Daniel93

LOL Infinity

I have . . . it was just a thought I wanted to bounce off you. Thank you.

Hi . . . I was wondering if anyone had a client who experienced 'buyers remorse' after they launched their site, then after a few months they wanted a refund? Is that a legitimate reason to ask for a refund though they loved the site at the initial launch?

Been looking around and it seems that a simple email is a good as a signed contract. I have literally hundreds of saved emails that state she is happy with my work and loves the site, emails that tell me to add more things, subtract things, create new testing areas for flash, rebuild custom flash galleries, add hundreds of more photos, emails that tell me I need to create different timing according to the beat of the audio soundtrack for each and every photo since some photos need to be seen longer then others, and so on. The thing I seem to see is a progression of her loving the site and then when it is launched her friends start giving great reviews but then she seems to be picking up subtle hints that people think she is full of herself because of the site content, or if she doesn't hear back from a friend for comments about her site it is worse. Her insecurity starts to grow and then she begins to pick the site apart to the point where she says it's the worst thing that has happened to her in her life and wants a refund. Also she doesn't want to hear about my hourly fee, or the time and effort I put into it, because according to her no one in my client list would pay that amount to me in this day and age. I quoted this site out with another company and they gave me a estimate twice what I charged her. Argh . . . I am hoping I can cover myself by using this email trail. Thank you . . . typing this out is therapeutic for me.

Thanks guys

Hi . . . I ready on line that some States say an email correspondence can be as good as a legal binding contract, even if it is not signed. Is that true?

Thanks frawgdawg I learned my lesson with the personal stuff. She also used to tell me of friends that might see the site and want sites for themselves, but I was to tell them "I was too busy" since she didn't want other people working with me. God, I could write a book.

Breathin' and relaxin'. Plus the site has been live for over two months and she decides now she wants a refund. Thanks for all the help guys

Hi . . . I have a client that was doing ok in her stats, I targeting some specific keywords and they are ranking extremely high in Google, etc. Suddenly she was getting hundreds if not thousands of hits daily coming from one or two Chinese search engines. Which was to me was surprising because it is a personal web site and portfolio of a non-public figure. Anyway her stats took a tumble downward as I was building a new redesign, even though her keyword ranking is remarkably high. I do not know why all her hits were coming from China for a while and then died down. There is a redesign but not sure if that is a coincidence or not. Like I said her keywords are still going strong, just know one seems to be clicking through. The redesign has been up for two months. Also could it be because recently Google was banned in China? Could that have coincided with her drop in stats since all these hits were coming from specific IP addresses in China. And why just China? It's almost like they were spamming her site. Could China had banned her site because of the flash fashion photography galleries she has and that is the reason for the lack of hits? The search engine connected to all these hits was www.baidu.com. Also I noticed when I traced those IP addresses they led to baidu.com but on their site there were mentions of mp3 searches, etc. At that time I had mp3's running as soundtracks for specific pages. Now the music is all flash based. I wounder if that is why the hits dropped. There were no mp3's to pull in and those Chinese sites were attacted to the mp3s. Weird.

Well . . . it has been 2 days after I blocked her calls and email but now I am imagining a firestorm brewing on her side. Do you think I did the right thing? The site has been live for a couple months, I sent her the final site disk, sent her directions on how to set up all her social networks and cut the cord. I know there is no contract but I am still worried about being sued. Anyway . . . this could be my OCD kicking in. I have been taking all this crap from her for the past year so I am still feeling gun shy. This thing turned from a simple redesign to a monster full of redoes and more redoes and on and on. Plus there were new addons like business card designs, and a large series of fashion portfolio covers (8.5 x 11), 20+ in all, that I had to do for her. Each with a different color photo, different font design and different abstract full color graphic design beneath the 'photo' to enhance the image. At the end she wrote me a series of great testimonials but after hearing negative comments from friends concerning the amount of photos of her on the site, comments about her being full of herself, and her poor opinion and overall outlook, this started a spiral of low confidence for her and now she says she overpaid and wants a refund, but wants me to continue on with building social networking, in her words, "So she is happy again". The keywords we targeted originally are remaining incredibly high for what they are but she is not getting the amount of visitors and click through she was expecting. Is there such a thing as a visitor base being dried up? Not sure what to do if the keywords are great and haven't changed since the redesign but her stats have fallen. Here I am still dwelling on it.

Has anyone ever had a client how believed that their "time" was more valuable then "Yours"? That is how it was with mine. She used to always tell me this. Quite a morale booster. Daniel

Yep . . . that is just what I did. Thank you all for the great advice. It was very helpful.

Thanks Ben . . . I did tell her there are no guarantees in the way of placement. Her keywords are in great placement though. It;s just getting people to click through. The only way to manage that is perhaps Social Media Marketing, etc. In her first site she was getting hundreds and thousands of hits a day and I don't know why. They were all coming from a search engine in China and practically nowhere else. That dropped and now she is getting 10-20 visitors I believe. I think that is not bad for someone who doesn't have a name in her field. Plus I sent her the links to create her social networking sites. So that ball is in her court now. I have no idea why she was getting all those hits from one single search engine in China of all things. Now she expects hundreds or thousands of visitors a day everyday.

I have always been a gentleman and polite with her, I was told that was the problem and I should have been more forceful, but I alway treat clients with dignity. My opinion is if I am arrogant I will only get that back three fold.