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Contractor cancelled job on last day & refuses to pay for 10 weeks of work done.

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techdex

Junior Member
Hello,

I have a bit of a dilemma and I'm hoping for some advice on how to proceed. A graphic artist hired me to do some web design for her for one of her clients. She paid half up front, the other half to be due upon project completion. For starters, she gave the wrong deadline (August instead of April), then expected me to do 3 months worth of programming in about 2 weeks. The project took 10 weeks, and on the last day, she said the client changed his mind about the project and doesn't want it anymore, and that she won't be paying anymore on the job, stating one of the reasons as being untimely completion of the work as a reason.
I've tried communicating with them and was served a cease and desist order from her client. I have a feeling that this is going to court to settle and I would like some advice on how to proceed.

My first thought was to hire a debt recovery agency. I am located in North Carolina. I'm not sure how to proceed here. Can someone offer some sound advice?
 


T

techdex

Junior Member
The contract states a few specific things.
Section 3 says, "In the event that the “Scope of Work” is canceled (me) will be compensated for any work completed based on the breakdown of its bid." The items in the scope of work was completed.

It also says "If the work completed is not covered in (me)’s bid then (them) reserves the right to compensate (me) based on a percentage scale of work completed up to the cancellation date. (them) reserves the right to terminate this agreement at any date, with no further compensation, if (them) determines that (me) is not performing its obligations to fully meet this agreement, also (me) agrees to reimburse (them) for all cost incurred by (them) due to (me) negligence."

The termination letter they issued me stated, "The reasons for the termination are untimely delivery of work based on the scope, unsatisfactory quality of work expressed by her client (their client), and unprofessional interaction with (them) and (their client). Therefore, no further payments will be made to (me)."

The unsatisfactory quality of work she's talking about is that the client didn't like the end result of the web design. It was their template that they designed and it was their client that approved it.

The "Scope of Work" is in EXHIBIT 1 of the contract and it says, "1. Create a back-end system where “Missions” will be populated. 2. Create javascript (?) in order to make Icons on map to zoom when clicked to a specific location of mission
a. Create Pop-up box which will overlay including brief information about mission linking to full mission page."

Says nothing about the design of the work at all. They designed the template and I built it and I did what they asked.

Edit: The date that was put in the contract was in section 2 of the contract, "COMPLETION DATE. All “Scope of Work” shall be completed by August,26,2002."

When I asked about the 2002, I was told it was 2012 and that it was a typo. It wasn't until April was over that they said August was wrong as well, and it was supposed to be April - which put me immediately behind their deadline.
 
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T

techdex

Junior Member
They wrote the agreement themselves. I pointed out the errors and I have email responses from them about it. I saved everything. Care to elaborate more, please?

PS: the (me) (them) and (their client) was changed by me for the post. I didn't want to put real names up there for the world to see. It was written that way.

Edit: From where I stand, she doesn't have a valid reason for not paying. She agreed that if its terminated, she would pay for the work that was done up to the termination date. I know the clause stating that she can terminate without further compensation if she determines that I'm not performing my obligations to fully meet the agreement seems like a catch all to escape paying, but that would be extremely hard for her to do considering she approved of the work before submitting it to her client (I have that in writing too), and she made a video testimonial for me approving of how good my work is. She even expressed that she would pay me extra because it was her fault the project was past due and I was having to do stuff like work through the night on several occasions to get the job done. (I have that in writing too)

Edit 2: I don't think anyone can disapprove of the work that was done. Here is the template they designed and wanted me to build.

Template Image: http://clients.techdex.net/gigfoundation/images/home-page-template.jpg
Design: http://clients.techdex.net/gigfoundation/

It is EXACTLY as they designed. The orange news box they changed to green, and the background fading was their client's suggestion. He was a part of the project and gave approval every step of the way along with his ideas and suggestions.

I'm sorry if it seems like trolling or spamming, I just want to get my point across that they got exactly what they asked for, and that the design was not part of the agreement.
 
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