Help, Got ripped off by a member here!

[CSS59]

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

[Rick Sample]

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

[BamaStangGuy]

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!

[filburt1]

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.

[Reeve of shinra]

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.

[filburt1]

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.

[Rick Sample]

Originally Posted by BrentWilson

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!

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.

Originally Posted by filburt1

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

[cinq]

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.

[Marco van Herwaarden]

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.

[sabret00the]

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.