Being blackmailed with restricted site access for more money

ivorystraws

Hi,

A friend of mine just called me to say that he hired a student developer to develop his site but now the developer "says" he has done additional work such as SEO etc (which the owner didn't ask for) and now, the developer is asking for more money or he won't get access to his site at all!

My friend says he has paid over 750 euro to date, for what looks like a basic site. He isn't very tech savvy. I'm not a developer but would be more familiar with IT, which is why I'm asking here re: options available to this person i.e. does he just lose all sitework to date? He has been trying to negotiate with the developer but has had no response so far.

How can he get access to his site back so as to restrict access by anyone else?

p

Sounds like the student is chancing his arm. I'm assuming no contract, but since your friend didn't request the additional work, then it shouldn't be paid for. There must be some paper/email record of agreed costs surely?

I'd say take a lawyer/legal approach and write the student a strongly worded letter. He's just chancing his arm and by taking the more professional & legal approach he'll probably bow down pretty quickly.

Seth Brundle

What work was agreed in the contract and for how much?

What do you mean he has had no response?

Who is the domain name registered to?

Galtee

Firstly, there should be some documentation as to what was agreed to begin with as there was a price agreed. It doesn't matter if the document doesn't go into fine detail, as long as it outlines required functionality then there are certain things that can be taken as integral to providing such functionality.
Secondly, your friend needs to get a list of all of the additional items that the developer says they added. Then you can cross reference both lists and see what should have been in the original etc. and what has actually been added above and beyond. After that you can take the second list and either A) Negotiate a price or ask them to remove them and give you what was orignally agreed.

ivorystraws

p wrote: »

Sounds like the student is chancing his arm. I'm assuming no contract, but since your friend didn't request the additional work, then it shouldn't be paid for. There must be some paper/email record of agreed costs surely?

I'd say take a lawyer/legal approach and write the student a strongly worded letter. He's just chancing his arm and by taking the more professional & legal approach he'll probably bow down pretty quickly.

I totally agree. As far as I'm aware, I don't think there's a formal contract in place. My friend told me they did agree on some specifics but I very much doubt that there was a specification that was signed and agreed to.
There are emails and I'm not sure if there was any physical paper trail of agreed costs.

ivorystraws

kbannon wrote: »

What work was agreed in the contract and for how much?

What do you mean he has had no response?

Who is the domain name registered to?

I'm not sure whether this was an existing site redevelopment or a new site development but either way, it's not much to look at now for what was paid.

Apparently, the developer isn't responding to any further calls or emails since he threatened to wipe the site if my friend didn't pay up.

The domain is registered by my friend. I did a check and the site is 4 months old, domain name is registered for one year, it's hosted in the US (by ENOM) and it's built with PHP and a wordpress blog integrated into it.

If I can't access to wordpress login dashboard, does that mean that it's not based on WP?

ivorystraws

Galtee wrote: »

Firstly, there should be some documentation as to what was agreed to begin with as there was a price agreed. It doesn't matter if the document doesn't go into fine detail, as long as it outlines required functionality then there are certain things that can be taken as integral to providing such functionality.
Secondly, your friend needs to get a list of all of the additional items that the developer says they added. Then you can cross reference both lists and see what should have been in the original etc. and what has actually been added above and beyond. After that you can take the second list and either A) Negotiate a price or ask them to remove them and give you what was orignally agreed.

Yea, good points. I don't know what my friend has in relation to what was agreed but I'll ask.

I definitely agree there as from doing some quick checks and reviews of the site, there definitely hasn't been much, if any SEO work completed.

I think my friend is attempting to initially regain contact with this developer (since they are ignoring him) and subsequently to get more detail on what he's asking. But the developer is point blank refusing access to the site now without further payments!

If further communication with the developer provides no response, is it time to mention small claims court?

Seth Brundle

If your friend cannot resolve this impasse, then they could simply move host and create a completely brand new site. However, I would strongly advise against using a developer without a proper contract (as I hope your friend can now see why).

