When someone destroys your faith in human nature

Paul Andrews

As a favour I make this guy a website for his photography business, I spend many hours with him, helping him and he ignores advice and just becomes the client from hell until I finally tell him to go elsewhere and pay full market rates. So what does he do, he finds someone to rip off the work that I had done and pass it off as his own. So there goes my work, no payment, no thanks and just a bitter taste in my mouth.

You can read the full story at the link below...

Yoram Conradt Photography - Dunsborough & Margaret River

I've done plenty of favours for people, making websites, sometimes very cheap, sometimes for free. But this guy just burnt me and has probably stopped me ever doing it again. Now I know how a musician or artist feels to see their work bootlegged, copied and sold.

Some people are just douche bags I guess.

Thanks for letting me blow off steam.

arq

Paul Andrews wrote:

As a favour I make this guy a website for his photography business, I spend many hours with him, helping him and he ignores advice and just becomes the client from hell until I finally tell him to go elsewhere and pay full market rates. So what does he do, he finds someone to rip off the work that I had done and pass it off as his own. So there goes my work, no payment, no thanks and just a bitter taste in my mouth.

You can read the full story at the link below...

Yoram Conradt Photography

I've done plenty of favours for people, making websites, sometimes very cheap, sometimes for free. But this guy just burnt me and has probably stopped me ever doing it again. Now I know how a musician or artist feels to see their work bootlegged, copied and sold.

Some people are just douche bags I guess.

Thanks for letting me blow off steam.

You're not the first... I've walked the same path :evil: bastards! Just take a deep breath and have a beer :arrow: :thumbup:

Pearl Drummer

WOW thats f**ked up sh*t

CJMST3K

Don't you have some copyright over the design, and you transfer your design rights once paid, which he didn't do?

mickeyrat

human nature being what it is ,we suck as a species. There are the exceptions to the rule of course. Seek out those exceptions!!! It does suck though man. Just remember , Karma is a motherfucker!!!! He'll get his , eventually.

Paul Andrews

I'm not sure if it is worth chasing him through court over such a small claim. This is why I've made the website:

Yoram Conradt Photography which is http://douche.ws

With a bit of luck the search engines will find it and when people search for him or a photographer in my area, they will find that as well and read the story. Karma via google I guess. Feel free to (please do) link it from other websites if you can.

The shitty part about it was I actually owed his domain name and worked with his new web developer to facilitate the transfer and make the transition from one server to the other smooth. I could have totally screwed him if I'd wanted to, but being a nice guy I handed it over for free. It probably took me a couple of more hours to do this. He was meant to copy over his old existing site, not the new design concept I was working on which was hosted on my development server.

Fucking bottom feeders!

mfc2006

sorry that this happened, Paul. he'll get what's coming to him eventually.

mervin50

If it helps at all, when I google searched and clicked on his webpage it wouldn't load.

Oops! Google Chrome could not find http://www.yoramconradt.com
Try reloading: www. yoramconradt. com
Additional suggestions:
Access a cached copy of www. yoramconradt. com
Search on Google:

Karma has many forms

Paul Andrews

he's moved it to the com.au - the .com is where i had his original site and the domain I just transfered over to him for free. Give it a day or so, he'll have a redirect up from the .com to the com.au. I'd say the nameservers have not updated yet from the transfer.

81

if you can prove it, take the time and sue him. sometimes, it just feels good

mookeywrench

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Paul Andrews

I'm just going to put it behind me. It's not worth the angst and effort and expense in taking him to court over a claim that is probably about $1000 . We live in a small town, I'm just going to make sure everyone knows what he did.

The great thing is the guy has absolutely no balls at all and will run and hide every time he sees me in the street. He used to leave town for the weekend every time his ex girlfriend would come back to town to see her parents for a weekend in case he bumped into her. I'm a black belt in mixed martial arts and would never initiate any violent act, but he'll always be wondering.

I've got ten bucks that says he'll even try a restraining order on me, he's a shithead of the highest order. An absolutely terrific human being. Don't anybody waste your time flooding his email box, I'd prefer karma to work its wonders.

Paul Andrews

And just when I need picking up, I read some of the stories and pictures on this site I sponsor for the local junior soccer league (I was just updating it):

http://lnjsa.com/

Thanks to all the wonderful parents and community minded people who work so hard to give our kids something healthy to do.

Green Circle

mfc2006 wrote:

sorry that this happened, Paul. he'll get what's coming to him eventually.

I completely agree, what comes around goes around. It may take a little while, but he will get his.

Green Circle

However, your faith in human nature should not be destroyed by one persons actions.
Regardless of his actions, You still did a good deed (for lack of a better word) and you should continue to do them. Keep up your kindness and generosity.

nuffingman

Been there and got the bruises and T-shirt. If you have the original design files I'd consider sueing or letting Mr Douche know you are considering it.

the wolf

81 wrote:

if you can prove it, take the time and sue him. sometimes, it just feels good

for some reason this made me laugh.

pandora

Paul Andrews wrote:

As a favour I make this guy a website for his photography business, I spend many hours with him, helping him and he ignores advice and just becomes the client from hell until I finally tell him to go elsewhere and pay full market rates. So what does he do, he finds someone to rip off the work that I had done and pass it off as his own. So there goes my work, no payment, no thanks and just a bitter taste in my mouth.

