top | item 6271345

This site is down because the owner stiffed the web designer

131 points| talhof8 | 12 years ago |nycfreshmarket.com | reply

148 comments

order
[+] grey-area|12 years ago|reply
I'm all for staging payment, and requiring final payment before delivering the goods, or even pursuing clients in the courts if necessary for non-payment (though usually that's fruitless), but when in dispute with a client you should never take retaliatory action like this, because it reflects an intemperance and lack of professionalism which means others will think twice about hiring you even if they have every intention of paying for your work. The same goes for a client not paying - if I hear someone hasn't paid their bills (for whatever reason), I'm then hesitant to work for them in any capacity unless it's a very clear-cut case. News travels quickly in many industries.

If you've already given them all the work without being paid, and with no contract, you have no recourse, but that doesn't mean you should use your technical privileges to try to exact revenge if you still have access to their server. If it's their hosting you're probably on difficult legal ground.

If you have to do this, you chose the wrong client, so tell everyone you know not to work with them, take note of the warning signs you saw and the failures of process that led to this point, and move on.

[+] ubernostrum|12 years ago|reply
My preferred method back in my freelance days was to have a few clauses in my standard contract about copyright -- basically laying out that I wasn't doing work-for-hire, and would retain copyright in anything I produced, with an agreement to transfer copyright to the client upon receipt of payment.

That gives a nuclear-option threat of filing a DMCA takedown; telling a client that you can legally have their site turned off within 24 hours is a lovely piece of artillery to have in your back pocket, and since the actions are all taken by their hosting provider there's no possibility of "unauthorized access" charges coming back at you.

[+] djillionsmix|12 years ago|reply
Someone always types up this same response to any incident like this, and it always sounds like exactly what I'd expect to hear from the sort of person who stiffs people.
[+] bayesianhorse|12 years ago|reply
This depends on the value of repeat business. Here that value is really really small, both with this customer and potentially similar customers who might or might not hear about the incident. Also the web designer is a small player in a big pond, reducing further the risk to his reputation.

The customer - before the retaliation - believed the risk of non-payment to be worth it. Often in small contract work, the contractor can't profitably sue or they believe it's not worth the harassment.

Unless the customer can now sue the web designer for additional damages, this might be strategically the best thing he could do.

[+] bpatrianakos|12 years ago|reply
I'm with you but I think there are exceptions. To be clear, I don't think its ever okay to publicly shame a non-paying client like in this post but there are some things that are okay. A specific example is a situation I'm in right now.

Over six months ago I was asked to design and develop a Wordpress site for a slate of candidates running for local office. The guy who came to me for it was someone I had worked for before and had a very good experience with. He was fast, friendly, professional, and asked me to send him an invoice before I even planned to. So when he came to me this time asking me to put together a site that he needed up in less than a week I told him the price and got right to work. We had an agreement in writing only so far as emails went and I even spent my own money to let him use my hosting, get an SSL certificate so he could accept online donations and even gave him a few bucks just to test the donation functionality. He was happy with it and again asked for an invoice before I had one drawn up to send. They lost the election but I still did the work.

Fast forward over six months, 5 invoices, and a phone call later and I still haven't seen a single penny. To get his attention I changed the passwords to his other website (the one he actually cares about). That got him calling right away. I didn't let him know I changed the password and let him think it was a technical bug. He pretended not to know why I was never paid and promised to send payment immediately. One month and 3 emails later he promises to send the money "this week" and that he's in a "cah crunch".

Will I publicly shame him? No. I plan to ask for payment once more and give him a $250 discount if he uses the online payment form I set up for him. If he doesn't do it within a week I'll let him know he was one more week to pay me in full before I lock him out of his business email and suspend his web hosting both of which I provide.

You can always try to make the argument that designers need to be more careful in their dealings but you can't forget that there's always a human element, at least on some level, in all business transactions. Sometimes you trust a guy because you've built a good relationship with him and he fucks you over. I've never been stuffed once in three years though some have tried because I always used solid contracts and other safeguards against being ripped off. But sometimes, just sometimes, someone slips through the cracks and in those cases you have to have some recourse available to you.

[+] mikeash|12 years ago|reply
Even in the absence of a written contract, you absolutely have recourse.

