Help, Got ripped off by a member here!
 

Last Sunday I paypaled this guy with the username "hate" $75 to do some coding for me (1/2 downpayment). He pm'ed me from my post in the service request section.

He told me he will have the coding done in 3-4 days and that he will start right away. One week later nothing is done. He dosnet answer my emails or read my PMs on here!

Mods, can you see what time this guy was Last active?

What can I do? All I want is my $75 back. I am poor as it is :(

As I stated in another thread about hate, I'll post the same exact answer here:

Yeah, you should be carefull with those new guys, if I was posting a service request, I would of made sure that the person doing the job has been here a long time, visits and posts often, and has a higher post count. HATE just registered about a month and a half ago and only has 40 posts.

You should of searched and did some checking first, here is another thread about him: https://vborg.vbsupport.ru/showthrea...highlight=hate

Sorry to tell you, but it looks like the 75 bucks will be gone forever and if vbulletin is wise enough, they should ban this guy :)

I believe the service area should be done away with. Way to many problems that can not be controlled. There are plenty of other sites that offer professional work with proven track records and good customer base to go to.

You get what you pay for, besides in my opinion a person will never be able to run a successful website if they must always rely on others to do their coding for them!

With every poor experience that a user posts, there are many more unspoken good experiences. Sometimes you need others to assist when a project is too complex or time-consuming, even if you could do it yourself under other circumstances.

Other options are being considered to improve the forum as it is. However, as is the trend as of late, many people are talking but not much is actually being committed to it.

As for CSS59, you can try contacting PayPal and demand that they refund your money, but given it was an intangible service, they likely won't.

Maybe its time for vbulletin.org to just close down the requests forum... while alot of users may have positive experiences, it seems that alot of people don't.

I know its been suggested in the past, but maybe some kind of user ratings could be implemented. I can see this as a good way for users to see who is reliable or not.

This is like suggesting that a vocal minority of eBay bidders have had bad experiences, so eBay should be shut down. The solution is to repair the system, allowing users to know more about the developers, or so-called developers, offering to fulfull a request.

I'd have to disagree, I have designed over 50 dfiferent high quality vbulletin forums and installed hacks on at least 200 different sites since VB3 came out, some people come here just for that, I know I do. People just have to use common sense and search the users name BEFORE paying anyone.

With that said, some people just aren't computer litterate, if the service request forum was gone, alot of boards wouldn't get modified. Alot of those professional services charge 500-1000 for work, I don't even charge a fraction of that for my designs. Theirfore, if people couldn't mod their boards and couldn't afford to higher a professional, I personally think it would result in less vbulletin sales to be honest.


I say you just install the trader ratings, that should fix it :)

I have always felt some form of rating system should be implemented, as a measure to better safeguard vb.org members against potential fraud.

Note keywords, "better safeguard" , "potential".
Not everything can be prevented but we can try to seek ways to curb them.

Trader ratings or reputations sound nice maybe, but there will be also problems with it. Cases where for example a coder gets in his eyes an unfair rating. We can not investigate complaints about abuse of such a system or moderate such a thing. We just don't have the means or the time for that.

It is just a problem that can not be easily solved. Like it is now people would have to investigate themself the repuration of someone (what is a rating page more then using search and reading post from/about someone) and think before they do something. If someone comes with a briljant simple solution to improve the system, i am sure it would be considered.

i personally think a hack quota should be brought in in regard to seeing threads in the "Service Requests Area" if you've earned the title "coder" then you should be able to see the service requests, as it shows you've given something to the community before you started earning money from the community.

Sorry to say this, but that is truely a terrible ideal. For instance, I don't know how to create hacks, never will, and never will care to. So since I don't have the title coder, I will never see the service request forum, even though I have contributed enourmously to that section?

I basically do nearly ALL design jobs offerered in the service request forum, and alot of the hack install threads. Plus alot of the coders don't know how to design forums, I looked through their and some of the top coders are asking for design help.

Maybe if the traderratings or something like that doesn't work out, designers/coders can submit some kind of an application with the work they have done in the past for users, if their work is good enough, create a thread in the service request forum labled "Recomened Designers/Coders" Then list all approved names in their!

EDIT:: I think us designs should get special "Designer" names if we show our work and prove ourselfves :)

I may be missing the obvious here - but if no one except "coders" can see it, how would anyone else post a service request ? Also, not all service requests are for coding, some are simple hack installations, others are style requests.

what about some sort of scheme where when a coding request is accpeted the member pays the money to a member of admin who keeps it on hold until the work is done and then forwards it on.

