I did some custom web design for someone back in January. As per our agreement, she paid half of the fee upfront.

While I was working on the design, I received an e-mail from her that mentioned she lost her job. She didn't say anything about backing out of our deal (in fact, the main part of her e-mail was to answer questions I had about what she wanted), but of course that was the first thing to occur to me.

I finished the design January 15 and billed her the other half. Never heard from her. Tried twice more after a couple of weeks. I took her site off of our server, but kept a backup copy.

This is a duh question, but what do I do? She hasn't asked for her money back, but I have some of her money (paid through PayPal). Am I obligated to keep holding onto the site? Can I resell it for chump change on eBay (I registered the domain name for her too)? Do I kill myself tracking her down to refund her money? :confused:

Personally, I don't think you would owe her the 1/2 of the money she paid, as you have provided 100% of the work agreed to.
:)
Perhaps you can send her half of the files to her email account, and keep the rest.

LOL, hitspot :D

Hi,

None of my business, of course.

But have you tried to contact the person recently? Surely they gave you contact info. Is it still valid? Did they give you name, address and phone for the domain registration? Have they changed it?

I guess one can, if the person doesn't respond to e-mail or whatever, send a "final notice" of some sort telling them if they don't respond/complete payment/take delivery you will have to dispose of the domain and site or whatever to "recover cost"...time consuming and frustrating when one doesn't want to short change a customer...

The situation you describe is the kind of thing that is good for prompting people to put wording in contracts spelling out what happens in situations like this.

Hat's off to you for caring enough to want to work things out for the customer, if possible.

Best wishes,

Louis

They agreed to pay you X amount in two payments for the work done. There is no refund for a service such as design in my books. If they don't like parts, you work with them to have it fit their needs.