D
divemaster
- Original Poster
- #1
Hi
I saw this legal forum board so think this message will be of interest and hopefully help me out in considering my next moves.
Client requests I take on his so far created joomla site to check it over and add a video streaming service PPV (Pay per view). There were 3-4 basic pages and a shopping cart integration. What was missing was demo pages of the video pages that would link or allow you to purchase and view the movie after you click and select the demo.
I did work totalling 32 hours as the project was not easy to quote as it had some tricky to price elements and this was how we started up, I took some money down and started and got going. Via email he agreed my hourly rate and I promised to keep him updated with a worksheet detailing work done. I got payments over a couple of months for 600 pounds.
To date I am out of pocket 400 pounds. Charging £31.25 (bad debt from my POV) per hour.
At a point I stopped work for a few reasons
a) He was going over budget on time spent (my time not his and still not going in a good direction according to my guidance and how I would solve the PPV thing) eternal scope creep.
b) He started to send me threatening emails about litigation and they were personally abusive. So his big American investors were going to sue me for 100k if I did not start to do as he was saying and that I was trying to make him ill through stress. He is an older gent which is an important fact in this case.
c) I can't afford to support someone per hour for no more money. I felt that carrying on would not get the site finished it felt that whatever solutions I proposed there was an issue.
As an example the PPV stuff was all setup and the videos edited by myself and loaded but I needed him to go in and setup the payment details and take that part of the work on himself as it is personal to him. That would have finished the site but he rejected this solution.
He was rejecting this final hurdle- trying to move to another provider but insisting I do it for no more money but this was quite an undertaking to suck up when you're taking abuse at the same time. And I had solved the problem with a solution provider he had originally found/chosen who were based in the USA and not bad if not web2 interface etc they had proper cdn etc. His video editing alone in a proper agency would have cost 300 pounds I would think if not much more as I had to go through a few times to meet his scrutiny.
I almost prefer to hear from a proper legal solicitor as they will not be spouting jibberish (in my view) at me and they would not be making in my view ridiculous acusations and making unreasonable and nonsense costs I now needed to pay for.
I can't afford to refund him the 600. If I could I would have but I could still see him coming for me even if I had.
I was perhaps hoping that a solicitor would say to him
a) Well he has proof he has done the work and so he hasn't done anything wrong really.
b) We can try to be reasonable and accept his terms for finishing the site.
c) You have no recourse to get anything back try and reach a settlement. You have not got a finished website but there was never a contract for that he was helping you on your way per hour.
Without a termination clause are there any grounds for deciding to call it quits? It was no longer any good for either of us. His issue was of course that his site was not finished though I had desperately tried to and also tried to get some mediator to work with me and him as his abusive emails were too much.
So I gave him a final email stating that I would want to hear from his legal team and no longer from him if he didn't agree to mediating through a project manager for us to finish.
He hasn't bothered to go that mediated route nor have I had an official legal letter. But has issued me with a threat of a Statutory Demand notice created by himself adding at that point he will force sale of my house and then follows my bankruptcy. He stated if I don't pay that initial amount he will wait until costs increase beyond 5k then file the SD.
The statutory notice has fees for the 600 pounds refund plus 62 hours he says it has taken him to reinstate/rebuild his site = 1,937 because he took my hourly rate and his time to rebuild.
His site never needed rebuilding from me, he (or someone else) took it down - I lost admin access after his first abusive email when he accused me of deleting his website and charging him 600 pounds!
[What actually happened was his pages got pushed down in the joomla dashboard and he could now only see mine , so he could not properly use joomla and is creating all kinds of lies at this point about what I have done to his site.]
I took a copy of the site as I am professional while working on it. Any professional could have taken a backup and recreated the site within 1 hour so he did not need to reinstate anything. So that is a good example of the way things have gone. I also took a screen grab of all the conversations and work done as it was inside his controlled slack. Again proof of work and effort that often was back and forth strategic looking for solutions to his issue. Honestly on a budget the guy couldn't have got better advice IMO. A streaming PPV e com shop for 1000 pounds! Just needed his final hurdle.
I am really good at what I do and for the money he got great work (I realise this is hard to prove) and would have been home and dusted had he listened and followed my advice. He made it impossible to finish and the situation was untenable to which I have quite a lot of email evidence and the slack videos showing the scrolling down.
Does the law have any grounds for protecting me as it also protects him? I don't think I will like the replies I get to this (because we tend to protect the consumer) but I guess it's time to start the process off.
I read in one of the other threads that a statutory notice can be abused- it feels like this might be a good case for it.
So if he starts running up legal costs to reach the threshold needed for it to be considered how am I a bad creditor? He is the one making those costs up as opposed to a clear cut case of a supplier not paying a company for bricks should be a bad creditor.
Thanks for taking the time to read and see if you have some experience or insight.
