what to do about scammer?

[ardyandkari]

-= To Daniel0: Because if I don't give my client anything, they can do a charge back through paypal - if they change the server passwords, I have no recourse. The question you asked kind of misses the point too. It isn't that I'm more trustworthy than my client, it is that I don't want ripped off. It doesn't matter if it's fair - its my terms. If they feel it is unfair (and it might be) they can do business with someone else, but I'm not going to get ripped off, that's the point. =-

 

Maybe in your ideal world you can always get money back if you feel you've been wronged. It doesn't always work like that in the real world though. There is shit on the TV all the time about people getting screwed over by some contractor. Here we are not just talking your $200, but tens of thousands of dollars... lost. Sometimes the person you pay may just disappear with the money.

 

You are the one missing my point actually. Your client doesn't want to get ripped off either so logically he will want to hold the funds before he has got what he is going to pay for. Likewise do you want to hold the funds because you don't want to get ripped off either. That's a catch-22 because you obviously cannot both hold the funds. The solution is that neither of you hold the funds and let a legal trustee in form of an escrow agent do it instead. This will ensure you that the money exist and it'll also ensure your client that you won't run away with the money. They funds won't be released until both parties have agreed to.

 

And you need to get a legally binding contract as well of course.

 

the thing is that if he is comfortable taking 100% up front, more power too him.  it might turn away potential clients, but that is their choice.  if they dont want to front the money they can go somewhere else. 

 

it would be better business practice to split it 50-50 and get a signed contract or get a contract, dont take anything up front, do all dev on your own server, and when project is finished take payment after the client has seen the finished product. 

[waynew]

Hai huise. Could you make me a website? I'll pay you $1,000,000. Could you develop it on my server though?

[keiran420]

Yo dude, Can you lends me a $100's? I'll pay you back... promise ^^

[tibberous]

I often times do work on the clients server. I use UEStudio, which lets me automatically save changes to the server. Some projects just wouldn't pay to try to setup locally.

 

I integrated decalcity.com's login system into their SMF forum. It would have taken be longer to re-setup their entire site locally, and then copy it all back, than it would have to just make the changes -- and I would had to make sure the database stayed up to date. Some things are just easier to do on the live server too, like Flash based file uploaders, anything with FFMPEG, cron jobs, scripts that rely on `grep` or `wget`, rewrite rules, ect.

[corbin]

I often times do work on the clients server. I use UEStudio, which lets me automatically save changes to the server. Some projects just wouldn't pay to try to setup locally.

 

I integrated decalcity.com's login system into their SMF forum. It would have taken be longer to re-setup their entire site locally, and then copy it all back, than it would have to just make the changes -- and I would had to make sure the database stayed up to date. Some things are just easier to do on the live server too, like Flash based file uploaders, anything with FFMPEG, cron jobs, scripts that rely on `grep` or `wget`, rewrite rules, ect.

 

Downloading the files would've taken the longest.

 

 

Not including the database importing, that would take very little time to setup.

[Daniel0]

You wouldn't even need to import the database. Just make some dummy staging data if you need.

[Mchl]

I just can't imagine this... I mean allowing a person met on internet, without a written contract, to have an access to my database? And yet it seems that it happens all the time...

[corbin]

You wouldn't even need to import the database. Just make some dummy staging data if you need.

 

 

Blerh, I would just import it so I wouldn't have to generate it.  Unless importing would take significantly longer than what ever method I would use to generate data.

 

I just can't imagine this... I mean allowing a person met on internet, without a written contract, to have an access to my database? And yet it seems that it happens all the time...

 

 

 

Errrr yeah it is kinda weird now that you mention it, but think about this:

 

How exactly is one going to code a script that feeds off of a certain database without knowing the database contents?  I guess just the schema could be given though.

[Daniel0]

You wouldn't even need to import the database. Just make some dummy staging data if you need.

 

 

Blerh, I would just import it so I wouldn't have to generate it.  Unless importing would take significantly longer than what ever method I would use to generate data.

 

I can assure you that I'm not doing that for PHP Freaks for instance. Why dump, download, and import 1 GB of data when I can just run the SMF installer on my computer and get a user. That's all I need anyway (well, I need the groups for the ACL, but that's it).

[corbin]

You wouldn't even need to import the database. Just make some dummy staging data if you need.

 

 

Blerh, I would just import it so I wouldn't have to generate it.  Unless importing would take significantly longer than what ever method I would use to generate data.

 

I can assure you that I'm not doing that for PHP Freaks for instance. Why dump, download, and import 1 GB of data when I can just run the SMF installer on my computer and get a user. That's all I need anyway (well, I need the groups for the ACL, but that's it).

 

 

In that case, generating (registering on your own local copy) would take much less time than importing ;p.

 

 

I guess it sounded kind of stupid the way I worded it.  I should have thrown a "with a reasonable amount of data" clause in there somewhere.  Downloading and importing 1GB would be unreasonable.