Unethical practices of a web designer?

[lyonsdown]

I hired a designer from a freelancer website, to re-skin a website template I purchased.

I created him as a user on my Wordpress dashboard.
After 2-3 weeks working on it (which was far too long for what he had to do) I found he'd blocked my access to my dashboard. His excuse is he didn't want me to go in and undo any of the work he'd done, as I might screw up his work.

As I half-expected, when it came to payment he said he'd unblock me after I paid him.So I paid him under those circumstances, as I had no choice.IS this him protecting his interests, or blackmail?
Also, he said he'd optimised the site ,and we'd agreed an extra £150. That wasn't true, and when I challenged him he backed down.

When i got into the site I found he hadn't done any optimisation at all! So clearly he was trying to con me out of the extra £150.

 

[SEOpie]

Agreed. This is poor practice, and you should be leaving negative feedback, and possibly even report the user to admin staff in the process.

 

[Marek Skoczylas]

Can I just ask about developer origin?

 

[ZeroDouble]

For future reference you could have just changed your password to something else in phpmyadmin (found in cpanel), deleted him as a user, and then told him to do one.

Anyway, here's a link that tells you how to do it (scroll down to the relevant section). Very simple to do.

https://codex.wordpress.org/Resetting_Your_Password

Very poor practice, and a terrible way to do business on his part. As said, you should report him to the marketplace admins, and obviously give him the customary neg review for being a bellend.

 

[fisicx]

I hired a designer from a freelancer website, to re-skin a website template I purchased.

Which now means you can't update the theme. What they should have done is create a child theme. To do that they would even have needed a login to your site.

PS: if it's the theme on your main site they have made a right pig's ear of things. It's broken all over the place.

 

[Alessandro Paletta]

Stay away from freelancer websites. It could be anybody. If you're doing things with your online marketing, it's best not to be tight and to do things properly

 

[woodss]

Wow, sounds like one to avoid. If I were you I'd be double-checking my CPanel to make sure they no longer have access of any kind, who knows what else they've done.

 

[Jigneshg]

As suggested by other members, here I strongly recommend hiring agency against freelancers (here all freelancers are not bad) or check their reviews before you hire one. The method he used to get payment is totally unethical and you can complain about this experience to respective freelance website and put your review as well. It will teach him a lesson and can also save money of others who might hire him in the future.

 

[lyonsdown]

He also did something else unethical: I needed his help to fix the site as I made an error by deleting a plugin. he said he'd help if I gave him a good review.So I did (reluctantly), and he then refused to help me after the review was published! I've contacted peopleperhour.com toget them to delete the review ,but they're not interested.
The guy's name was Andrew Alexander of Pink Parrot Media- avoid him like the plague

 

[fisicx]

You should have just asked here. Putting a plugin back is an easy job, many UKBF members (including me) would have done it for free.

 

[lyonsdown]

problem is I deleted quite a few plugins as site was loading very slowly,and not sure which deleted plugin caused the problem.
Is it possible to go into back end a work out which deleted plugin has caused formatting of site to be thrown out of kilter?

 

[paulears]

If he's basically conned you - why not report him to the authorities? It's clearly fraud if he hasn;t done anything.

 

[ZeroDouble]

problem is I deleted quite a few plugins as site was loading very slowly,and not sure which deleted plugin caused the problem.
Is it possible to go into back end a work out which deleted plugin has caused formatting of site to be thrown out of kilter?

Did you delete them, or did you just deactivate them? If the former then you'll need to find and re-upload them all first, maybe then just activate them all and deactivate them one by one until you see which one is causing the problem?

What plugins did you delete though, and why did you feel that you could delete them in the first place - surely they were all there for a reason?

Also, at the moment your site's totally offline except for a blank page with 'welcome to my website' or something btw...

 

[fisicx]

problem is I deleted quite a few plugins as site was loading very slowly,and not sure which deleted plugin caused the problem.
Is it possible to go into back end a work out which deleted plugin has caused formatting of site to be thrown out of kilter?

Yes.

It could be plugins, your theme or even your hosting. Finding the culprit is easy. This freelancer doesn't know what they are doing.

 

[RickyD2411]

People per hour is a terrible site imo, sad to hear someone has done that to you op, like others have said above you could have deleted him from the database and just got on with the site like normal, but thats done now. you should contact people per hour and tell them about this developer because he will prob do it to others in the future.

 

[fisicx]

People per hour is a terrible site imo

Where does it say he used PPH? He just said he used a freelancer site, he didn't say which one.

 

[RickyD2411]

He also did something else unethical: I needed his help to fix the site as I made an error by deleting a plugin. he said he'd help if I gave him a good review.So I did (reluctantly), and he then refused to help me after the review was published! I've contacted peopleperhour.com toget them to delete the review ,but they're not interested.
The guy's name was Andrew Alexander of Pink Parrot Media- avoid him like the plague

Where does it say he used PPH? He just said he used a freelancer site, he didn't say which one.

