I hired Response Today (user name responsetoday) via eLance to build a website. The previous user feedback was positive, and at first they seemed promising. The design of the site was good, and they were responsive to emails.
After completing most of the design work quickly, they told me they would need to move the site to my server to finish the project - and because they were moving it to my site, they would need the other half of the payment. I agreed because I was anxious to get the project done, had been pleased with the work so far, and felt confident that their previous feedback on eLance indicated I'd have no trouble.
I was wrong. The project was a small comparison shopping site, and part of their task was to access datafeeds from various providers, add the products to the site and automate the feed updates. The site used an existing comparison shopping script, so all they had to do was program the feeds to upload the correct fields and automate the feeds using the existing script. It should have been fairly straightforward for a programmer who knew what they were doing. But they apparently didn't.
After almost three months, they indicated they would not be able to complete the project because their lead programmer had a family emergency. They offered to refund half my money. At this point, the site still was not useable:
They had loaded less than a quarter of the feeds initially requested in the project.
They had uploaded multiple feeds for each merchant so rather than having a straightforward list of store names, the "shop by merchant" page a long list of strange names, such as Charles Tyrwhitt 12, Charles Tyrwhitt 38, Charles Tyrwhitt 61, Charles Tyrwhitt 62.
The "shop by brand" page was displaying descriptions rather than a list of brands
They had not automated any of the feed updates.
After they offered me the refund, they said it would take a week to set it up through PayPal. Meanwhile, I started looking around the site to see if there was anything I could do with my limited programming capabilities. While looking around, I found a script that replaced my Google AdSense publisher ID so that I would only receive revenue three days a week. I then found another script that diverted traffic from my site, onepurchase.org, to the personal portfolio of one of their developers, bageshsingh.com.
I sent an email saying I had found these scripts and wanted all my money back. That's when they stopped responding to my emails. Eventually eLance stepped in and asked them to respond, and when they didn't, their eLance account was suspended.
In the end, the site was never completed, I never received a refund, and they didn't even have the courtesy to respond to repeated messages. I advise anyone who is considering doing business with this company to look elsewhere. There are many fine, honest, talented programmers who will serve you much better.
0 comments