Website help?

Ok, my sister had a website for her animal rescue where she sells animal products and then uses the money to care for the animals she rescues. My mom had a argument with the current webmaster and was planing on moving the website to another webmaster, she told us to pay her the $85 we owe and she will give us everything so we can move. Well my mom paid the $85 and the lady sent an email saying, "Now that I have my money, you can kiss my *** and since you dont like the way I make websites, you can start from scratch". She deleted everything there was and now there is nothing. We contacted paypal but they cant do anything, and the lady tells us we cant say anything to anyone because its slander. But she basically stole money from us. So anyone know anything we should do?

Im quite good at making websites if you give me the info i could russle something up its not profensional but it will give you something untill you get something more permenant
:) :D

if this woman was paid to make the web site then the site belongs to whoever paid her to make it. she can reserve the right to link to it for her portfolio or whatever, but the site itself belongs to the person who paid for it. that said, i'm not sure what you can do on your own, without any sort of legal involvement and if there wasn't a lot of money involved that is probably not worth it.

perhaps explain to her that you do legally own the site as you paid her to do the work and that to avoid issue she needs to provide you with what you paid for.

If you have the email history back and forth you can probably contact the US version of the 'better business bureau' and report her. That is entire legal and it won't cost you anything as a consumer.

As for getting money back etc, it would cost you more to take her to court than it would to just get a new web design company to start over for you.

This is just bad business any way that you look at it, and I truly hope that you can at least report her to your business bureau and have a complaint on file.

I was going to say the same thing contact BBB, make sure you have any and all email correspondence as well as receipts. I would push paypal also, make sure they understand that you paid for a "product" that was not delivered.

I'm no law expert but I don't think she can do anything to you for informing others (in a truthful, mature way) of what she did...that is not slander. Don't let this person fool you...there is lots you can do, you just have to put the effort into doing it.

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Originally Posted by worldcupkeeper

She deleted everything there was and now there is nothing.

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What was the website? You may be able to get the presentation stuff (images, stylesheets, look & feel) by screen-scraping the way-back machine.

Go here: http://www.archive.org/index.php and put in the old url, and it will let you see archived versions of the site.

her site was www.CatiesCritters.com

She says since she is the web-designer then she owns the site and the copyright laws say that???????? We contacted the BBB and a few other people, so we will see what happens.

YOU own the site because YOU paid for it. the copyright actually belongs to you. i actually had an employer threaten to seek legal action against me one time because i put links on my portfolio site to work i had done for them and they said that since they owned the sites (because they paid me to do them) i was not legally allowed to do so. generally speaking it is accepted that designers can link to the work they do for other people (unless they sign something that states otherwise) but they do not own the work.

it's like this--if you buy something from me, then you own it. i can't decide later that i don't like you anymore, and take it back. that would be stealing.

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Originally Posted by ctrlfreq

What was the website? You may be able to get the presentation stuff (images, stylesheets, look & feel) by screen-scraping the way-back machine.

Go here: http://www.archive.org/index.php and put in the old url, and it will let you see archived versions of the site.

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That site is great!

And the web design job that was done for you is so simplistic that even I could do it... And I'm not even a web designer!

That's just pukey business, and other ppl should know that that particular web designer is a thief. Posting feedback in associated forums, & w/the BBB isn't slander. There's also a BBB version for the WWW.


Good luck!