I saw this legal forum board so think this message will be of interest and hopefully help me out in considering my next moves.
Client requests I take on his so far created joomla site to check it over and add a video streaming service PPV (Pay per view). There were 3-4 basic pages and a shopping cart integration. What was missing was demo pages of the video pages that would link or allow you to purchase and view the movie after you click and select the demo.
I did work totalling 32 hours as the project was not easy to quote as it had some tricky to price elements and this was how we started up, I took some money down and started and got going. Via email he agreed my hourly rate and I promised to keep him updated with a worksheet detailing work done. I got payments over a couple of months for 600 pounds.
To date I am out of pocket 400 pounds. Charging £31.25 (bad debt from my POV) per hour.
At a point I stopped work for a few reasons
a) He was going over budget on time spent (my time not his and still not going in a good direction according to my guidance and how I would solve the PPV thing) eternal scope creep.
b) He started to send me threatening emails about litigation and they were personally abusive. So his big American investors were going to sue me for 100k if I did not start to do as he was saying and that I was trying to make him ill through stress. He is an older gent which is an important fact in this case.
c) I can't afford to support someone per hour for no more money. I felt that carrying on would not get the site finished it felt that whatever solutions I proposed there was an issue.
As an example the PPV stuff was all setup and the videos edited by myself and loaded but I needed him to go in and setup the payment details and take that part of the work on himself as it is personal to him. That would have finished the site but he rejected this solution.
He was rejecting this final hurdle- trying to move to another provider but insisting I do it for no more money but this was quite an undertaking to suck up when you're taking abuse at the same time. And I had solved the problem with a solution provider he had originally found/chosen who were based in the USA and not bad if not web2 interface etc they had proper cdn etc. His video editing alone in a proper agency would have cost 300 pounds I would think if not much more as I had to go through a few times to meet his scrutiny.
I almost prefer to hear from a proper legal solicitor as they will not be spouting jibberish (in my view) at me and they would not be making in my view ridiculous acusations and making unreasonable and nonsense costs I now needed to pay for.
I can't afford to refund him the 600. If I could I would have but I could still see him coming for me even if I had.
I was perhaps hoping that a solicitor would say to him
a) Well he has proof he has done the work and so he hasn't done anything wrong really.
b) We can try to be reasonable and accept his terms for finishing the site.
c) You have no recourse to get anything back try and reach a settlement. You have not got a finished website but there was never a contract for that he was helping you on your way per hour.
Without a termination clause are there any grounds for deciding to call it quits? It was no longer any good for either of us. His issue was of course that his site was not finished though I had desperately tried to and also tried to get some mediator to work with me and him as his abusive emails were too much.
So I gave him a final email stating that I would want to hear from his legal team and no longer from him if he didn't agree to mediating through a project manager for us to finish.
He hasn't bothered to go that mediated route nor have I had an official legal letter. But has issued me with a threat of a Statutory Demand notice created by himself adding at that point he will force sale of my house and then follows my bankruptcy. He stated if I don't pay that initial amount he will wait until costs increase beyond 5k then file the SD.
The statutory notice has fees for the 600 pounds refund plus 62 hours he says it has taken him to reinstate/rebuild his site = 1,937 because he took my hourly rate and his time to rebuild.
His site never needed rebuilding from me, he (or someone else) took it down - I lost admin access after his first abusive email when he accused me of deleting his website and charging him 600 pounds!
[What actually happened was his pages got pushed down in the joomla dashboard and he could now only see mine , so he could not properly use joomla and is creating all kinds of lies at this point about what I have done to his site.]
I took a copy of the site as I am professional while working on it. Any professional could have taken a backup and recreated the site within 1 hour so he did not need to reinstate anything. So that is a good example of the way things have gone. I also took a screen grab of all the conversations and work done as it was inside his controlled slack. Again proof of work and effort that often was back and forth strategic looking for solutions to his issue. Honestly on a budget the guy couldn't have got better advice IMO. A streaming PPV e com shop for 1000 pounds! Just needed his final hurdle.
I am really good at what I do and for the money he got great work (I realise this is hard to prove) and would have been home and dusted had he listened and followed my advice. He made it impossible to finish and the situation was untenable to which I have quite a lot of email evidence and the slack videos showing the scrolling down.
Does the law have any grounds for protecting me as it also protects him? I don't think I will like the replies I get to this (because we tend to protect the consumer) but I guess it's time to start the process off.
I read in one of the other threads that a statutory notice can be abused- it feels like this might be a good case for it.
So if he starts running up legal costs to reach the threshold needed for it to be considered how am I a bad creditor? He is the one making those costs up as opposed to a clear cut case of a supplier not paying a company for bricks should be a bad creditor.
Thanks for taking the time to read and see if you have some experience or insight.