I think that may just be to much work for the admins ;) Plus alot of designers including myself ask for a certain percentage down before I start on the work ;)

Not to mention, paypals fees if they have to transfer from account to account to account, then if the admins live in a different country, paypal charges for currency conversion, so in the end, paypal would soak up a lot of our cash and we woudln't make as much ;) Also, the admins would have to have a paypal account, western union account, 2checkout, and a ton of other accounts because not everyone will use the same paying method. I've even accepted checks by mail before.

I think this is an excellent idea. :up:
Reward the members who have contributed to the site.

Membership "time" and "hacks" are some of the things that people look for anyway before hiring anyone. This will just help the requestor in some form.

Using permissions -- it's easy to do.

I couldn't agree more with this it will at least offer some what of a safe guard for unsuspecting users. As it is anybody can jump in and PM them and most of those requesting are new and may not know what to look for, the readme helps but people get desperate and take the first person who comes along.

Filburt1 makes a good point in that there are probably a lot of those who go unrecognized as long as there isn't a problem. I'm not sure if ratings are the answer but only letting the tried and true in there to offer their services seems like a viable alternative.

well for me all my hacks i've kept to myself i havent released them because i dont want them falling into others hands. but i do help out here to the best of my ability. if someone asks for a job and it is minor i'll refuse any payments now the title/promotion setup wouldnt reconize my efforts because i havent released anything but it doesnt mean i dont help.

I'm curious as to why you don't release them ?

btw, can some passing mod please edit the title of this topic to "member" :)

Notice all the people agreeing with this already have the title coder? I've contributed plenty, but I'm not a coder lol I'm a designer/hack installer lol ;) and I have problably done more work in the service request forum than any member/Coder on this site! Its pretty much became my 2nd job and I probably work around 20-25 hours per week doing these jobs

Point taken :) We'll have to see what they decide to do with this now that vbt is no longer available.

Titles, points, postcounts etc dun mean nuts imho, other than an ego boost for some odd people.

Perhaps a scheme which makes paid service requests more transparent ?
A member posts a request. Upon obtaining a Coder to help, member will need to fill up a field in the service request thread stating which Coder is handling the job. The Coder then will need to ack in the same thread, else it is not considered valid and offer is considered open. Upon completion of work, Coder fills up a field ( "Work completed" ), and Member has to acknowledge in the thread....

Hmm...ok it's late and i dun really know where i am going with this ....... :D

IMO hate should be punished on this site (block him from viewing that forum until he publically apologizes?)

Anyway I think a user feedback system similar to eBays would be really good here.

That's a bit extreme considering no one actually knows why he/she has been missing (for no more than a few days I might add). The fact is that in real life people can suddenly find themselves called away for a period of time.

I'm a mean person. :D At the very least one of the mods/admins should talk to him and sort out the problem. Remember that this isn't the first time he's unable to finish after he got paid!

Just my useless opinion. :)

This is the second complaint against this guy, in both cases he never gave them a heads up to anything from the sounds of it. If he's going to accept their money and not meet a timeline then it's his responsibility to at least give them a reasonable explanation.

I personally would like to see it such that people earn the right to see others service requests. By that I mean til you have reached a certain criteria within the forum (perhaps 100 posts, 30days registration and perhaps if we enabled reputation that you receieved reputation x times) then you will be able to see others service requests.

True, and those complaints are exactly one week apart. That shows that he has been active and has had access to a PC durring those times which he should of gave the members a prompt reason to why he hasn't even started on the jobs. So I seriously doubt that its because he was away on buisness, family problems, etc. Plain and simple, this is a case of take and run. *BAN*

normally they are specialized things that i need and i dont feel like typing up install instuctions and making an install file and those types of things

Its simple but your dealing with people who are lazy. Why dont vb themselves take on the work like any NORMAL programming company.

Read my signature.... Im only here because vb.com insists on me coming over to this dam site. Even if its just to talk. talk about it at vb.org like anyone is going to respond.

I give props to the 3 (YES 3) users that helpped me here. I helped a few when I could but its tooo head swelly up in here.
screw that.

This site in it self is a perversion. These are the people that make vb yet if you use the stuff they host you loose support of the inital software you bought.

its like apple pirating music off thier website... a little extream but the logic is the same. why host something you do not condone?
That alone should show you who your dealing with...
Oh god then you get other people like photopost.
This guy swears he is god to the net.
More like god should tie him up in one.

Whether or not people are lazy has no bearing on this thread whatsoever. The issue here is 'should the Service Request forum be more tightly restricted' not 'I want vB to support hacked boards and/or release versions with major additions to the code'.

The post linked to in your signature only points out, multiple times, that you have been informed that vbulletin.com support is voided by modification of the source code...a normal policy to have in place because otherwise the cost of support would go through the roof and those majority of people with unhacked vBulletin installations would have to bear the increase in their fees.

Personally, I'd remove it if it was in my signature...just makes you look silly.

what about making most the site visible to registered users only ?

