UTBox.net: Drupal Developers Beware

hello and thanks-

the following info might serve useful in preventing another drupal developer
from having a similar negative experience with UTBox.net (http://www.utbox.net) as i just had.

recently i accepted a contract to develop a new drupal 5.x website for this company, based in sydney, australia.

the total cost of the contract was to be $1800 USD-
with 50% to be paid after the first five days of work, when 50% of the job was done-
and the remainder after the next five days of work, when everything was completed.

note:
normally i would require either (or both) a 50% deposit-
or for development to occur on my server-
to protect my work and insure that payment would be received when the job was done.

in this case, i unfortunately waived both of those safeguards-
as the guy that hired me explained that this would be their 3rd attempt at developing a new drupal site-
and that the prior developers they had hired (and paid) had abandoned the project halfway thru.

they (UTBox.net) showed me the old dev website, which was indeed not functioning properly-
especially with respect to a sophisticated, 4-level graphical menu system they wanted-
and lots of other theme display issues.

i spent a few days building a free demo where i solved the theme problems from the old (broken) dev site-
and also produced a fully-working version of the graphical menu system.

based on the strength of my work, they offered me the contract, which i accepted.

because of their prior experiences, and because they seemed like a reputable company-
we decided to proceed as indicated above-

with all work to occur on their server, no deposit-
and payment #1 to be made after day 5, and part 1 of the job done.

we produced a detailed hit list of items that were to be done during the first 5 days of work, part 1-
and those that were to be done in part 2.

i started to do my work, and put in some very good time and effort for their behalf.
i produced a new, fully-loaded drupal 5.10 site, with modules including a few customizations-
and an original, custom theme based on their design and my own drupal theme system.

we were already ahead of schedule so i didn't kick too much-
when they started asking me to do a few of the items that were not supposed to be done yet until part 2-
during the first five days.

my contact at the company started saying something as the end of the first week of work approached-
that it would be better if he could show his boss that the website was almost "done".

then they started adding more items to the work list-
saying that they forgot to include those when we created the detailed item by item contract-
and directed me to finish some of those as part of the first 5 days in order to receive payment.

by the time day 6 of work rolled around-
there was no payment for the work completed, which by now included all of the original 50% of the job-
plus more of the work already done, supposedly for part 2.

at this time, the original contract work list was re-defined yet again (by them)-
and i was offered 25% of the 50% payment that was now past due-
with the remainder supposedly to be paid when the now bloated list was "done".

the list now indicated clearly that their intention was in fact to manipulate me into completing 100% of the job-
with them paying me as little as they thought they could get away with-
not to mention breaking the contract we had.

here is a direct quote from the boss of the person i worked with, and for 6 days straight-
with no compensation at all-
in his attempt to reconcile / explain the situation as he now saw it:

With our past contractor I made payment when requested and had a situation where the overseas contractor felt I guess that it would not be worth sticking around to finish off for the next 50% payment and we were left with something that was not workable.

Payments to overseas contractors are made in the context of our past experience; This may unfairly represent your actual work ethic and I am sorry for that; once we work through the first few lists of work and make payment we will be able to build up a higher level of trust and have an arrangement that works more suitably for you for any ongoing work or other website projects that may come up!

I note that you say you feel like we are cramming more work into the first payment; in some regards this is true, ideally I would like to release payment when for instance you have hit 80% of the work completed for the amount of 50% so that it is clearly in your interest to finish the last 20% to receive the next 50% payment.

I think you can understand our motivation there? I know this is not the most suitable arrangement for you however I think you can understand our motivations from our past experiences above.

of course this is not the contract and deal we made.

and no, i cannot understand the motivations for someone to lie and cheat and steal-
and to disregard a simple contract as if it did not exist, or as they now wanted to change it.

and this, after the fact-
and after the good work they contracted for was completed, and the website way past 50% done-
sitting right on their server.

it is sad and a little bit scary to think that they could be so open about being brazen and dishonest-
showing such disregard for my time and efforts to try to manipulate me into completing
their website in this inconsiderate and criminal manner.

did they really think they could trick me into continuing to work for them
with this disregard for me and my work-

and that i would somehow perceive this situation to be, as they stated, "clearly in my interest to finish the last 20%"-
after i had been jerked around and not even compensated for the first half?

clearly this was their intention from the start-
and the contract and deal we made was something that they did not intend to honor.

so after work stopped on day 6-

and a few days of asking and waiting to see if they would just simply make good on payment #1-
so we could proceed, and indeed finish the job, in spite of everything-

i gave up and decided to call it a day and not waste any more time and effort
producing good work for someone that neither appreciated it-
nor intended to pay for it.

i was able to successfully delete the database for the drupal install i had spent the past 6 days building-
and which represented the bulk of the 40+ hours put in by me during that time.

lucky for me they had no backup, even though i had in fact encouraged them to make a daily backup-
of both the database and codebase after each day of development, to save the ton of good, new work
that was getting done each day during that time.

but unfortunately i was not able to remove the other work that they had paid nothing for-

including the custom theme created to their design spec...
lots of quality time, effort and care went into that.

so as a courtesy to all drupal developers-
steer clear of UTBox.net unless you want to experience something similar to what i just went through:

trying to do some good work for somebody...
and help them enjoy all the power and benefits that drupal provides-

only to be cheated, manipulated and have your work appropriated by them with no compensation in return.

vincent, in buffalo
http://basicmagic.net