My experience with Binserver
I posted in late September my project for bid on Elance. I invited several programmers in order to get the best for the job. One of them was Binserver. Communications with Binserver had been okay in the start, perhaps a little dull on their part - I excused them because they might were busy with other jobs.
I asked several times whether they would be able to complete my site within a month, they themselves had suggested - I was told this was not a problem at all. I wanted the project done as a full escrow project - where the payment should decline in the end, when I and they are happy. The reason for this was that I repeatedly experienced poor communication and misunderstandings during other and this project.
The 5th October I assign Binserver my project on Elance. Then I heard nothing from them for several days - despite many emails, instant messages and even phone calls to their office. They never answer their phone, but you can leave message, and they say they will return to you quickly. They do so not always, and I've never experienced something similar when I've had to fight and beg for information and communication between a provider and me.
Finally, I got some little information from Binserver. It will now take Binserver 2 months to finish my project and they will split the project into financial milestone. So the payment and deadline suddenly changed after awarding them my project. I react immediately to this and ask why they are proposing an entirely different contract than the one we have talked about for my project. Again, it took several days without reply, where I was calling and writing to get some answers. If you luckily reach a person from Binserver at Gtalk, has he/she not just the specific area or can’t make decisions. He/she can’t pass on a message or call me up later. Their communication is nonexistent.
Finally I catch the owner John, and we settle on an agreement. He will send me the contract the same evening. Again, I do not hear anything in 2 days - call and write to get a clarification. My schedule is progressing now, and I also have competitors to think about. The day after, I discover that John has canceled our agreement without any further kind of information. I get hold of his assistant Annie, but she knows nothing about anything. Again I can’t get a clarification, they do not answer mails, personal messages or calls. This company is extremely unprofessional and I would not recommend anyone to do business with them.
Trine - Freke
edited by silverwing - moved to General Discussion Forum
Comments
I also worked with Binserver
I also worked with Binserver (John and Annie etc.) and if I could sue them, I would. They are completely unprofessional and ruined a relationship I had with a client because I outsourced to them and they couldn't deliver and even tried to cheat me in the end to pay for a half-done job.
Be very wary of this "company."
WOW! Thanks for the heads up....
I was just going to respond to Binserver with a multi-site implementation job I posted on Elance.
I was trying to find out more about them (I do not appreciate an "about us" page that doesn't show faces and names) so I Googled. This post came up number 4 in the results page. And, the last comment is only a few days old, so it's not like they've matured as business people since last week!!
What a drag, because from their extensive portfolio they seem to know what they are doing. But I've spent the past year or so being screwed by so-called "experts" who promise me the moon...on time and on budget...and then crap out after wasting months of my time.
What none of these jokers realize is that we who have projects to put out to bid also have business running costs to pay while waiting for programming and coding. To find out two to five months into a project that a coder/developer really can't do the job (or blows you off like Binserver) is not only frustrating, it is bloody expensive to carry one's business costs only to find out that launch (and, hence, positive cashflow) has been pushed out that much farther. This, alone, is ruinous to any start-up venture...especially when it's your own money (NOT venture capital) you're seeing flying out the window!!
Thanks again to Trine and Fred for waving me off yet another Drupal Diva who can't deliver the goods.
BTW... if any of you reading this are interested in a ground-breaking project that will catapult you into Drupal stardom, please see my job posting on Elance: Drupal Expert required for Multi-Site deployment.
No divas, please.
All the best,
Steve Russell
Not a fair accusation
This is unfair actually. The criticism is for being late or slow or something on a job that didn't exist and the company never agreed to undertake. Binserver never agreed to a contract and the terms were not accepted. In other words there was no job.
What she is saying is that it took too long to get to the point where it was clear the parties would not agree. This may be true.
A few facts might change the impression this post is trying to create.
After an award is made on Elance the contracts and milestones are negotiated before the contract is awarded and payment is made.
Nothing was agreed to and there was no job. This has to be stressed. THERE IS WAS NO JOB. You can't criticize someone for not agreeing to your terms. Its blackmail. Its like if you don't agree to work under the terms we dictate we will post nasty comments on Drupal.org. So we want you to work for free.. etc..
There were two reasons it took some time. First the main one is they were insisting on all escrow -- ie. no milestone payments. She points this out in her post. She didn't point out that Binserver simply didn't agree. Its that simple. They just didn't come to terms and that's the way it goes. They were considering points back and forth and time was taken on both sides.
But there is more. She posted information about their "other site" which appeared to be the actual site they wanted the work for. Its called http://slavefarm.com and its pretty rude. In fact its as rude as it gets. Some of the coders saw this and decided they didn't want to work on their projects. You can't force them to. However it changed the time line slightly. But not even that much. Notice that no one took a moral stance on the content. No inflammatory statements were made, no accusations posted on Drupal.org etc. But there could have been allot.
Its simple. There was no job . End of story. No job , no milestones, no payment, no agreement. This is the kind of post that should not be on Drupal.org.
Often there is scant information given in the original RFP. Bids are placed on the basis of 1 month, 2 months ect. There is no way to choose 6 weeks for instance. Obviously there needs to be milestones and contractual terms to a job of any size. This one never got to that point. If contractors are being forced to live up to terms they don't agree out of fear of being called out on Drupal.org then it really will hurt legitimate clients and contractors alike.
The fact is that Binserver acted very professionally but not calling them out on the Slavefarm job switch and simply didn't agree to their terms.