This site is down because the owner stiffed the web designer
nycfreshmarket.com
nycfreshmarket.com
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.
If you hand over the keys to a car and tell them that they can start driving it and then pay you when ready, would you post the same response?
Car dealerships don't work that way, you need to sign a contract to use the car - usually web agencies are similar and require full payment or atleast a "payment plan" in place for a website to launch.
Quite true. This isn't a car dealership. Doing website support for small businesses in medium and small markets often does work that way. They have a site, they would prefer that things are added to it, instead of a complete replacement. Back when I was doing webapps in this situation, the business would often insist on running the site from their T1 or ISDN line, refusing to spring for hosting someplace where they can't see the physical hardware to reassure themselves that there is something there.
"You want to back up the database for testing? No, just connect to the production database."
"No, you don't have access to webserver config; just build it in a folder." (It turns out that they don't have such access, either, since they "had a disagreement" with the guy who set up the box for them before he left on bad terms. Asking about how to contact this guy is apparently suspicious).
"You want us to sign a contract? We'll look at it." (They never get back to you, since they can find a dozen other people who are grateful for the promise of payment).
"Pay before it launches? Oh, no, we pay net 60, but our site says 'New site coming Oct 1st!', so unless it's up then, there's no reason for us to pay you." (Of course, they put this up without consulting you after you agreed to start prototyping).
And this is to say nothing of the people who insist on detailed designs and specification documents, then say, "Actually, we're going to wait a little while", and then you find your designed system on their site creaking along like it was written by the nephew of the boss's secretary, who totally learned computer science stuff in high school this semester. Surprise! It was written by that guy, except they hired someone else at $15/hr to randomly change things until it worked, since he had to go back to school when spring break ended...
It's not that there are a few businesses that operate like this: this seems to be the majority of small-town businesses who need webapps. When I ran a business doing webapps and web design in the mid-2000s, I'm not sure I ever ran into an end customer who didn't try to pull something I found really shady, though for them it was just the normal way they think they have to deal with vendors so that they can stay in business.
When I gave up and got a salaried job in 2008, my stress evaporated, even though it was a job at a failing startup. :)
I just think this is absolutely the wrong response. As a freelancer or business your reputation is paramount - that reputation should be for professionalism and courtesy, even when others are not professional with you. This sort of incident teaches us the value of contracts, staged payments, and trust with your clients. If you don't have a good trusting relationship with clients, it's best to end that relationship and find other clients. If a client screws you, I think the best response is to make sure people know what they did, and adjust your process so that future clients can't do that, not abuse your power over their domain/server to post a partisan message like this.
So I'm afraid your assumptions about my motivations are completely unfounded - perhaps you'd like to rethink them and offer me an apology?
Noting this does not require thinking you are one of those people. There is an explanation that is at least equally plausible: You, like so many others, have been inculcated with contradictory views by a society which gives power freely to the dishonest, while purporting to value honesty, but in a form designed to further empower the dishonest.
Noting this does not require thinking that you are one of these people, in the context of strict logical inference.
Noting this is absolutely an (oblique) accusation in the context of a conversation in English.
Pragmatics is an interesting field.
I'd definitely like to offer you the advice to never indulge in this sort of passive-aggression, it's very unprofessional and should make anyone think twice about working with you.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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
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.
You DO get evicted if you fail to pay rent. The hospital won't make the pacemaker stop working, but they'll refuse further treatment that might be necessary. The lawyer wouldn't tell all your secrets, but might be asked to help track you down. Repo men DO come and collect your TV if you don't pay for it. Your citizenship won't be revoked if you don't pay your taxes, but you can go to prison, thus having your liberty (arguably the most important part of citizenship) revoked. And most of these things happen in public, for everyone to see.
Hospitals will not refuse treatment that is necessary to provide life support.
Collections agencies generally operate by sending you mail and calling your phone repeatedly until they get their payment. The contents of your mail and phone calls are generally private.
Note that most of these are private matters, generally considered confidential.
http://www.nbcnews.com/id/22357873/ns/health-health_care/t/f...
This happens all the time, it's called a repossession.