Hate contacted me in response to a service request. He seemed nice enough for a chap called "Hate" but something just didn't seem right. He refused to show any URLs and stated that his website was for "family" and "our kind"
That set off an alarm that his site could really be hate related and I'm glad I didn't fall for his charm.

I've been burned by independent service providers in the past and now I research like crazy before I pick a freelancer.

I use a certain freelance site quite a bit and it's been great because they handle all payment issues. They use paypal and escrow and act as a middle man between providers and webmasters. Perhaps VB.org could do a similar thing? A fee can be charged for each request and the freelance site I use takes a commision from providers as well.
Providers and webmasters are rated and commented upon after each transaction so it becomes clear after a while, who's good and who's not.

It could create a great revenue stream for this site. There are many freelancer scripts available and it should be pretty easy to integrate one with VBulletin. I'm thinking of doing this on my site since I already have the script but it's written in PERL and I'd rather use a PHP version.

Cheers!

He contacted me also a while ago offering his services... he seemed kind of pushy and kind of suspicous to me...

I offer services here as well and I have installed many hacks for members here. The one thing I always do is offer refrences.... I have also been ripped by a few here also but it wasn't straight out being burned, it was more like asking for an image link in my navbar and paying $50 for a simple text link.... That type of thing. That was also part of my motivation to learn which is what I am doing now and have been doing for the last few months... I am taking courses, studying and doing some tasks here and in about a year from now maybe I can join the lower ranks of the coders here!!!!

I would never hire anyone without at least seeing either there own site or some of their work....

By the end of the summer I will be totally legit and will have a site and a registered business name etc... Work that I cannot do will be spread out to the many people here who know way more than I do... work will also have a warranty so to speak...

People like Hate come in here and make us all look bad..... That is why my site will have a list of every site i have worked on. It will also have a forum for questions and answers and feedback.... If all goes well I will be looking for a few really smart and trustworthy people to take on some sub work. If interested in this please contact me...

Hey I resent this. Just because I have no clue how to do coding doesn't mean I can't run a site.By me having others do my site gives me more free time to post and get to know my members. IMHO.

Oh, I fogot to mention...why would anyone take anyone one with the screen name "hate" seriously? I wouldn't even respond to anyone with that time of screen name...
I wish you luck in getting your money back but paypay doesn't care. I paid a gal $250.00 for a front page and she never finished the site. I was to pay her more as she worked on it. She was way over her head and didn't know how to complete the job and wanted more money and I refuse to give into her sob story.

this happen to me also i have pay for one Coder here i dont need to put his name here.. but as i know as i have talk to him that he is going to Finiesh the hack About Week and the Coder have over then 20 Hack in his List

I have Reguest this hack to pay 60$ later i change and i tell him if u finiesh this hack very Quick iwill pay you 130$ so he say ok and he tell me well send me the hafe of the payment so i did ..and i send him 65$

after i send him He Reply to me "Thankyou" And i will "Try to finiesh the hack Very Quick" then he come back say The Hack is going to be late " know about 2 manth i never get any reply back or he did not answer to my PM here.. i dont no what the hell is going on .. i can't Say he Ripped my money or he is not Coder his point just to Rip my money but this is really conf me when about 2 manth never reply back to me i see that he posting in his site with his member but he dont come to the dev board to let me know .what is going on .

i think vB Should Close the Paid Reguest forum .. or just add the user who is going to Work for the member here.. so we know who we pay in other time know i'am not going to wait any more i'am going to Send paypal about this user.

Also "Hate" have contact me about the same projact i was giveing the user.. but i pick the other one because when i see the hack in his l ist and when i check hate he have nathing ..

He come add me in MSN and And show me the Dev board but i dont see nathign there..

Thankyou

Regarding that quote:

Why use vBulletin then? lol

I think people who do this should definitely have some action taken against them.

If you are talking to me, it's cause vb is a good forum. I started off with ezboard but that server sucked. I use to use invision but the customer server sucked as well. Useing the basics is easy but the added hacks (coding) is confusing and I don't care to learn it. I am very thankful there are willing coders willing to help out, paid or not.

Guys, be sure to report those who do this to paypal so they can at least flag their account for an investigation. I know if anyone complains at my site or are unhappy with their membership for any reason, I refund them immediately without question. Not only to keep in good standing with paypal but it's also not worth hassling over for a few bucks.

well, for me it was hard to report her. It was a lesson learn to not do this through a mutual friend. Plus her boyfriend contacts me to ask if I knew anyone who wanted web designing done. I was like...yeah I will refer you to my frieds, ya right.

No the quote from your post, Brent Wilsons. 75$ is quite a bit of money for some people, especially if they rarely buy stuff online (or never have before), discourages them. If I lost 75$ to some punk I'd be mad and make sure something is done.