I recently designed a layout for a guy who owns a web hosting company in Turkey, which also runs in english, for $150 US. The site is www.egehost.com (english: www.egehost.com/english) and I have designed the current layout.

Everything was going well and I uploaded the layout to his site and then he said he would pay me. He now refuses to pay me for no reason at all and now I can't get my money!?!?!?

I was wondering if anyone can help at all? Does any one know who I can contact to help me? I have evidence that he will not pay me, with emails and ICQ history.

I know it was stupid to upload the layout before payment, but if you could please help I would be very grateful.

Thanks for your time.

Originally posted by Rivalry

I know it was stupid to upload the layout before payment, but if you could please help I would be very grateful.

Thanks for your time.
It wasn't stupid - we always should try to start trust relationships, but sometimes, we find bad guys...
I think you should find why he doesn't whish to pay you.
If it's because he's a bad guy - just tell everybody how bad he is. But before this you should clarify everything.

Ok, thanks for the reply.

The thing is he said he would pay if I uploaded it straight away. Once I did that he didn't stay in contact, he then said this:

taken from ICQ history:

"here's Turkey. Lawyer couldn't do anything..."

and..

"everything is free in Turkey... You don't know anything about here. Childporn, Cheats, ...etc...

If you come to Turkey for stealing web design, everything laugh you!:)"

I am not sure on what to do?????

Originally posted by Rivalry

I am not sure on what to do?????

You should make a site about him, write about this site to all web design forums. This site can be not only about him, but where people will publice data about such guys like him.

ugh, i hate when people do that to you...

i've been ripped off twice... well second time, i got my money... but thats because I've got a lawyer to send him a warning-like lawsuit and he paid up.

the first time, he didn't pay me... and since i wasn't experienced i had already given him the design and all

to this day i still haven't been paid by the first person... but his web business did go down :rolleyes: and i had nothing to do with it.

the second time, i just thought that people like the first guy was sparse and gave the guy the design... he refused to pay until the lawsuit warning :)

ever since that time, i will NEVER EVER give people designs... get an upfront fee... then just show them screenshots of the design and wait until they pay the full amount before emailing/setting up the site for them

unfortunately, its the only logical/safe way to do design business on the web...

and the only thing you can do is spread the incident around so that his business would suffer... although this probably won't get him to pay you, but his business will go down

other then that, im afraid there's nothing you can really do :(

sorry that had to happen to ya, i've had it happen to me 2 times before i realized the importance of upfront fees and payment before delivery

its like telling a car salesman "hey, ill pay you for the car after i get the keys and drive out of the lot to my home... after I get home, THEN ill pay for the car" - this doesn't work out :angry:

Hahaha this is so funny, whats his icq? i'll give him a lesson he won't forget. I would hate to live in Turkey (free childporn ?!?) lol. They way he spells and acts just makes me laugh rofl.
Originally posted by Rivalry
Ok, thanks for the reply.

The thing is he said he would pay if I uploaded it straight away. Once I did that he didn't stay in contact, he then said this:

taken from ICQ history:

"here's Turkey. Lawyer couldn't do anything..."

and..

"everything is free in Turkey... You don't know anything about here. Childporn, Cheats, ...etc...

If you come to Turkey for stealing web design, everything laugh you!:)"

I am not sure on what to do?????

Well some possible tricks are:

1) Contact his ISP and let them know. Chances are nothing will happen but you never know.
2) Try getting in contact with Turkey officials, chances are they wont do anything either =).


I encourage the people who do design for my clients to always put "NOT ACTUAL DESIGN" on every image as a transparent layer or whatever. Once the client pays he gets the real version. This way they can't rip you off.


Have a good one and good luck nabbin this guy.

Btw i'm not laughing at you, but the turkish fellow, give me his icq, ill scare him, he'll payup. Also AbuHasan what nationallity are you?

If he hasn't cut off your FTP access yet, you could go in and delete the files you uploaded. H eprobably has already, so that may not be an option.