As for hospitals (in the US), they don't even talk to you about replacing your failing pacemaker before proof of insurance that will pay.
thrown out of your apartment if you failed to pay rent
the hospital would make the pacemaker stop working
Your lawyer would tell your secrets and tell
the court you are guilty if you didn't pay his fee
Your citizenship would be revoked if you didn't pay taxes
I don't understand your examples. Having your website go down if you don't pay the guy who made it sounds pretty normal. I have a friend who installs burglar bars on windows - if you don't pay him, he will come to your house with a crowbar and take those burglar bars back regardless of how much of your house he has to break to do it. He still has plenty of customers, since it's standard practice in that industry to take back the burglar bars. They argue (successfully, it seems) that the bars are still their property until you pay them.
> Your citizenship would be revoked if you didn't pay taxes
Per US Supreme Court decisions going back decades, citizenship cannot be "revoked" from a natural-born US citizen under any circumstances, and may only be removed from a naturalized citizen in case of fraud during the naturalization process. Failure to pay taxes is a criminal offense, not a grounds for loss of citizenship.
And:
> Your lawyer would tell your secrets and tell the court you are guilty if you didn't pay his fee.
Attorney/client privilege attaches the moment you begin speaking to an attorney as a client or prospective client. It is not dissolved by failure to pay. It is not dissolved by anything except, sometimes, death of the client (and courts are inconsistent on that one).
An attorney who did what you described would be disbarred, and the "evidence" would be inadmissible in court.
In other words, your atty will leave you to swing in the wind.
I'm pretty sure that society as we know it would collapse.
Some products fall into a category where it's harder to take stuff away, like health care and housing, because that stuff is critical to life. I'm pretty sure that a web site falls solidly into the first category, though.
You drive in to your car mechanic. You get a full on paint job, new windows, new wheels, new axles, the works. The car is shiny and new.
You come into the mechanic's garrage and say "can i have my car please" the mechanic says "your bill is XXXXXX". You respond with "nono i just need my cara, I'll pay you later...
And then when the mechanic doesn't return the car you complain "WHAT AN UNPROFESSIONAL JERK! PART OF DOING BUSINESS IS WAITING FOR ME TO PAY HIM!"
Analogy to health care:
A poor man with no money to spare is stabbed by a rusty nail. He will get an infection and die unless he gets massive antibiotics.
The hospital turns him down.
The reason we made LAWS preventing hospitals from doing this is because our healthcare is a piece of fucking shit. Most other countries the hospital would get paid in full by the government. Because health care != web design or car repairs!
Or in your mechanic example, maybe that mechanic quoted me $500, and then I show up and he asks for $1500 instead. I don't want to pay $1000 extra, so he threatens to spray paint my car with "balloot is a cheapskate" and park it out front of his shop.
How do you have any idea this isn't what onemine.com isn't doing to the grocery store?
"Maybe he's lying!" Sure. But you don't get to just pick an arbitrary lie out of thin air that supports whatever point you'd like to make.
If you think somebody is unreliable, then you need to remove their testimony from your pool of facts and re-evaluate. If that testimony is the only source of facts for the subject at hand, then you no longer have anything to talk about.
You cannot both simultaneously say we can't believe this guy and carry out any kind of commentary on the event, unless you've discovered some other info on it and haven't told anyone else about it.
We'd love to hear from the client. Unfortunately this is a common enough occurrence that I am giving the designer the benefit of a doubt.
Not enough information available.
Also
Pay your developers / designers.
See also, credit histories. Shit does happen in the normal course of business and financial issues can (and do!) happen to most people, but people (and companies) are generally forgiving of good faith efforts to make things right. It seems in this case that the client was a genuinely bad client that made no effort to pay the designer. Most designers don't want to risk their reputations over trivial shit and will only pull a stunt like this with an egregious button pusher client.
Your business SHOULD be thrown out for not paying rent.
Your business SHOULD be fined, dissolved, or bankrupted if it doesn't pay taxes.
A business going bankrupt because they don't pay their debts is not a tragedy.
Indeed, having worked in related fields for the better part of two decades, I cannot think of a single example where a designer attempted to shake down a client with a bogus claim of non-payment. But I can think of an astonishingly depressing number of cases where clients wanting something for nothing decided that stiffing their vendors was an easy and acceptable way to increase their own margins.