You can read the full story at the link below...

Yoram Conradt Photography - Dunsborough & Margaret River

I've done plenty of favours for people, making websites, sometimes very cheap, sometimes for free. But this guy just burnt me and has probably stopped me ever doing it again. Now I know how a musician or artist feels to see their work bootlegged, copied and sold.

Some people are just douche bags I guess.

Thanks for letting me blow off steam.

Yes, lesson learned, sorry. We own a biz and know how it goes. Got to fight feeling bitter and try to keep business business so as not to lose faith. If you take or make it personal it can hurt, best to try to remember "all is fair in love and war and business" but be the better man and do good by others. Good luck to you.

CJMST3K

nuffingman wrote:

Been there and got the bruises and T-shirt. If you have the original design files I'd consider sueing or letting Mr Douche know you are considering it.

OR... consider letting his other "designer" know that you plan on suing HIM unless he removes and deletes that website within 24 hours. The designer probably wants nothing to do with a conflict between the two of you.

dcfaithful

Man, i'm sorry to hear about this. I'm a design student right now and am currently learning how to write proper syntax with HTML and CSS...soon will be learning Javascript as well...

already I can see hwo much time and effort goes into this, and what he did as a creative person who makes a living is shameful and unforgiving. If he had not paid you for any of the rights to the design, he should know better than to steal someone's work.

dcfaithful

and ya know...I'm not a judging person, but this is an exception = he even looks like a douche bag. :?

matabele

I'm owed over £18 000 and this is not from clients but from people who I consider friends, been so long I've written all of it off. Life can be hard but as the person said earlier, have a cold one, say what the hell and don't let it change you.

redrock

Unfortunately, this kind of stuff happens all the time. I've got a few friends with similar stories.

Though this 'troubled' me a bit "he found someone to copy (ie - use a program to siphon the website from my development server)". This is actually 'proper' stealing, isn't it?

Franny

redrock wrote:

Unfortunately, this kind of stuff happens all the time. I've got a few friends with similar stories.

Though this 'troubled' me a bit "he found someone to copy (ie - use a program to siphon the website from my development server)". This is actually 'proper' stealing, isn't it?

Intellectual property theft actually. If Paul has all of the original/draft work for it, then everything done on his computers would have a time/date allocated to it, and one would assume that on the original website that it would have had something about who t he website was built by ie Paul.

So this guy is an obvious pond dweller and so is the company he used to siphon the info from the original website. Two royal shitheads there who will get is owed...it always happens.

BinauralJam

Sounds like a Creed fan.

nuffingman

CJMST3K wrote:

nuffingman wrote:

Been there and got the bruises and T-shirt. If you have the original design files I'd consider sueing or letting Mr Douche know you are considering it.

OR... consider letting his other "designer" know that you plan on suing HIM unless he removes and deletes that website within 24 hours. The designer probably wants nothing to do with a conflict between the two of you.

That is a very good point. I'd remove it instantly if that was me.

Paul Andrews

Thanks for the support everyone. I'm not going to bother taking it any further, the it's just not worth the time or effort. The design still needed work and they've made a mess of it anyway when they moved it to a different CMS. He's got a job worth of a bottom feeder anyway. I'll just let the googlebot spider play it's karma trick when it indexes 'Yorum Conradt Photography Dunsborough Margaret River' (this link goes to http://douche.ws btw - not his site) and ranks the story about what he and his knobend of a web developer did ranks next to his official site on google searches. I'll make sure everyone who lives in our town knows about it and they can make their own decisions.

It is intellectual theft, plain and simple, but what I'd lose in costs and lost productive (or family) time in taking him to court is not worth what I'd get out of it. And they know it. I can't get damages beyond what he'd own me for the job. I'll just learn from it and from now on all job must pay a non-refundable deposit up front. I'm actually glad to be rid of the slimeball as a client and now I have a reason not to feel guilty about telling him to go elsewhere.

redrock

Maybe not go to court, but a letter to the guy that 'designed' it, as CJMST3K suggested, briefly explaing the situation, the theft and asking him to take down the site 'or else' won't take much time. On the letter, cc a lawyer. If you know one, use the name/firm, if not just choose one from the phone book. No need to send a copy obviously, but if the guy that did the website thinks it may have gone to a lawyer, he may do something about it. After all, he is VERY guilty as he is the one physically copying your stuff. You never know.

Paul Andrews

They guy who did it is complicit in it. He ripped to site and then rebuilt it (at about $100 an hour) knowing he was ripping off my work. He knew what he was doing and obviously figures he can get away with it. He has not replied to the three emails I have sent including a cease and decist email. He's obviouly a douchebag too. Amazing what people will do for a buck. I'm happy to move on becasue I know in the long run, I will win. These guys have rocked up to a knife fight with a spoon not knowing I've got a time bomb set in their car. They'll get their's eventually. :twisted:

Dissidentman

dcfaithful wrote:

and ya know...I'm not a judging person, but this is an exception = he even looks like a douche bag. :?

lol +1