The client essentially has two options at this point:

1. Admit that there was, in fact, a contract in oral form. In this case, they are required to pay.

2. Say that there was no contract of any kind. In this case, they cannot use your work, because you retain the rights to it. Copyright starts out with the creator, and in the absence of a contract that assigns copyright, it stays there. Mentioning that statutory damages for willful copyright infringement can be $150,000 will get people to rapidly change their mind about whether they really want to claim that there is no contract. And of course there's always the option of a DMCA takedown notice to their hosting provider, which is quick and easy.

[+] RyanZAG|12 years ago|reply
A lot of people are saying that this was the wrong move because it will hurt the designer. Maybe. It's still the right move for other reasons: everyone doing business with these guys now knows they don't pay and to demand payment up front or not work with them at all. There are already mentions of this on consumer reviews [1]. Basically nycfreshmarket is likely to go out of business over this issue as that market is already so cutthroat.

This action is the best action for the community at large - if every designer did this, the world would be a better place and everyone would be sure to pay their designers for work done. Win win situation for everyone involved (besides for crooks).

[1] http://www.yelp.com/biz/nyc-fresh-market-new-york https://www.facebook.com/NYCFreshMarket

[+] flexie|12 years ago|reply
Let's extrapolate: What if you were thrown out of your apartment if you failed to pay rent, the hospital would make the pacemaker stop working if you didn't pay your bills. Your lawyer would tell your secrets and tell the court you are guilty if you didn't pay his fee. Guys would show up to collect the TV you had failed to pay for. Your citizenship would be revoked if you didn't pay taxes etc. etc, all without the creditor having to go to court first. Oh, and everything would be posted on Facebook, Linkedin etc for your friends to see.

Stopping services and naming and shaming clients who don't / can't pay is a slippery slope and not always civilized. Be happy not all creditors act this way.

[+] balloot|12 years ago|reply
Actually, nobody knows anything except that onemine.com is willing to hijack the websites of its clients. Everything else is you simply accepting their side of the story without question.
[+] DanBC|12 years ago|reply
> everyone doing business with these guys now knows they don't pay

No. I know that there is a payment dispute involving these guys. I also know that one party to that dispute acted in an unprofessional, possibly defamatory, manner.

[+] Confusion|12 years ago|reply
This is unwise. The main idea is that, as someone suggested in a comment:

  it has a nonzero probability that it will shame somebody 
  into paying.
This is in fact quite unlikely. If you believe this, you are not considering why someone isn't paying. In the majority of cases, the reason is disagreement. Nothing is going to materially change about a disagreement by taking a website hostage. You are only exacerbating the issue.

The main thing you achieve by something like this is satisfying your personal sense of justice and being judge, jury and executioner to accomplish it. However, that's vigilantism and as in most other examples of that, it is probably illegal.

As a webhoster, you may suspend hosting. As a designer, you may withdraw someone's license to your design. As a hoster and designer, assuming a single contract covering both, suspending hosting is by far the easiest, as the other path requires legal action. However, you should never replace agreed upon content with something that would be defamation if your claim were denied. Just suspend hosting.

[+] marcosdumay|12 years ago|reply
> In the majority of cases, the reason is...

You are the third person making the same kind of claim. It's not that I disagree, in the majority of the cases, something like that isn't a nice thing to do...

But this is one case, not the majority, we know nothing about it, except that it's in an extreme minority. If for no other reason, because the designer decided to retaliate this way. We are looking at extreme selection bias here, don't shove it under a carpet.

[+] fennecfoxen|12 years ago|reply
First: "Nonzero" doesn't mean "likely".

Second: Defamation? What do you think this is, Europe? Go read New York Times vs Sullivan and get back to me talking about whether this website's claim was published with "reckless disregard of whether it was false or not." You're going to get approximately zero mileage with defamation in the US court system.

[+] mikeash|12 years ago|reply
I've had people not pay before. The reason was never "disagreement". It was always either insane internal bureaucracy or just plain stinginess. In both cases, you can get paid if you convince them that they stand to lose more by not paying.
[+] mpchlets|12 years ago|reply
I don't know, this is a new site: https://www.google.com/#q=site:nycfreshmarket.com

There is no cache, so I think this is an over-reaction at this point by the designer and only discredits their business sense and will most likely result in not getting paid for this job.

The phrase 2 wrongs don't make a right comes to mind. WE already have a legal system in place to handle these issues, no reason to defame on the internet, which is truly a permanent record.

[+] mgkimsal|12 years ago|reply
> WE already have a legal system in place to handle these issues,

And... it may take years, at best. I did work for someone in mid 2008, they didn't pay (I should have had a down payment). I filed a lawsuit in NYC, and it's now 5 years later and it's still in the queue. If I was to get a judgement next year, it might be several more years of trying to collect before I get paid, if ever.