Galtee

ivorystraws wrote: »

Yea, good points. I don't know what my friend has in relation to what was agreed but I'll ask.

I definitely agree there as from doing some quick checks and reviews of the site, there definitely hasn't been much, if any SEO work completed.

I think my friend is attempting to initially regain contact with this developer (since they are ignoring him) and subsequently to get more detail on what he's asking. But the developer is point blank refusing access to the site now without further payments!

If further communication with the developer provides no response, is it time to mention small claims court?

To be fair, I only know what has been said in here, if it's as simple as this then I wouldn't threaten the legal route yet so as to try and preserve some sort of relationship with the dev. I would instead imply that this can and will unfortunately have to be escalated to the appropriate authorities if no proposed resolution is forthcoming. This way it's strongly implied but the negative connotations of the Small Claims Court is not going to drive a wedge between both parties etc. I would also try and give them the letter in person if possible, whether that means calling to their house/calling to their college etc. and also e-mail it. This way it can't be denied that it was received ( as can be the case with e-mail).
I would givei it a couple of days and it this is still ignored then I would by all means escalate it.

ivorystraws

kbannon wrote: »

If your friend cannot resolve this impasse, then they could simply move host and create a completely brand new site. However, I would strongly advise against using a developer without a proper contract (as I hope your friend can now see why).

Yea, that's easily taken care of but it doesn't help solve the money spent on an uncompleted site that he's been restricted access to unless he makes further payments. So whether he starts a new site development or keeps attempting to contact this developer, there's money that has been spent and he's definitely entitled to something for his money. Small claims court can give him back upto 1,270 euro so it's a last resort option.

ivorystraws

Galtee wrote: »

To be fair, I only know what has been said in here, if it's as simple as this then I wouldn't threaten the legal route yet so as to try and preserve some sort of relationship with the dev. I would instead imply that this can and will unfortunately have to be escalated to the appropriate authorities if no proposed resolution is forthcoming. This way it's strongly implied but the negative connotations of the Small Claims Court is not going to drive a wedge between both parties etc. I would also try and give them the letter in person if possible, whether that means calling to their house/calling to their college etc. and also e-mail it. This way it can't be denied that it was received ( as can be the case with e-mail).
I would givei it a couple of days and it this is still ignored then I would by all means escalate it.

Yea, all good points and I agree. Letter by registered post to the developer's place of work regarding issue escalation might help progress it but I guess he'll continue to contact him in the meantime.

prospect

Surely if your friend can prove his ownership of the site, everything else is irrelevant.

Have a solicitors letter sent instructing the site be returned. Then pay the chap the agreed amount less the cost of the solicitors letter.

HellFireClub

A mate of mine ran into this kind of an issue with a professional development company and a mountain of contracts didn't stop one boll*x, who was the MD, putting a saddle on him and getting up on top of him.

The lesson learnt was: aways stay at the top tier of your access hierarchy and delegate access to a developer via an FTP account or to delegate access to your developer but always have full control yourself so you can't be put into a corner like this. If the relatuionship becomes inworkable, you still have access to your site and full control over it, just remove the access that you gave your developer. For obvious reasons, back up all files on the site and any databases & associated scripts you might be using.

Trojan

You should pull down a flat copy of the site as is, even if you get full access later it's a good starting point (if you did need to rebuild, you can do so from that saving a lot of effort).

Who owns the domain name? Do a whois to find out. Who is it hosted with (where do the nameservers in whois point)? It might be possible to go direct to the hosting company asserting ownership.

Sparks

Trojan wrote: »

Who owns the domain name?

[MOD WARNING] For the love of the Defamation Act, do NOT post any actual names here please... [/MOD WARNING]

Trojan

Sparks wrote: »

[MOD WARNING] For the love of the Defamation Act, do NOT post any actual names here please... [/MOD WARNING]

Very good point. I meant, of course, that these are questions the OP should be checking up on, not that he should post the details here

Sparks

I guessed as much Trojan, I just figured that could have become the point where we went from an interesting topic to court