All other considerations aside, if the client didn't pay, the work isn't theirs. By law. Full stop. And if the client was stupid enough to host their site with a vendor they're shafting, the the vendor is well within their rights to limit access to that site in the fashion they did.
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.
it has a nonzero probability that it will shame somebody
into paying.
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.
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.
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.
If I report that my green car was stolen and claim that a gang stealing green cars is active, then people respond with "That's unlikely, they're probably just stealing every car they can get their hands on". In line with your argument, they should instead say "Wow, a gang stealing green cars, how unlikely. How wonderous I would stumble upon this case of extreme selection bias here on the web".
That is even ignoring the fact that it is probably illegal. You are allowed to end the delivery of a service if the other party effectively cancels a contract, but you are not allowed to keep delivering the service in a way that breaches the contract. You cannot just serve any content you want on their domain (unless this situation was specifically foreseen in the contract).
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.
Intellectual property rights are all the rage these days and that would mix into this.
That said, there are a ton of things having to do with the scope of work, reviews of work in progress, acceptance or rejection of completed work, and payment terms that are absolutly the contractor's responsibility. But again, securing clear title to the work is the buyer's concern, not the seller's.
I would love to see a single case ever where a company's domain and website were turned over to a contract designer due to a pay dispute.
The seller is not "limiting access". They are not taking away the work they produced. They are instead publishing defamatory messages on the client's domain against the client's will. They are essentially claiming the domain as their own, which is the real issue here. This wouldn't be an interesting or controversial story if nycfreshmarket.com was a white screen, or a coming soon type thing.
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.
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'.
Before that it's only a showcase on the developer's server.
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.
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.
There's still the legality aspect which concerns me.
However hijacking the domain with a message like this is legally risky IMHO, wherever it is hosted, as it could be seen as slander. Good luck to the designer getting paid now - I'd be very surprised if the client did pay up after this.
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.
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.
I would LOVE to see a legal precedent for this claim.
The domain is a seperate matter. Presumably, this could happen because the designer was hosting the site. The owner of the domain is free to host it elsewhere, but would need to populate any sites they publish with content they actually own, and not work stolen from people they didn't pay.
The word you're after is defensive. If you've been ripped off, you are not the aggressor.
While it sure provides negative publicity for the store owner, it would probably not further the career of the web designer either.
whois nycfreshmarket.comWhy 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.
Disputes like this should be handled where they belong, in small claims court, not by damaging (possibly irreparably) one parties reputation.
If I were the store owner (which I'm not, and I'd have paid that bill if the work were done as agreed upon) and we'd be in a dispute over something and you'd pull a stunt like this then I would most certainly rake you over the coals.
This is a dis-proportionate response in the eyes of many, quite possibly in the eyes of the judge handling the case which could lead to all kinds of misery for the designer. One thing you don't do in a dispute is to hand your opponent ammunition.
If someone who owes you doesn't pay you, you are well within your rights to tell people about it.
What probably happened is a small business wanted a website, so the web designer designs the website and buys them a domain name. The deliverables are a finished website along with a domain name and hosting.
If the client doesn't pay, then they own neither the domain name, the hosting, nor the design, and the web designer can do whatever the hell he wants with all three.
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.
I just think this confrontation in public (with one side as yet unidentified) will not work towards a solution.
In fact, no. If there is a dispute and you forego the legal option you might get your ass handed to you. Things like this blow up in the face of the party doing them as often as they lead to some kind of settlement.
The damage to the client could outweigh the amount owed (assuming there is one) very rapidly.
> 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.
It also has a non-zero probability of him/her being sued for (substantial) damages.
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.
About 10 years ago, I started working in for a small metal fabrication company who had their website done just before I joined. The boss never paid the developers' final invoice, and one day they did something similar: they replaced the front page of the website with a message saying saying something like "those people do not pay their bills". Although I knew nothing about web development, I did have a good general IT knowledge, and used FTP before, so my boss, who paid for the hosting account, dug the details up, I logged in and realised they only renamed the index.html page and uploaded a new one. Within minutes the FTP login details were changed and the situation reverted. I truly think there was a way for the developers to get paid before they pulled this trick, but not after. To me, although I wasn't happy with my boss not paying his bills, what they did felt wrong.
