One of the regular posters here setup a hosting business and asked me for help with his website
He promised me a job at this new found company and sent me an interview sheet which I filled out and sent back, he then said i'd been hired and would be paid $7.50 an hour and an 8 page contract had been sent to my address.

Bearing in mind, I live in England, so the promise to work from home as a support personnell after being out of work for 3 years was a dream come true.
One of the perks of this job, was to travel to the USA (Paid for by the company) once every 6 months to meet the guy

Anyways, to cut a long story short, I never got the contract, I got up at 9am and stayed online right through to 5:30 for several days as requested of me while waiting for this supposed contract and access to the helpdesk and support email he'd apparently setup for me, I also completely did his website for him, modified a prebought template to suit his needs etc.

2 weeks+ have gone by, no contract, the guy doesnt' respond to ICQ's, emails or anything else.
But today I noticed he's been posting on here for quite sometime, his last post was today, hehe

So....is there anything I can do if he HAS ripped me off?
I won't name names or anything yet, but i'm half tempted to
I've pm'd him at the boards here and i'll see what he has to say for himself.

Any help would be appreciated.

I think your best bet would be to to open a communication channel with him. I can see you have tried, so it seems he is either too un-professional to tell you the job has been filled by someone else, or he just doesn't want to have any contact with you.
It seems that at least he owes you money for the website.

To be honest, it seemed to good to be true from the beginning
I never got my hopes up, but I passed up a job in real life thinking I had a job with this guy and he's basically got me to do his work for him then dissapeared.
Of course, it might be a mixup.....but it just feels ....bad.

did you upload your work via ftp yourself? If you have the user ftp/password you should download (take back) your work and put up an under contruction page....and if he continues to evade you, you should perhaps mention his name here or in the warnings section so others can avoid being conned.

Well i'm trying to resolve it diplomatically first, he's got a pm waiting for him.
Unfortunatly, I did all the work on my home pc
I have all the emails from him, including ip's of said emails, screenshots of the email address that's also registered on his domain.
I knew something was strange about the whole deal, so I started keeping records when I got suspicious.

Thanks for the advice all, the guy contacted me last night via PM here at Webhostingtalk, so we'll see what happens next.

wow, I don't mean to spam but that is like a movie folding out. hahaha o well I was planing on posting (saying) give his name out and make a bad name for his company, still I would be pissed it took him this much threatening for him to reply. If it is all fixed up I would chrage him money for the template and money for him just being a plain ******* not responding

NO kidding!.. I want updates too.. this is better than a reality show ... rofl

I had 2 people here at WHT do that same thing... They wanted me to help them with some support and had me fill out an app and such... all to dissappear in the mists. No web site, NO forum, no.. nothing...

Oh well :banana:

[edited: because I can't speel right the first time around.. ever]

My friend real good with images I will ask him to make a cartoon out of this, ok I will stop spamming

Nuclear Arca I am sorry to tell you this, but before you post you should know the WHOLE story. Instead you post, and it makes you look like a complete moron. I told Deimos what happened, and it was a miss communications on both ends. He tried to email a email (which I haven’t put up yet, and my yahoo email) though the last email I got from him was this email.

11/05/03 title [none]

I am sorry I do not read every post out their, I am sorry I don’t have the time like I use to, to get on WHT, I am sorry that you think you know everything before the facts. Also just so you know I did sent him $100.00 extra for the trouble. I asked him next time to PM me right away if something comes up.

We still do not know why his AIM doesn’t show up on me, but it could be his end or my end that is messed up. I am an honest guy, trying to make a living, and so is Deimos. Have a great day!

Jon

**added** Also thank you SWR for showing me this post.


Originally posted by Nuclear Arca
wow, I don't mean to spam but that is like a movie folding out. hahaha o well I was planing on posting (saying) give his name out and make a bad name for his company, still I would be pissed it took him this much threatening for him to reply. If it is all fixed up I would chrage him money for the template and money for him just being a plain ******* not responding

Also just so you know I did sent him $100.00 extra for the trouble.

Well, we'll see if that arrives along with the supposed contract :D

Wish you the best of luck, but I don't think a web hosting company who advertise here can afford to pay for trip from England to USA every 6 months and all :) But Ohh well :) Maybe he's big :) Since we don't know his name.

Wish you the best luck.

Well it's now the 29th of November (Saturday), no check and no contract.
To be honest, I just don't believe either were sent out and I was used to do someone's work for them.
I will give it till Monday at the latest.
After that, does anyone think it'd be worth seeking legal advice? As i'm owed money for work that I completed....and a job I was promised never seems to have come about.

I wouldnt have started working until the contract showed up, signed / got a copy of too, then sent back and he received it.


EDIT:
Yes contact your attorney if nothing shows up.
Also you require some sort of proof, did you record phone calls?
Do you still have E-Mails?

etc
etc

Emails with request for work to be done, email with a draft contract which i had to "sign" (print my name)
I've also got the private messages on here of course with the promise of the contract and a check for $350.

Monday morning...nada
Heh figures.

It is now Wednesday, nada, no check or contract, even though he posted publically that he had sent it? heh

So, now I have to consider legal advise I guess...
Anyone have any advice? :/

Check out this: http://www.webhostingtalk.com/showthread.php?s=&threadid=211760

Good luck trying to get your money.

Heh yea, I read that. :/
I guess all I can say for the moment, is stay clear of Vayssa.com hosting.
I noticed he still had time to register another domain on the 1st of november, 3 days after that post.
He also read my pm on ...12-02-2003 05:40 PM

I'm sorry to hear that, you where realy excited to get that job.

Yea I was
But I guess you learn from your mistakes, I never should've done work for him without a signed contract

Originally posted by Lord_Deimos
Yea I was
But I guess you learn from your mistakes, I never should've done work for him without a signed contract You never should have done work for him without money up front. Under none of the scenarios would you have been an employee. You would have been a contractor. As a contractor, always get at least something up front.

What good would a signed contract have been? You are across the pond from each other. Would you have spent the money to sue in the U.S.? Or, if you could have sued (depending on contract) in the U.K., even if you had won, you would have had no means of collecting.

I'm not paticularly bothered, he was banned from here anyways.
There's not much I can do.

As he hasn't sent you the contract, he didn't break anything. My suggestion is, do nothing before someone paid (at least enough to cover my expenses).

He didn't break anything except his word
He lied to me and everyone on this forum when he posted that he'd sent it along with $350.

Just thought i'd post a quick update, last update anyways.

I never got the money, he no longer signs onto ICQ (From what i can see)

He did take the site down for a while, but it's since been put back up, with more modifications, so maybe he's suckered someone else into doing free work for him. *shrugs*

Either way, avoid Vayssa.com and it's owner, they ARE scammers.