Pls guys, I need your urgent advise.
I met a guy on NL 3 years ago to help design a website for our company and he did but my director was not happy from the beginning cos even when we told him that the colors differs from our company's colour he said its no longer possible. Well, I convinced my director that we should manage it for now cos we a very small scale company struggling with very limited capital so we don't have a choice.
We paid 15k the first year and when it expired, the guy just suspended our website and our few customers started complaining and when we called him he said we have to renew it for 25k. We begged him that how come the whole website design, hosting etc will cost 15k and renewal will be 25k? The guy said that's final, we begged and begged but he later accepted that we paid 20k which we paid in batches after like 3 months(all those period our website was offline).
The second year same thing happened.
Now the third year is supposed to expire by November and but our website has been down since july and we have been disturbing the guy why? And explaining to him that we are loosing a lot of money and customers cos of the website. Many times he kept on avoinding our calls and mails but last week he now picked the call that our website was hacked!
What!! Hacked
Please let me place here word for word what the response as we are working on suing the guy. Here below is the exerpt of his mail to us.


Your Website was hacked/compromised (because it's very outdated)... and we have been trying to get it back
online,
But as it is now, we'll advice you get a complete upgrade & re-design.
However, if you still want the old site back online, you will have to pay for a firewall to protect your
site from future attacks and this will cost a total of N25,000 and even more for the cleaning.
Or we can upgrade and re-design the website with added security firewall for
N35,000. (The site will be ready within 7 - 10 days maximum to enable you continue your business.).



Please is it normal for him to place the blame on us and instead of solving the problem is even asking for more money and telling us the website is outdated?
Actually we can afford the money now but its very unfortunate and a slap on our fave that he is like telling us a website he designed for us less than 3 years now is outdated.
Please advise so we can know the next step to take.
A concerned struggling small scale businessman.

As no one is ready to pity me, let me kukuma copy my friends on NL that are always fighting for the common man. Please what should I do oo.

Ishiamu gunuvi Truckpusher Rozayx5
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ibokUtoroh, Koded, Ecoterrors, iPrinz20
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From the look of things, I'll advice you get another webmaster to work with. Because this will keep going on and on.

I can work with you if you want

Change your Webmaster asap

as those above me said...hire someone else aggree on the terms for payment and maintenance

Nothing but another person to help you redesign it all for you.

I hope I'm free to advertise myself to help out and what you want on it will determine your bill real time too.

Thanks

yemar:
Pls guys, I need your urgent advise.
I met a guy on NL 3 years ago to help design a website for our company and he did but my director was not happy from the beginning cos even when we told him that the colors differs from our company's colour he said its no longer possible. Well, I convinced my director that we should manage it for now cos we a very small scale company struggling with very limited capital so we don't have a choice.
We paid 15k the first year and when it expired, the guy just suspended our website and our few customers started complaining and when we called him he said we have to renew it for 25k. We begged him that how come the whole website design, hosting etc will cost 15k and renewal will be 25k? The guy said that's final, we begged and begged but he later accepted that we paid 20k which we paid in batches after like 3 months(all those period our website was offline).
The second year same thing happened.
Now the third year is supposed to expire by November and but our website has been down since july and we have been disturbing the guy why? And explaining to him that we are loosing a lot of money and customers cos of the website. Many times he kept on avoinding our calls and mails but last week he now picked the call that our website was hacked!
What!! Hacked
Please let me place here word for word what the response as we are working on suing the guy. Here below is the exerpt of his mail to us.


Your Website was hacked/compromised (because it's very outdated)... and we have been trying to get it back
online,
But as it is now, we'll advice you get a complete upgrade & re-design.
However, if you still want the old site back online, you will have to pay for a firewall to protect your
site from future attacks and this will cost a total of N25,000 and even more for the cleaning.
Or we can upgrade and re-design the website with added security firewall for
N35,000. (The site will be ready within 7 - 10 days maximum to enable you continue your business.).



Please is it normal for him to place the blame on us and instead of solving the problem is even asking for more money and telling us the website is outdated?
Actually we can afford the money now but its very unfortunate and a slap on our fave that he is like telling us a website he designed for us less than 3 years now is outdated.
Please advise so we can know the next step to take.
A concerned struggling small scale businessman.

sometimes in life we meet the wrong people for a purpose......anyway I believe in the way forward. deliberating and judging matters won't help anyone. let go of the past and get a new webmaster. I've done sites for many cooperate bodies and organizations before. holla me on wassap on 08164220091. let's re create an online presence for you

My advise is that you never use these guys on here again, except you have lots of people testify that the person's services are OK. That guy is a scammer and such people shouldn't be allowed to handle such stuff. The fool is just using you to make money and I'd advise that before you get another person to start your work, ensure you do your own home work by researching on what it takes to host a website, domain name registration and read about web security. Also, ensure he signs an agreement. By the way, be mindful of these ones telling you to use them on this thread, for they may still be the same guy you met or may be scammers too.

It would be very much nice if you sue the fraud star but ensure you get to talk to your lawyer first before doing so.

I wouldn't be surprised if the guy has all your customer records and may try using it to scam your customers. Please act fast! Also, call attention to his moniker so that Seun can do the needful and ban the fraud star..

francizy:
My advise is that you never use these guys on here again, except you have lots of people testify that the person's services are OK. That guy is a scammer and such people shouldn't be allowed to handle such stuff. The fool is just using you to make money and I'd advise that before you get another person to start your work, ensure you do your own home work by researching on what it takes to host a website, domain name registration and read about web security. Also, ensure he signs an agreement. By the way, be mindful of these ones telling you to use them on this thread, for they may still be the same guy you met or may be scammers too.

It would be very much nice if you sue the fraud star but ensure you get to talk to your lawyer first before doing so.

I wouldn't be surprised if the guy has all your customer records and may try using it to scam your customers. Please act fast! Also, call attention to his moniker so that Seun can do the needful and ban the fraud star..

Thanks so much. I will thread softly before I ask another person to help design the website for me. Meanwhile, a lawyer friend has volunteered to help prepare agreement that he will sign so as not to use our company to scam people in future and also to get back all the documents we sent to him that he used in designing the website.
To all who gave your advise, I say a BIG thank you to you all. May God be with you all. Amen

Now, it is not true that webmasters on nairaland will do the same thing but it is likey many will.
None of the persons who replied here have actually told you how to avoid future occurence.
first before you start a web project, make sure you have total control over your domain name nd hosting. How do you do that? Make sure you personally purchase them by paying with your credit cards and signing up with your email ccount.
When you higher a developer you can then give him access to your server by only giving him the cpanel details which you must change after your works.
You should not try to cheat him becuse of all these because he caan always get to you if there are brekdown in reltionship nd you guys have poor aaagreement.
In summry, this guy might not be wrong with all you have said because websites can be hacked but what happens after that depends on the arrangement you have with the developer. It doesnt mean he must be the one to take full responsibilities whenever anything goes wrong. It all depends on what you guys agreed.

If you are in Abuja, call me on 09099447385. Or drop your number i will call you. I can show you how to transfer your domain to a new webhost without talking to your former webmaster. I can also design for you but you need to get your cpanel and hosting account sorted out.

It is quite unfortunate what he did to you but my candid advice for you

is that anywhere you want to go,make sure all the details of the domain name and hosting

bears your contact so that you can move to anywhere you want in the nearest future.