Seems like you have a problem with me? try reading.

 

[astoller]

Think about this. In Google's pay per click campaigns companies often pay hundreds or thousands of pounds per month to attract traffic to their website.
What traffic would you expect from a one-off charge of £150?
it is an easy claim to make, but it just doesn't stack up in the real world.

 

[Newchodge]

Peanuts = monkeys.

If you need a professional job doing, you need to pay professionals.

 

[david64]

If you need to come here for validation that this is unacceptable, it sounds like you are suffering from Stockholm syndrome. Have better trust in your senses.

To echo Marek: what country were they from?

One issue with doing web work is that you might not get paid. So in a sense, the way they have operated can be understood. But he has got it all wrong. Standard practice is 50% deposit on commencing and 50% on completion. Sometimes you may not pick up the final 50%,but that is a risk of doing business.

Requesting £150 for doing nothing is scandalous and you should report him aggressively for that an insist to the freelancing site that you will not use them again unless they clear this scum off their network.

If you don't have technical knowledge, hiring anyone is somewhat of a shot in the dark. But going to a freelancing site (the bottom of the market) is going to be the most high-risk. You can find good people on such sites, but you need to know what you are looking for. I have used freelancing sites as a kind of recruitment agency, i.e. I will get a few to do a small job and offer the best one up to full-time on a competitive basis. However, there is one key rule with these freelancing sites:

Do not hire anyone who lives in South Asia.

The things people from that area have done to me, make your affairs look practically cherubian. And I have heard countless horror stories from others, including those outside of IT.

If you really want to save money, I would recommend looking for someone in Serbia, Macedonia or Bulgaria. Serbia is the best in my experience as many Serbs have a magnificent sense of honor and earning what they get. The minimum wage in all these countries is about £1 / hour; and the average is about £2 / hour. But I pay £3.50-4.25, as contrary to the blitherings of the unemployable: Jerry Corbyn & Bernie Sanders, business owners do not have the sole aim of milking you dry and sending you to the knackers yard when you break.

Poland is also an option and has a good repository of web skills. But for what it seems you paid, you would probably be able to have got it done by some green shoots in this country.

The bids here go to show what is wrong with so many Freelancer site:

https://www.freelancer.co.uk/projects/Data-Processing-Data-Entry/Singapore-Database-Needed/

If you post a job, it will be applied for by an army of South Asians who have no experience in doing what you want. In this case, there is a request for some data, which none of the bidders have, but they post anyway. I've experienced one of these people on screen-sharing, insisting he possess a piece of software (as he did in his bid), then installing it in front of my face and proceeding to make a meal of the job.

 

[Marek Skoczylas]

Serbia, Macedonia or Bulgaria, Poland is also an option and has a good repository of web skills.

That is the point. Im not against any of race or religion, but not so long ago I have been reading an article with some ridiculous title like - "why hire a white or christian person if you know nothing about it"

Article pointed christians and white race more honest and trusted over an asians, muslims or africians, with some tremendous statistics.

Here is some social experiment video about this issue:

Please check first most popular comment:

.. Not trying to be racist but the only people who tok were black...

 

[Marek Skoczylas]

I think your project fits perfectly in actual freelance market needs. Best of luck with your project.

 

[Nighthawk Software]

People per hour is a terrible site imo, sad to hear someone has done that to you op, like others have said above you could have deleted him from the database and just got on with the site like normal, but thats done now. you should contact people per hour and tell them about this developer because he will prob do it to others in the future.

People Per Hour is just a marketplace for finding someone to do the work. It's still up to you to perform due diligence, and as with every other marketplace out there, you get what you pay for.

I've used PPH a few times for a number of tasks, and had good experiences, and bad experiences. However, when I have had bad experiences, I have normally cancelled the contract fairly quickly, and PPH have always automatically refunded me without even having to argue the case.

Did you allow the developer access to the live website?

This is always a bad idea, you should always clone the site to a development site, and perform all work on here. Not only would it protect you in a case like this - just ditch the dev server and replace it with a fresh copy of the live server - but it also protects the user experience for any visitors. If you're working on a live server, you will be constantly breaking and changing things.

The dev server doesn't even need to be on a different server, it can be on the same physical machine, running under a sub domain.

 

[MrComputerSaint]

I thought it might be a dev protecting himself to begin with, it could have been because of a previously poor experience that the dev had. But at the end of the OP I thought the same as most here, he was just trying to get more money from you.

Thanks about the Serbia recommendation though to who ever posted that.

 

[Digital Resellers]

That's a disgusting and unprofessional move I hope you continue to name and shame

 

[Bradley Holmes]

I´m sure you already have, but please make sure you have removed his user account from the WP and also get your cPanel or hosting account password changed if you gave that to him too.