Help Me Nail a Scamming Designer

[BLazeD]

I am looking for advice in nailing a scammer. Basically the story is as follows:

In November last year I commissioned a desginer to create a WordPress theme for $800 and paid $400 deposit through Paypal. Work was slow and he was crap and eventually he stopped communicating some time in January.

By the time I realised he'd done a runner it was too late to make a complaint via Paypal (45 day period). I have emailed him numerous times since and tried calling him (phone was disconnected or off) to no avail.

The sites he runs are www.26bits.com and www.twentysixmedia.com - both of which now have whois privacy (and I neglected to copy down his details earlier stupidly!). His name is Chris Wilson and he is from Idaho though. He is also involved with www.cssrockstars.com.

Anyway, around March I gave up and wrote off the money, but now I am pissed off again and want to get it back.

In the last day or so I have discovered he is indeed still "designing" and is just starting up the www.twentysixmedia.com site, apparently as 26 Media LLC or Twenty Six Media LLC (I am from New Zealand and don't know how to check company details, or if it is even legit). I have further found out that apparently this is a 4 person operation.

That he would rip me off and then go on to continue designing and probably ripping other people off has pissed me off even more and I really want to nail this prick, as I said living in New Zealand makes it hard though.

Any ideas?

 

[draggar]

Please tell us he gave you an invoice showing you proof of payment and/or your own proof of payment (Paypal statements?).

 

[BLazeD]

Of course I have Paypal and email records

 

[accomatic]

You can check historic WHOIS records for any domain at www.domaintools.com (former whois.sc):
http://whois.domaintools.com/26bits.com
http://domain-history.domaintools.com/?q=26bits.com&page=results#nsmessages

You can also use their Registrant Search service to get all domains owned by this person.

These services cost money, but you can get 10-day free Gold membership trial and this is enough to see historic WHOIS records.

Good luck nailing this scammer. They ruin trust and make life harder for honest people.

 

[FuseFX]

To avoid automatic parsing of the links, uncheck the "Automatically Parse Links in Post" when creating a thread.

Thanks

 

[Dale Hubbard]

Last time this happened to me, I registered the domain [scammername]sucks.com. I threw up a phpBB forum and started threads which were relevant to this person and his scamming. Once you have done this, you can use the contact form at cssrockstars.com and advise them of the new addition to the internet. I think you'll find you get your money back rather quickly or the guy goes out of business. As was the case with my offender.

Just take care with the obvious issues of libel, and state the facts that you know and the questions to which you require answers. Use "in my opinion" when assassinating his character

No edit button?

Anyway, you can also email him at his whois privacy email address and see what he thinks about the idea.

 

[mr-x]

You might be able to contact the company through one of the websites and settle the matter to your satisfaction. Sometimes shit just happens. No excuse but given the chance most people will try to make it right. If not, you could call him out on their forum, cssmates.com. It appears he or one of his partners also have an account on talkfreelance.com also, found via google.

 

[BLazeD]

Thank you for the tips guys, I will take them into consideration!

And ^^^ I tried contacting lots of times but my emails were ignored.

I also found out that he had done something similar to another person... after all this went down - argh!

 

[IBN]

If you like you can help get your story indexed at SSCommerce.Com Go toward the bottom in the domain names, web designers scammers section...

 

[BLazeD]

If you like you can help get your story indexed at SSCommerce.Com Go toward the bottom in the domain names, web designers scammers section...

Not at this stage thanks

 

[fab]

Happened to me once, with even more money. Someone from India. So I really feel for you. I would suggest getting more details about him from a people find http://www.intelius.com/searching.php?ReportType=8& check, which costs about $50, and trying to find someone here from Idaho.

Do you know if he's over 18?