If not, you'll probably have to chalk it up to experience. Many people, myself included get at least 50% of a design job up front, especially with new customers. I make some exceptions for existing customers (whose sites I also host) though never for a new one.

With Pay Pal and other services, there are many ways for a customer to pay immediately if they want something fast. If they're not willing to do that, they can hit the road and keep travelling the information superhighway.

You've been suckered. You can learn from it and keep it from happening again. It's better to have learnt that lesson from a small job like this than from a big one.

I'm a firm believer that what you put out in life comes back to you many times (so you better watch what you put out there). Thus, while you may have unintentionally paid for a lesson in business principles (and the lack of them), you can rest assured that the turkey in Turkey will get his just rewards.

His cheating and other reprehensible characteristics are no doubt part of a pattern of behavior that will catch up to him and reward him accordingly.

Alpha>>>
Is there away you could get your lawyer to help me out here? send him a notice? or can I contact him at all?

I really would appreciate it??

Also, I looked at your site. It looks very good and I was wondering if you needed anyone to work for you. I can send you a list of sites I have done.

Also, I can't get into his ftp cause he cut the connection. I don't know what I can do?

Thanks again.

if you have a good bit of bandwidth to waste you can packet his server once a month, his ISP will get fairly peed off and you will be able to use 6 gig of bandwidth each month thus costing him ALOT of money!
Most people limit sites to a few GB per month, if he keeps going over then they will shut his site down!

each month e-mail him with your demands from a hotmail account and that you will stop if he pays!, the internet can be a nasty place if you are unfair.

if that fails you can always pay people to navigate around the security of the web server and deface his site! i have known people to resort to this method before!!

good luck and if you need any ideas i know a couple of people that would be willing to help you!

PLEASE NOTE I WILL NOT BE HELD RESPONSIBLE FOR YOUR ACTIONS!! OR ANY ACTIONS RESULTING FROM THE TEXT OF THIS POST!

Originally posted by Rivalry
Alpha>>>
Is there away you could get your lawyer to help me out here? send him a notice? or can I contact him at all?


ill have to contact him, but i don't think he can/wants to deal with legal problems outside of the major english speaking countries... so ill get back to you.

in either case, now you know to charge a %age fee upfront and wait for their final payment before giving them the design

Originally posted by Rivalry

Also, I looked at your site. It looks very good and I was wondering if you needed anyone to work for you. I can send you a list of sites I have done.


k, thanks... the site is coming along.. just as soon as i finish the actual design, the whole page should be up (god, i hope within the month! i've been so lazy with it because i have other important things i needed to worry about)

and if you mean, you want to work as one of the designers for Alpha Digital Studios... then email me your "portfolio" (email: john@alpha-digital.com)... i've been meaning to get some designers for ADS since a few weeks ago but can't launch our services officially yet until june-ish :)

later and g'luck

Thakns alot alpha! That would be great if you could help out with your lawyer. All I want is a warning letter. I think he will give in then.

And I will e-mail you a portfolio soon.

Thanks for the reccomendation guys. If you have anymore ideas then put them up. That woul be great.

Thanks again.

There is something else you might be able to do. Depending on what you did with the site design, it might be partly bluff (or gray area, if you prefer). You may hold the copyright to it since he hasn't paid you. Ordinarily, a person doing the work for another for pay has no copyright protection, the client does. However, you haven't been paid and still retain the rights until you have been paid.

Many hosts will remove sites that violate copyrights, even though the reposnsibility is not theirs. You could contact the host, inform them that some copyrighted material you own appears on that site, and politely request that they remove it.

There's more than one way to skin a skinflint turkey!

Where is his site located? I did a traceroute and the IP address 66.33.42.90 appears to be with Dialtone. I would get onto them. The best you can hope for is that the site is removed (as some form of revenge). Don't forget you have an admission of guilt in that last ICQ.

But realistically, your on a cost/benefit analysis you should just treat it as a lesson, and move on and not make that mistake in future. Also, thanks for posting about it because this information is a reminder to all of us about sticking to sensible rules and procedures in business regardless of how much we all want to work in a more trusting and relaxed manner.

