calmac212

Hey guys. I'm needing some advice, my current developer is being an absolute nightmare, he seems a nice enough guy, but just not getting the job done and wasting my time. I want to ditch him, and find a new developer to finish the site, I don't think the site is in a mess, but there's still functionality issues needing changed as it's not how it's supposed to be. My only concern is that he might be annoyed he hasn't received his remaining £2000 and hack my site when it's live, spam it and get me penalized on google etc, basically try and get revenge any way he can, maybe even on me personally. I'm sure he'll be too busy to do this, but you never know. Since project start (11/11/2015) was told it would take 4-6 weeks, I said I wasn't in a massive rush (my mistake, but I assumed the project would still be complete in 8 weeks maximum) 100 emails (47 from him, 53 from me) 6 months 23 days (although 35 days of this was because I had a major operation) £2000 paid upfront (50% of project cost) Cost me an additional £1000 so far in loan repayments no budgeted for (I've told him about this, but he didn't seem to care) Still not anywhere near complete No contract was signed Poor communication, effort and interest in the project very poor attention to detail (missing a lot of changes and questions in emails) Only just recently found out he was using another developer to work on my site I've been extremely clear with changes, taking screenshots with annotations on them, and referencing each file name and explaining each change, and my emails are laid out and worded very clearly, but it seems to be 1 step forward, 2 steps back all the time. The site is built in Wordpress, and I have managed to get a copy of the site using Duplicator. Any advice would be greatly appreciated. Cheers.

Thanks for your advice, I'll look into that plugin. Will I be able to install the plugin without confirmation from the developer? (eg. Will a confirmation email be sent to him?) And will the developer get notified about the plugin installation and be able to stop me copying the site? I seen the PM, but wasn't able to reply as I haven't made 25 posts yet. The site has been custom designed, so unfortunately a template won't work for me.

Thanks guys, I think that's exactly what I'm going to do, just ditch this developer and find a new one. It appears I have access to the standard Wordpress control panel, what's the best / most simple way to extract everything to pass onto another developer? Cheers.

Hey guys. Thanks for all the feedback, really appreciate it! I think if the next update from my developer still has mistakes, then I'm going to take the loss and look for another developer to finish the project. I don't think there's anything very difficult for most developers (simple directory style site), so if anyone thinks they might be up for it, just let me know and I'd be happy to send all the files and instructions (I'm a graphic designer, so I designed the whole site). The developer is using his own Wordpress account for the build (I have the log in details), is it easy enough to copy everything without him knowing to pass to another developer? I know there's plugins you can install to do it. Cheers.

Hey guys. I'm working with a developer, who seemed to be very good (I don't want to name yet), but now he just seems lazy and careless. My biggest mistake was possibly not having a legal contract in place. Basically, he said the project was no problem, and it's reasonably simple. I provided all the artwork and extremely clear instructions and files. He said it would take about 6 weeks for the project, but 5 and a half months later it's still not complete. I paid a deposit of £2,000 (approx 50% of the total cost) Every email I get is short one line sentences like "updates now live, please check" and there's always a ton of mistakes, most of them I told him about previously, plus a bunch of new ones, and it takes 1 or 2 weeks for the update, which seems to take a step backwards each time. I'm getting really frustrated as there's still a ton of mistakes and he doesn't seem to be listening to me or checking his work. What chance have I got of getting all or any of my money back? And how would I go about this, small claims court? We're both based in the UK. Any help would be much appreciated. Thanks.