Refusing to pay

date posted 11th October 2000 01:00

Hi,

After reading the last thread 'advice on slow paying clients' I would like to
put to you the opposite scenario, I contracted a guy in Russia through
elance.com to create a CGI based chat room system. This story is very long so
if it doesn`t interest you, you might want to close now.

The guy quoted 300 pounds for the work which I thought was a bit steep but my
client needed a chat room system so I ok`d it. A week later the work was
complete and the contractor put it up on the site, I tested it myself and
everything seemed to work fine, I then put it to the client and he concured,
after bulk testing with more people it was found that the area which lists
the people in the room was not working.

I unfortunetly was away for a week, when I get back I am faced with a guy in
Russia demanding money and making threats to me that he would crash my
clients system if I didn`t pay, on the original RFP on elance it was
explained that no matter when the project was completed payment would only be
made after I had recieved an invoice and at the end of that month. I then had
to teach this guy who is actually trading as a company rather than freelance
what an invoice was, I then explained about the system not working, he then
demanded more money to correct the system, so that was where I drew the line.
Luckily I managed to change the passwords and usernames for ftp etc on the
clients site so he couldn`t cause to much damage and I have taken his failed
work off the web site and replaced it with another contractors work which is
operating fine.

He is still making threats and demanding money, I am refusing to pay on
account that the work was not complete as per the RFP and the fact that he
has cost me time in removing countless fake accounts on the clients web site
(The web site is a dating agency kind of thing)

If anyone has been in this situation I would appreciate some advice.

Ade