IIRC, they changed the passwords as I was delivering the final work, although, at the time, I didn't know it was the final work, because there was some other stuff slated to be done the following week which was 'put on hold'.

[+] kintamanimatt|12 years ago|reply
> WE already have a legal system in place to handle these issues

If you've ever had to sue someone you'll know that it's a distraction and not a magical solution to problems. Even when you get judgement, you've then got to collect and there are people that will drag their heels making your victory a pyrrhic one.

The person that didn't pay their web designer deserves to be shamed. You can argue that it's unprofessional of the web designer (and it probably is), but it's also unprofessional of the client.

[+] emiliobumachar|12 years ago|reply
The legal system is a realistic option only if there was a written contract in place, which is not always the case.
[+] mariuolo|12 years ago|reply
That's why you move the website to the customer's server only after you've been paid in full.

Before that it's only a showcase on the developer's server.

[+] toyg|12 years ago|reply
I would certainly listen to somebody with "smallscalethief" as nickname, in matters of money.
[+] aaron695|12 years ago|reply
Uuuugh.

Link straight from Reddit, and probably an illegal act from the designer. (Sorry but that's probably the law, like it or not)

Much as we all love to string people up, the reality is it's not professional, and probably not good for society.

Where is the proof the designer got stiffed???? The reason everyone loves this is cause we love to string someone up, proof not needed.

Not a healthy way to be.

[+] DrJokepu|12 years ago|reply
Is this, like, really "illegal" in New York? Are you really sure about that? I'm not a lawyer but it seems to me that me that the grocery store has breached the contract and the designer has a number of options available to remedy the situation, including not delivering his part of the agreement. It would be interesting to hear the opinion of someone qualified in New York Contract Law.
[+] fnordfnordfnord|12 years ago|reply
>probably an illegal act from the designer. (Sorry but that's probably the law, like it or not)

The client may well be gaming the law here as well. (exploiting the fact that it is often not economical to sue over small amounts of money)

>the reality is it's not professional,

Professionalism is such a crappy word. Nobody really knows what it means, and too many people think it means something they want _you_ to think it means, when it is convenient for them.

>and probably not good for society.

I don't know. It may be good that this isn't the norm, but I think it is okay for this to happen to someone every now and then pour encourager les autres.

>Where is the proof the designer got stiffed?

A designer would have to really be off their rocker to do that without cause.

[+] braum|12 years ago|reply
What the designer did is fine except I would have just put up a "Coming Soon..." instead of directly calling out the owner. It would have the same reaction from the owner because they don't know how to do any of it. And it wouldn't give anyone who visits the immediate knowledge that the designer can and will use their technical powers to embarrass you or your business.
[+] balloot|12 years ago|reply
I can't believe people are defending this. If a brick-and-mortar store has a pay dispute with a contractor, would that contractor have the right to put a giant padlock on the store doors and spray paint a message on the door saying that the store owner didn't pay? Obviously not. How is this any different?

The key thing to keep in mind is the designer may be wrong. I'm sure if you ask the store owner they have a totally different story, and it's likely not "We are SUPER EVIL and just stiff people who do good work". Maybe the contractor (onemine.com, if you're curious) tried to bill the store owner more than agreed upon, the store owner refused, and this is the result. Maybe the contractor left out some significant part of the site and the store owner wont pay until completion. Who knows?

The problem here is OneMine has taken all the power in the pay dispute by holding the client's intellectual property hostage until all demands are met. It's at the very least unprofessional, but it becomes defamation very quickly unless OneMine has an absolutely airtight case. There better be exactly zero unfinished products, missed deadlines, rate changes, etc. And it's safe to say with many contract projects this is not the case.

[+] alexqgb|12 years ago|reply
It's different because the stiffed party in your example does not own the store being locked and vandalized and cannot take those actions without breaking unrelated laws. That's not the case with IP for which the creator still has clear title and is (presumably) hosting on their own servers.

Seperatly, it's 2013. We are waaaay past the point where intelligent people think that laws pertaining to the ownership of tangible and intangible goods can, do, and should map directly to one another. The differences between these classes of property are not trivial, and neither are the laws and social norms that govern people's treatment of each. Making analogies that ignore these differences is just unhelpful, stupid, and irritating. It's a bit like saying to a judge "I don't see why you're issuing this fine. After all, what I did is perfectly legal in (insert name of foreign country here)."

