the site in the beginning of June, and told us he wanted to start the project in July. I said that was ok, and informed him I would take on other projects in the meantime. Suddenly a week later he popped up with all the money, and demanded we start on the project. I said sure, but that he needed to understand we were working on other things...he said ok. So, the original deadline was end of July...we had it finished before the end of June. Well before deadline.
Second accusation was that we stole the design from someone else.
What? When asked to provide said original site, he could come up with nothing. Not surprising, considering he watched me make the site from a blank canvas. :P
Third accusation was that the site was RIDDLED with bugs.
Yes, bugs caused by his trying to break the database rules by putting things in where they should not go.
Well, we've been documenting all this, and all in all, we have a pretty darn good case of libel against him right now. But, we don't have the money for a lawyer, so we figured we'd let it lie for now. Right?
Day before yesterday, I got an IM asking how I was going to deal with the suit. What suit? Wha?
Turns out client has changed his AIM status to "speaking with my attorney, gonna open up a case of slander against someone!" And yes, he meant us. As he told some people on his site. :P
So yeah, he's apparently revving up to sue us. Should be interesting, considering we have his contract he agreed to, documentation of HIS libel, and several of his OWN site members who have agreed to swear in statements against him. Oh, and did I mention a ton of the major companies in that industry, several of which his site relies on to work...have told us that if he does try to sue us, they will provide us any assistance we need?
He's already screwed if he tries to go through with it. I sorta hope he does, because we could counter back and win damages.
...I hope I made some semblance of sense. XD
The client from http://www.customerssuck.com/board/s...ad.php?t=66233 and http://www.customerssuck.com/board/s...ad.php?t=65632 caused some MAJOR trouble last week.
My coder, who I'll call "Mervin", was out getting dinner when he was told that his PayPal card was declined. Surprised, Mervin hauled home to find out what was going on...found out that a payment from the client had been reversed.
Our contract states that if a client reverses payment, we have the right to remove all of our copyrighted material until the matter is resolved. AKA....his entire website.
Boom. We stripped his site, and notified him that until we got our money back, his site would be down. In case he was ignoring our emails, we even left a nice message on his homepage of "<client> has reversed his payments to us, as a part of the contract, his site has been removed until the situation is rectified."
He gets ahold of us, absolutely RAGING that we would do such a thing. I calmly pointed out that he was in the wrong, we had completed all of our work for him, weeks ago actually, and to suddenly reverse payments a month after the fact would not save him from his contract he accepted.
He demanded we put back up the site, as he is losing money every minute it is down. I told him no, until he removed the reversal from the Paypal payment, he would most definitely not have his site. Oh, well he did that because a month ago he emailed us about some bugs. We hadn't replied in 3 weeks, so he figured that meant we were in violation.
...Wait, what?
We checked our emails, had absolutely nothing from him. I asked him why, in god's name, if we hadn't replied in 3 weeks....he didn't simply IM me and ask if we'd gotten the email.
RAWR RAWR ITS NOT HIS FAULT, ITS OUR FAULT FOR NOT GETTING IT.
Suuure it is, pal. Ok, still not getting your site back until you give my coder the money back.
RAWR RAWR THIS IS BLACKMAIL
No, no it isn't. You violated your contract, and because of one tiny bug, which is possible, even though we tested for bugs and found none...you decided to violate the contract in a BIG way. That, was boneheaded.
Eventually he did release the hold, and I had Mervin pop the site right back on up. Mervin went further in to check on the bug, and discovered that our client was not paying attention to the character limit on a text field, and trying to go beyond it. So...not a bug. Just client trying to break the laws of the site.
I guess that wasn't all though...I haven't posted about them, but several times beforehand, this same client has ordered items, and received them....and then held my money hostage. Mervin also works as a freelancer coder, so our client would tell Mervin that I wasn't getting paid for my (unrelated) stuff, until Mervin finished his work for him. Honestly, thats illegal, as Mervin is a separate company, but I guess our client didn't care. Mervin, in an attempt to try and save me as much stress, would do the work super fast, to try and make sure he paid me for my work. It was wrong, and honestly, we sorta fed his SCness by allowing this.
So...with that, and this recent incident, Mervin was sick of it. He went onto a major forum that is frequented by almost everyone in that industry, and posted about what happened. He noted in the post that it was his opinion that our client was untrustworthy, and that it was a poor reflection onto how the site would perform.
Our client, again, went psycho. He posted some screenshots of chats with us....that had been altered to include some rather horrible stuff. Mostly, it was stuff that Mervin supposedly said about me. Funnily enough, the altered parts were in no way similar to how Mervin talks, and said some things that I personally know he would never say in a million years. So, obviously bad fakes.
They pretty much duked it out on the forum, until I told Mervin to cut it out, give them some rope, let them hang themselves with it...which they promptly proceeded to do, and in style.
First, our client accused us of delivering the site MONTHS after he ordered it.
He ordered the site in the beginning of June, and told us he wanted to start the project in July. I said that was ok, and informed him I would take on other projects in the meantime. Suddenly a week later he popped up with all the money, and demanded we start on the project. I said sure, but that he needed to understand we were working on other things...he said ok. So, the original deadline was end of July...we had it finished before the end of June. Well before deadline.
Second accusation was that we stole the design from someone else.
What? When asked to provide said original site, he could come up with nothing. Not surprising, considering he watched me make the site from a blank canvas. :P
Third accusation was that the site was RIDDLED with bugs.
Yes, bugs caused by his trying to break the database rules by putting things in where they should not go.
Well, we've been documenting all this, and all in all, we have a pretty darn good case of libel against him right now. But, we don't have the money for a lawyer, so we figured we'd let it lie for now. Right?
Day before yesterday, I got an IM asking how I was going to deal with the suit. What suit? Wha?
Turns out client has changed his AIM status to "speaking with my attorney, gonna open up a case of slander against someone!" And yes, he meant us. As he told some people on his site. :P
So yeah, he's apparently revving up to sue us. Should be interesting, considering we have his contract he agreed to, documentation of HIS libel, and several of his OWN site members who have agreed to swear in statements against him. Oh, and did I mention a ton of the major companies in that industry, several of which his site relies on to work...have told us that if he does try to sue us, they will provide us any assistance we need?
He's already screwed if he tries to go through with it. I sorta hope he does, because we could counter back and win damages.
...I hope I made some semblance of sense. XD
I AM the evil bastard!
.
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