"here's Turkey. Lawyer couldn't do anything..."
"everything is free in Turkey... You don't know anything about here. Childporn, Cheats, ...etc...

If you come to Turkey for stealing web design, everything laugh you"

Thats a complete bluff. Turkey is in Europe, as I am, and Europe is not Russia (nothing againgst Russia, e.g. there are some software companies I really like).

Just went to that site, and it is giving an error of 404, so perhaps the host deleted it (that's if you asked).

I do hate people like that :angry:

Rgds.

Gareth C. Fowler

The thing you didnt do to prevent this:
When I had one of my sites designed, the designer made me pay 50% upfront and then I had to send him the agreement I signed for Liability of content what so ever. The design was showed to me on the designer's website and I paid full then he would send the design over email and sent a CD with the design and the raw files to me. I think this is a better way for this genre of transaction because if I didnt want to pay, the designer will atleast have 50% of the revenue instead of losing 100% of it.

-Just my opinion.

Originally posted by Synergy
The thing you didnt do to prevent this:
When I had one of my sites designed, the designer made me pay 50% upfront and then I had to send him the agreement I signed for Liability of content what so ever. The design was showed to me on the designer's website and I paid full then he would send the design over email and sent a CD with the design and the raw files to me. I think this is a better way for this genre of transaction because if I didnt want to pay, the designer will atleast have 50% of the revenue instead of losing 100% of it.

-Just my opinion.

that is the best way... for BOTH sides :)

Thanks for the help guys. I am working on it and i will be sure to post what happens in the future.

Thanks.

Originally posted by Rivalry
Ok, thanks for the reply.

The thing is he said he would pay if I uploaded it straight away. Once I did that he didn't stay in contact, he then said this:

taken from ICQ history:

"here's Turkey. Lawyer couldn't do anything..."

and..

"everything is free in Turkey... You don't know anything about here. Childporn, Cheats, ...etc...

If you come to Turkey for stealing web design, everything laugh you!"

I am not sure on what to do?????

------------------------------------------------------------
First of all I could not understand why all of you talking as everything above happens only in Turkey...
Also I am living in Turkey but I didnt see any Turkish Childporn , any kind of porn in Turkey coming from abroad I mean the people in the films and pictures are not Turkish... :)))))
I am sorry if I am rude but thats reality....
Also stealing web design is a global problem....

Rivalry: If you can prove that the design on egehost is designed by you, send me a mail I'll give you lawyer telephones and adresses.

Last year, we paid 650$ for a toplist script which was talked to be programmed only for us to a Russia asp coder.
But we get nothing.........:((
is that means to you Russia is place with full of every bad thing????
NO , definately no......
Its all about the coders character it is not about Russia and also
same as Turkey

CU

Originally posted by xtstrike
if you have a good bit of bandwidth to waste you can packet his server once a month, his ISP will get fairly peed off and you will be able to use 6 gig of bandwidth each month thus costing him ALOT of money!
Most people limit sites to a few GB per month, if he keeps going over then they will shut his site down!

each month e-mail him with your demands from a hotmail account and that you will stop if he pays!, the internet can be a nasty place if you are unfair.

if that fails you can always pay people to navigate around the security of the web server and deface his site! i have known people to resort to this method before!!

good luck and if you need any ideas i know a couple of people that would be willing to help you!

PLEASE NOTE I WILL NOT BE HELD RESPONSIBLE FOR YOUR ACTIONS!! OR ANY ACTIONS RESULTING FROM THE TEXT OF THIS POST!

This is probably the single dumbest thing I have ever read. The fact that script kiddies today think that what they do is okay is appauling. A good friend of mine who is considered to be one of the top security consultants in the world once came face to face with a cracker who had constantly been trying to penetrate his network and who was making rude personal comments to my friend over the net. Want to know what happened when they met face to face at Defcon? He beat the crap out of him.

Virtual actions have real consequences. I don't condone beating up nor do I condone cracking or scripting. When people packet other people all they do is prove they are immature and have a weak understanding of networks.

-davidu

8 months old... my only question: Why?

