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What do you do when a friend turns out to be a thief?
By Ross Goldberg | April 13, 2007
Many of you are familiar with the infamous Warrior Forum. I have an issue with a member of that forum that I’d like to share with you to make sure you don’t make the same mistakes that I made. The bottom line: Don’t ever trust someone you don’t know well.
I was contacted by a member of the Warrior Forum and asked to do link building for their sites. The sites are subdomains, which anyone familiar with SEO can tell you is extremely difficult to do link building for. I let him know that I would be expensive for this, as I do not offer SEO as a service any more. I quoted him a price of $500 for each of 3 sites. 50% was to be paid up front and the remainder would be paid after the work was completed. I told him that it would be OK to wait a few DAYS to see some results before I expected payment. I felt no need to have contracts signed, as this was a simple job between friends (huge mistake!).
He paid me $700 (not quite the 50% agreed upon) and I started work. This job was completed in a few days. I submitted his RSS feed to directories and social bookmarked his sites. Subdomains cannot be submitted to web directories, so this made things quite difficult. I did, however submit his main domain to 500 directories to add value to my service with him (at no additional cost).
Upon completion of the work, I contacted him to let him know it had been completed. I reiterated that it would be OK for him to wait a few days to see some results before I expected payment. He literally flipped out. He claimed he wanted to see all of the results before payment. Our entire agreement went out the window.
He just contacted me today demanding a refund for the $750 he paid me (it was only $700 in truth). I’ve made a page showing the (crappy) results that he got from my efforts. You’ll see the links I created pointing to his sites and ranking improvements for the subdomain that performed best.
The problem here is that his sites were very spammy. They are sites that others have and are simply duplicate content. His index of each subdomain rotates crappy articles he has had written and the sites simply look like total spam. They were not accepted into the majority of RSS and Web directories due to the quality of the sites. Out of submission to 500 web directories, there were only 16 approved. Out of over 100 RSS submissions, only 10 were approved. That isn’t my fault. The cost for the service was for work and results. The results are not only based on the work, but the quality of the sites.
I acknowledge that the results are somewhat lackluster, but again, it isn’t my fault that his sites are crappy.
You can see his sites at http://www.wares-are.us
You can see proof of my work at http://www.ross-goldberg.com/thief.html
Here is a link to the Whois data for his site: http://www.whois.org/whois_new.cgi?d=wares-are&tld=us
I provided a service and expected to be paid for it, as was agreed upon by both of us. He decided to change the arrangements to suit him without any thought or concern about paying me for my work. I trusted this man based on his “I want a Warrior to do this for me” story he gave me. That was really stupid.
The moral of the story here is not to trust anyone based upon conversations you may have with them. Always get something signed by your client to cover your behind.
Topics: Ross' Thoughts |
April 13th, 2007 at 10:05 am
Sorry to hear that man. I wasn’t a member of the Warriors when it was private because I heard about it later but I almost wish it were again. (not to dis it, just a select few of the members)
It’s people like this who ruin good JV’s and friendships because they cause others not to trust people. I don’t blame you at all for your anger. I’d probably send a similar post to my list as well!!
April 13th, 2007 at 10:30 am
Sad to hear this Ross,
one of the reasons I shy away from providing services.
I agree with Joshua Spaulding, people who go back
on their agreements ruin it for the rest of us who want
to work with each other for mutual benefit. I hope this
is a one off.
April 13th, 2007 at 11:10 am
What a wild thing to encounter. What type of results did the guy really expect with such crappy sites. I’m sure he has approached other SEO Guru’s and they probably said hell NO based on the content alone.
I wouldn’t worry, once the word gets out he’s pretty much finished.
You dont want a bad name in this industry, the community is too small.
April 13th, 2007 at 11:35 am
Wow.. what a complete waste of time! I looked at the site and it doesn’t have any content on it and it looks like crap. I imagine he wonders why he’s not making any money with adsense. LOL
I’m sure you learned your lesson, always put stuff in writing, although if you have emails with him agreeing to your terms, that might hold up if you pressed it. But, probably not worth the fight.
It’s people like him that cry when they fail at any kind of Internet business…. it’s sad.
April 13th, 2007 at 1:50 pm
The biggest problem is that he doesn’t see where he has done anything wrong. He acted like I was his best friend when this arrangement started and as soon as the work was done, he went psychotic.
The other reason I didn’t bother with a contract is that he’s not located in the states and enforceability of the contract would have been nearly impossible. He made accusations today claiming he was going to take this public. I guess I beat him to the punch…
April 13th, 2007 at 8:16 pm
well ross,
for every one or two that like to take advantage,
whether they be marketers that have the ‘get
them for every cent you can’ attitude or
consumers who want it all for nothing (my
favorite being the one who orders the big
package then claims that they don’t like a
particular product in it, and that one is the ONLY
reason that they bought it & want ALL their
money back), there’s a ton who really appreciate
the work that people like you do for them.
and knowing you as we all do, we know that in
most every case, you go well beyond what was
promised, and overdeliver.
what’s the old saying; you can’t make a silk
purse out of a sow’s ear……
just the fact that he tried to claim that he paid
you more than he did says worlds about HIS
character.
regards,
stuart halpryn
http://TheJVZone.com
http://NetActivated.com
April 20th, 2007 at 10:04 am
Hello Ross,
I am sorry to hear that you ran into some problems. People go crazy on the Warrior Forum. It sounds like this guy was expecting a miracle from you and he thought that by doing what he did you would have felt bad for him maybe, or maybe it was a flat out way of getting out of paying you. You had everything that you needed to back up your story and I give you credit for keeping track of this. It stinks when one bad apple ruins it for everyone else. Hopefully this will not leave too much of a bad tase in your mouth and you will not let this stop you from doing work with others. Next time you know to get it in writing and to have a contract. I have learned that all too well in my personal life, even for something as simple as buying a dog. Never trust anyone
It is a shame that you even have to say that, but it is true.
To Your Success!
Shannon Q.
P.S. I wondered if you guys have read these FREE reports yet. It talks about the DISASTER on the web 2.0 technology. You can download it at:
http://HenryGoldSecret.com
(Wild Stuff. No Affiliate link either!)
April 23rd, 2007 at 6:48 am
I always expect my customers to agree a terms of service because of exactly the same thing off line.
Rule one - always have a written contract and do or offer nothing that is not explicitly stated and agreed first. It sounds mean, rude even but I’ve found that anything less is no fun at all.
I also tend to charge about 20% over the going rate for my services (when I have to work directly) on the basis that the time wasters are frightened by the price but the seriouse ones open with seriouse negotiations fully ready to haggle. Some simply smile and say how cheap I am (it’s a funny old world).