Netpond ™ - View Single Post - Unreliable writers/designers, lies and promises

pam · 03-26-2008, 08:58 AM

I need to rant. If you don't want to read my rant, click 'back' on your browser now. And no, this isn't ABulletaway in disguise.

I'm really, REALLY sick of the unreliability of people in this industry. Today it's writers. I had one I hired to do reviews who wasn't doing them after a month or more. A PM assured me they would be done. A month later I said they needed to be done in a week and I was assured they would be. 2 months later they didn't even have the courtesy to tell me to go fuck myself or something, they simply did not do the reviews with no explanation.

Another writer was hired to do blog posts and reviews, but needed the money up front with one sob story after another -- "I need a new monitor" to "I want to go to NASCAR" but oh, their ePass account would not be set up for 3 days so please use PayPal. So, I find someone to do a transfer of $300 for me and pay upfront. This was 2 months ago and gee, that ePass account is still not set up. The writing went well at first and then the person disappeared on me. Every day I'd get a "I'll be doing the reviews tonight" email and they never, ever were done. The person had one excuse after another and refused to even do a test review for me with some bullshit excuse. 3 weeks went by without a single blog post. When they finally did decide to do some work there were a dozen posts.

When I asked for the 3rd time for a refund on all monies owed, which is about $200 in my estimation, I was told I'd have to wait for it as they didn't have it and they'd pay me back as they could. Wait -- you demand payment with every pithy excuse known to man, lie to me through your teeth and don't do any work -- yet expect me to wait for my money? Then the "I can do the work for you instead of a refund" emails but sorry, I've already hired someone else. Time is money, and a month is just too long to wait. Unreliable and a liar. 3 days with no emails to my demand for repayment. Shit lists are on boards for a reason. I hope I don't have to use them.

Then we have designers. A few months there was the disaster of a designer who sold blog templates through this forum and others. Some kept their templates up despite the fact they were stolen designs. Fortunately I went to the biller and asked for my money back, and got it. But how many people got fucked out of money and/or designs over that one?

It seems like every day I log into a forum and and read about a domain name sale gone bad, a writer who disappeared, a designer who stole designs, a programmer who did a half-assed job for a program, a traffic broker who disappeared, etc.

And yeah, I can see the "I use so and so and they are great." I have writers and designers and coders who are awesome. Hell, I'm going to spend my entire day on a single site because my coder redid the entire script and all features of it, and it will take me all day to make sure all is good, add things, etc. He rocks!

Bottom line is I do more and more myself because the end result reflects on ME. I've often said if I don't do it myself, it's not done right.

This is a rant against all the fuckwits out there but there are some amazing people doing work as well. I'm not going to name them just as I'm not going to name the fuckwits right now.

I just wish we had more ethical people in our industry.