Fast forward to present day, and I'm a full-time freelance web developer. In the last 7 years of me being one, I had only two customers who didn't pay their final invoices. I could have done something like that, or could have even hinted that I am able to do this, but didn't, for two reasons: 1. I pride myself in my professionalism. This is unprofessional to me and I will not stoop down to this level. 2. In the last three or four years, I didn't have to look for work at all, it all came to me via current or past customers. Therefore, my reputation is the most important asset I have, and I want all my customers, even the ones who didn't pay in full, to have nothing negative to say about me.
Eventually, both customers paid in full, without me having to even make a hint of threat, so I do believe I handled things correctly.
One thing I did learn is to put two clauses in my contracts: 1. That the code will be hosted on my server, and will only be released to clients' server(s) once a full payment has been made. 2. That the code is my property, regardless of the server it hosted on, until full payment has been made.
The second is to cover the possibility of me releasing the code before the full payments. Even then, if I ever get to the stage where I feel that I need to take a similar action, I would rather delete the files (or some files) from the customer's server and not post anything defamatory about the customer on their website. But I find it hard to believe I will ever even go that far.
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.
let's drink their health…
…then meet with them no more.”
— V
I still feel for the dev in this case, because this shit happens way too often in the industry.
No, this is why you pay your web designer for their work.
If they haven't paid you and you happen to own and operate it, just turn it off completely, there is no professional middle ground.
If a mechanic fixes your car and you don't pay them, in many places have have the right to seize your car until you pay. But they do not have the right to tamper with your brakes or spray paint "pay me" on your windshield.
The problem here is the dispute that's occurring is being settled through taking the client's website hostage. That's ridiculously unprofessional.
1 - Cloud services are for experts. It's too hard to use one and not have it backfire, lay-people have no chance here - most of the times, it will backfire and you won't even know it.
2 - Don't stiff the people whom your survival depends.
Now, of course, #2 is only an issue for people that stiff people. And for those, good luck trying to determine who should fit under this rule.
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.
My guess is, they still own the hosting and server space for the domain too.
Defamation lawsuit waiting to happen.
I ran a web shop for small businesses ($500K - $10M/yr revenues) in NYC for about 8 years with many clients (good and bad) and faced non-payment issues only a handful of times. Here is my take on it:
- Always get enough money from the client to cover your break even hourly rate for the entire project. Don't do payment terms without a deposit - unless it's a seemingly great client and your cash flow positive.
- Keep your margins healthy. The tighter the margins, the harder it is to be civil when these situations come up.
- When a customer does not pay, I give them more time and payment options first. I have even gone as far as extending more services to clients I believe are good people on credit if the issue has to do with business being slow. This has built some great long term clients.
- 99.9% of the time, if your work causes a positive effect on someones business, they will always pay and never let you go. (They may not show it, but prompt payment and consistent work is the stamp of approval)
- When a client does not pay and you have exhausted your process of collections, I put their old site up. If they did not have a site before, I put up a splash page with logo, phone numbers and contact form. Simple and classy. It takes 5 minutes. Most times if they had the money they would pay - so wish them the best of luck. It's usually always about money.
- If you have a simple contract, you can always take them to court and you will almost always win or they will settle. I always do it myself, no lawyer. I always choose to not take down the site when I have a contract, I prefer the judgement or settlement if it goes that far.
- Make sure the project has the potential of being successful. I am always approached with bad ideas and although they are willing to pay, successful projects pay off in multiples over the long term. It's not up to me to tell someone their idea sucks, but I do believe that if they are not willing to take some basic advice - there is a higher risk of issues. If not payment, satisfaction.
I hope this didn't run too long, but bottom line, this type of publicity is not positive and as stated above, these things happen, rarely. Build a process to handle these issues and focus on finding better clients ALWAYS - not chasing bad ones.
The domain is registered with hostek.com, which is a web hosting company too, so I assume it's hosted there. WHOIS says the domain registration is owned by Onemine. You'd have to ask them and the court system who's actually legally responsible for the computers involved, but it's not looking very NYCFreshMarket-y to me.