When I do work for someone I always ask for a % upfront of the amount I'm getting for the design. I heard about to many people getting screwed and I dont want to take the risk. I recommend that you get a % next time so you don't get screwed again. I hope that you got payed or get the design one.

Originally posted by TimPD
I hope that you get payed or get the design one. GOT paid. The thread's eight months old!

There's been a real rash of these lately... people dredging up old threads with a search (I guess) and reviving them by posting as if they're recent. I think the default for a search, instead of "any date" should be three months, or maybe one.

"everything is free in Turkey... You don't know anything about here. Childporn, Cheats, ...etc... ------> someone has posted this but this is the reflection of his ignorance.... Childporn is not allowed in turkey. And many people are prisoned because of this reason. Also our government has thought of blocking access to all freeservers.com sites because of childporn, satanism and wilderness included sites. It can be debated that if it is true or not to block access to freeservers.com but you guys all should know that Childporn is not allowed in turkey.

what you should do, is go to warez chats and say that you are him, and that your site is unhackable............just a thought

Originally posted by freakysid
Where is his site located? I did a traceroute and the IP address 66.33.42.90 appears to be with Dialtone. I would get onto them. The best you can hope for is that the site is removed (as some form of revenge). Don't forget you have an admission of guilt in that last ICQ.
Trying whois -h whois.arin.net 66.33.70.190
Dialtone, Inc. (NETBLK-DIALTONEINTERNET-2)
4101 SW 47th Ave Suite 101
Davie, FL 33314
US


Yep... dialtone servers...

I would provide DialTone with proof of your copyright ownership and request that they suspend his account pending further enquiries...

If nothing else you can cause this idiot some serious inconvenience.

But like everyone else, here you learn your lessons and go from there...

I wonder... :rolleyes:

The post was started May 15, 2001
the last time Rivalry posted was May 16, 2001

I don't think this guy is even around anymore for our advice, I wonder what ever happened though.. too bad not everyone posts follow-ups.

As for laywers? FORGET ABOUT IT! YOU are in the U.S., HE is NOT! Do you think a turkish lawyer would sue him for you? NO WAY! AND, the US has laws against things like D.o.S attacks(like the suggested PINGING!) The U.S. government would probably help HIM sue YOU! GOOD IDEA, but *****HE***** will probably sue YOU and WIN! You could end up really getting hurt. The Website Idea is a good one. It won't do much though.

One guy ripped me off and last I heard, he had a cushy job high up at Earthlink!(He effectively stole software from me (In a way few of you would believe.), built a business with OTHER peoples money(gutted it), and sold the majority of the assets to EARTHLINK!).

At least I know another way to get ripped off, so I can lessen its impact next time. He better hope I NEVER hear of a deal he is involved with. I will make sure ALL people know of his past exploits. He is lucky I didn't tell earthlink.(Although it is suspicious about the circumstances.....)

***** ripped me off, and I mention that a lot. At least I know I dissuade some.

You SHOULD have a website setup identical to your customers, and say "pay me, and I will install it myself". If you are asked to do this again, and it is a TRULY dynamic website, you could setup a software bomb.(A program to wipeout the site unless you input some command. AGAIN, it is illegal, and AGAIN it could land you in trouble(In THIS case, it probably wouldn't even be prosecuted.), but it is harder to prove, and the U.S. government would probably not get involved.
The real problem with software bombs is like one I heard about that was placed on an airline system.(TICKETING and BILLING, NOT the actual planes) It wiped out their whole system. The programmer warned them, and was in the right, but lost the case. In such a case it could have been fought for repair costs, denial of service, punitive, and interfering with a commercial carrier.

ALSO, make sure you disable it, and that it works PROPERLY with a lot of available time. Although I never did this, I would have been happier if I did with that guy I told you about earlier.

What is this turkish guy to claim though?

Steve

this issue is almost 1 year old, sheesh...

Originally posted by JKLIVIN
what you should do, is go to warez chats and say that you are him, and that your site is unhackable............just a thought What a great idea!

forge some e-mails to appear from him and report him to SPEWS.