None of this is to say that connections and parallels can't be drawn between the fields of tangible and intangible goods. It's just to say that doing so in a useful fashion demands acknowledgement of the wide gulfs that separate them, and clear identification of the specific points where they do overlap.

[+] elnate|12 years ago|reply
I remember googling my professor at university one year to find out that he had been criminally convicted for hacking the site of client that never paid him. I would never have guessed otherwise, he was a jovial guy. Screwing people out of money quickly brings out an aggressive response in most.
[+] anaran|12 years ago|reply
But will this increase the web designer's chances to get paid? I don't think so.

While it sure provides negative publicity for the store owner, it would probably not further the career of the web designer either.

[+] drewcrawford|12 years ago|reply
I'm continually fascinated by these comments (there's one on every story like this) that try to second-guess the decision based on no actual information. Doesn't it seem likely that the person who did this is in a better position to judge the potential consequences than you?

Unless OP is right on the threshold of being hard up for work, it makes no real difference to his dealflow, and it has a nonzero probability that it will shame somebody into paying.

[+] markdown|12 years ago|reply
> But will this increase the web designer's chances to get paid? I don't think so.

Why wouldn't it? If the store owner doesn't let emotion cloud his judgement, he should figure out very quickly that it would be better to pay up rather then face further negative publicity.

> it would probably not further the career of the web designer either.

It should have about zero negative effect on the career of the designer, and may have a positive effect. Any company that has been in business long enough has been screwed before, and most people would root for the little guy in this scenario.

He has nothing to lose, and a payment to gain.

[+] sspiff|12 years ago|reply
> But will this increase the web designer's chances to get paid?

The customer has a choice: pay for the product he had developed and approved of, or look for another web developer to do it over again.

Finding a new web developer will be tricky given this situation (who wants to work for someone that has a reputation not to pay up?) and would take a lot of time before a new site is delivered.

[+] mgkimsal|12 years ago|reply
> it would probably not further the career of the web designer either.

It would mean people who are inclined to try to stiff developers would give this person a miss, meaning they have more time to focus on paying customers. Sounds like a great career boost, imo.

[+] Renaud|12 years ago|reply
While it's really clear who the customer is, I do not see the name of the designer anywhere.
[+] jusben1369|12 years ago|reply
Every contractor should secretly applaud this person. Although wrong, events like these, when witnessed, make others who might otherwise not pay reach for the checkbook. "I remember what happened to xyz site when they stiffed their consultant"
[+] esw|12 years ago|reply
I appreciate the designer's frustration, but I've found that in most cases, simply taking the site offline (assuming you host it) is enough to get a call back from the customer. If the customer decides that they'd rather not have a website at all than have the website you built for them, then I think perhaps both parties should cut their losses and move on.
[+] mlopes|12 years ago|reply
Is this really different from what hosting companies do? Most of them, if you have a bit more traffic than usual and pass the agreed limit, will replace your site with a message and only remove it if you upgrade your plan. Never saw anyone go apeshit on those cases like people are on this one.
[+] ck2|12 years ago|reply
This is also why you do not let your web designer own and operate your website hosting.
[+] ceejayoz|12 years ago|reply
You don't let your designer host so you can stiff them?

No, this is why you pay your web designer for their work.

[+] brianmcconnell|12 years ago|reply
Years ago when I did freelance work writing software for custom phone systems, I had a shady client up in Marin. Suspecting they would not pay, I slipped a feature into the system where if I did not dial in and punch in a secret code within 90 days, it would stop functioning and display a cryptic "database error".

Sure enough, the client didn't pay, and right on schedule, I got a customer support call mentioning the database error. I told them "actually it's working perfectly, you didn't pay your bill".

I later found out they went through several other developers and then went out of business. I am sympathetic to small businesses that have money problem, but some people are simply shady and must be avoided.

[+] herbig|12 years ago|reply
This is indeed a bad career move. Not because it's unprofessional, but because that pin sitting on top of the sheet of paper rather than indented into it shows a lack of attention to detail and poor design.
[+] delinka|12 years ago|reply
I'm going to start using this as a remedy in contracts, if for no other reason than to put a stopper in all these "unprofessional response" replies.
[+] mimog|12 years ago|reply
The response is unprofessional juvenile in that it publicly calls out and shames the customer. He should just take the site down until payment is received.