By yiles on

I just got my refund back a months ago from a developer that kept delaying the work given and didnt commit to the deadline. Even though I gave that person endless amounts of months to complete but unfortunately, it didnt work out and I was given my refund back.
I think I found that person from someone on this list that referred me to that person:
http://groups.drupal.org/available-for-hire
All in all, nice person to speak to but, just never got the work done.

But I am still looking to hire a developer but I am not sure what the safest way of getting someone to get the work done and get some comfort that I will get my money back if things go wrong. I dont know if anyone has tried either of these places: odesk.com, elance.com and freelancers.net

⋅ Categories: Drupal 6.x

Comments

roshan_shah’s picture

roshan_shah commented

I would not recommend elance, odesk type sites. While you may get good rates, in most cases the site you will end up with will not be something that till follow Drupal best practices. You cannot get quality Drupal development done at $10-$15/hr what is quoted my most developers there.

This developer might have been overloaded with work or it may be that after he looked at the real scope, the work may be lot more than he would have expected. The fact that he has refunded the money and kept the communication channel open with you itself shows that he has genuine interest in Drupal.

Number of times, we come across customers who have emergency where their developers leave project midway - taking away money and never responding. And when we did code assessment we found in most cases that development was done by someone who did not have deep Drupal expertise.

You are surely asking question at the right place :
1) Drupal Paid Services Forums
2) Try Linkedin Forums too. Ask for recommendations
3) There is also a Facebook page of Drupal Service Providers - http://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=2449272488&v=wall&ref=ts

Roshan
Custom Drupal Devleopment

yiles’s picture

yiles commented

Thanks for the reply. I will give those options a go.

Going back on the question of safety of money. on a worse case senerio, what if a developer doesnt get the work done and then suddenly leaves and doesnt respond to my emails. What are my options of getting my money back? will the credit card company or Paypal help me?

roshan_shah’s picture

roshan_shah commented

Chances of refund depends on what has been given to you. There are many many developers leaving projects, even changing technology from Drupal to something else and they may not reply. That is a risk you take going with individual.

Better to pay a little bit higher rate to a reputed developer or drupal specialist firm and you will reduce your risk there.

You can certainly file a credit card/ paypal charge-back. Depends on your evidence. Note : Most companies do not take paypal payments nowadays because of high fees and fraud from buyers.

http://www.gujjuweb.com/20070201/seller-is-always-at-risk-by-accepting-p...

yiles’s picture

yiles commented

Hi Roshan

Thanks for the reply and your input. I can PM you details of my plans of my small project if you have any spare time to do any development work?

roshan_shah’s picture

roshan_shah commented

Sure, please send along your requirements to - sales@gloscon dot com. If the project is too small for my company, I will still be able to recommend you a quality developer.

Roshan

fizk’s picture

fizk commented

I'd just like to add to all the great advice given by roshan_shah: you get what you pay for. i.e. if you pay too little, you'll attract people that just want to grab the money and disappear.

Money might not be the cause for this specific situation, but it's good to keep in mind.

drupfly’s picture

drupfly commented

Scoping the project to the very detail also helps in communicating to the developer the amount of work involved, so that he understands what all is expected out of him (and not run away later). As a drupal related service provider I have experienced clients keep coming back with some small modification(which they want after project completion) expecting that to be done for free.

To keep the money risk at its minimum and to make the client feel secure it is better to divide the entire project into a series of milestones and to receive payments at the completion of each milestone.