Gimme My Money Man..I Want My Money Man!

efeezy

efeezy

Well-known member
Oct 5, 2007
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I did a job for a guy, a simple wordpress directory install that took all of a few hours to complete. The guy is a complete noob, fuckhead and didn't even know how to change his nameservers at GoDaddy. Anyway, he gave me all his hosting and domain passwords etc., I put the site together, he was loving it, everything was great.

I had originally told him that he could pay me after I finished the job (yeah I know that's my stupidity). It's not like it's a ton of money. He seemed like a stand up guy, but naturally, now I can't get him to respond to any emails and it's been a few weeks and no $$.

Now I could give a shit about the $150, but I still have the usernames and passwords to all his sites. I could just go in and delete the entire site from his server if I wanted to.

This is purely a hypothetical, but if someone wanted to shut this guys site down, what would be the easiest way to do it, with the least amount of footprint? Or is it wrong to even think about doing that type of thing to the poor bastard? I don't know, I'm just thinking out loud here.
 


Proxies are your friend.

About erracing everything, I would probably do worse. But in any case, give the guy a week or two. Some people don't reply like us geeks do (normally I reply in mins/hours).

If no reply then, have fun.
 
don't delete everything...if you do so, you'll have no leverage whatsoever against him.
just change the passwords for the ftp / cpanel account and password-protect the WP blog so he can't access / do shit with it.

contact him and ask him for your $
have fun
!
 
Lessons learned, always get a deposit (make sure they have skin in the game), always get a secondary (offline) point of contact.

Just do something else productive, there is a good chance this clueless newb doesn't value what you did for him, and wouldn't pay for it even under ransom.

So much joy and happiness in your home right now. Don't overlook future opportunites to collect past bad debts. No one really gets rich chasing down deadbeats.

Retaliation is bad karma.
 
Take a backup and delete everything and tell him that he cannot have his site back up till he pays up the full amount.
 
I suggest you just change the main page (index.php) of the Wordpress install to say, "Please pay or you're site will get deleted." Something along those lines.
 
DumDum said:
Take a backup and delete everything and tell him that he cannot have his site back up till he pays up the full amount.
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And if he doesn't pay? More time lost. Right now, the chances this guy will pay don't look favorable. Doesn't seem like a winning bet to me.

DumDum said:
Another Idea: place a redirect to makemoniesonline.com
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And that also doesn't make anyone any money. Plus, I would never hire someone who does this. Even if they weren't paid, it's the sign of an immature mind that acts with this little professionalism. Such a person couldn't be trusted with my projects. I'm a lot less likely to pay someone who meatspinned my site, so it is basically burning the bridge, and the $150.

Make an invoice, write it off as a bad debt (recover some of the loss against taxable profits) and move on. $150 is not a lot of money. Wasting a full day thinking about this, acting on it etc, isn't worth it to me, ymmv.
 
DumDum said:
Another Idea: place a redirect to makemoniesonline.com
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random redirection, say 1 out of 10 times they go to "guy doesnt pay his debts, do not do business with him...blah blah blah", or meatspin if not a business site.

that way he wont find it straight away, hopefully, if you're looking to do that sort of thing, otherwise lesson learned as guerilla said.
 
Dickroll was the first thing that crossed my mind.

I know karma is a bitch, but people need to be held accountable and sometimes taught a hard lesson.
 
You have every right to delete the stuff on his server. The thing that is alarming to me is that if he hasnt changed the passwords, then he prob doesnt have the malicious intent of not paying you. Give him a few days, annoy him a bit more, then give it a go if he's still playing hard to get.
 
I agree, keep all his files there, but just change index.php to display an administrator warning/billing ultimatum.

If he's as computer-illiterate as he sounds, he won't know how to change it back. You haven't deleted anything, it takes two seconds, and you get paid. I don't agree with guerilla, it's hardly retaliation, but don't spend a lot of time on it.
 
efeezy said:
but people need to be held accountable and sometimes taught a hard lesson.
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Well, I think you are learning the lesson not to extend credit to people on the first job, and don't work for people you can't track down.

I'm not trying to be a douche, I just don't see how any of these actions will get you paid. And I don't see how they contribute to your future success.

Sure, this guy has some bad karma coming his way. But there is little profit in you being the hand of justice.
 
Change everything back to the way it was before. Then if he still wants you to do it charge him for the first change, the change back, and the change. This is how I'd probably handle it, if it goes back to as before and he never paid you for a job what can he complain about?
 
Some of you guys are telling him to give him a few days but efeezy already stated that it has been a few weeks. Fuck this guy, he does need to be held accountable. I say change the passwords and index.php.
 
guerilla said:
I just don't see how any of these actions will get you paid. And I don't see how they contribute to your future success.
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QFT. But here's what I would do.
1) Write the money off, you're never going to get it
2) Log in and remove the work you did
3) Never respond to him again, ever. I wouldn't even respond to him if he said "OK I'll pay you" I would just move on knowing he will have to outsource it again to another sucker.
 
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