jules69

I do understand - and no its not harsh advice at all.. its great advice. I never ever told the client I was experienced. She knew this was my first e-commerce website, and a new venture all together for me. I would love to learn how to build from scratch, I see other designers doing it and wish I could be one, but have no idea where to start. I dont see why I should take my website down though? I have removed all her images (well hours of work with photoshop correcting her ****e images) and taken her text off. Its my domain name - well my husbands actually. Surely she is a fool to get her new site built on the .com address of mine? Probably another naive question, but can I not sell my website on to someone else - or use it to sell online myself?

Like I said.. naive.. now feeling stupid and gutted... I am learning from the bottom... this was my first website.

Just to keep you informed this is what I have had from the new website designer...... Very many thanks for contacting me. I am somewhat concerned that you are misinformed about your “exclusive copyright” with regards towww.*****.co.uk. So please let me verify a few details. First of all no files were copied from your server. There’s no need for me to do this as installation of a Wordpress/Woocommerce website not only takes literally minutes to do, anyone has permission to do so. This is how the new website (www.*****.com) was put together. You have no copyright claim over any Wordpress or Woocommerce installation, and your website has not been plagiarised as a result of installing Wordpress and Woocommerce. Secondly the template that you installed (Organica by Template Monster) is bound by various terms and conditions as part of the license that you paid for (be assured that I have a valid licence for the same template). I would direct you to their website for specific copyright clarification:https://www.templatemonster.com/help/copyright-template-usage. The following two sections are especially relevant: If I buy a template, do I have exclusive ownership of it? You will get exclusive ownership only in case purchasing the template by unique price, and you will get it on your customized website, as for original template files, copyright remains ours. Will I hold the copyright to a finished website? The initial design copyright remains with the original template designer. If royalty-free images are used within the template, the copyright for those images remains with the original photographer or illustrator. Any text and original images which you include on your pages belong exclusively to you and you hold the copyright on those items. Thirdly you hold no copyright over the content of the website (pictures, text, product information etc). The pictures were taken by ****, and text on the product information and other pages was written by her, therefore you hold no legal claim over any of this as copyright remains with the photographer and text copyright is with the original author. I therefore find that your claim to “exclusive copyright” of www.*****co.uk is misleading at best. In fact, the text “****… …is owned by ***** Web Design” at the footer of that website is wholly inappropriate and implies that ***** actually own the ***** business. You have already been asked to take the www.******.co.uk down as it is no longer the official website of **** (Place name) and I see no reason why you shouldn’t comply. However, if you choose to keep the www.*****.co.uk site online I would recommend that you immediately remove all of the text and image content from the www.*****co.uk website to avoid copyright breach as outlined above. *** will formally request that you do so. In summary you have no copyright claim over the new website, www.*****.com, your accusations of plagiarism and theft are baseless and it is you who is in breach of copyright by having ****** content on your website without permission. On a personal note, common sense should prevail in this matter, and therefore you must accept that you **** is no longer your client, and as a result you do not have the authority to run their website and therefore you really ought to take it offline, chalk up the whole matter to experience and move on. Kind regards ******

The site was down, which says to me she had the new designer working on his all the time she was arguing with me about payment, when it was live a few weeks ago. https://www.gov.uk/using-somebody-elses-intellectual-property this part is great! Thank you! I just cant believe some people... I wouldnt dream of doing what she has to anyone.

Hi She has put on a facebook post who the website designer is, bought the domain name in her name and I know who is hosting the new site. I have contacted the hosting company - based in India via chat! They are looking into it and will get back to me... god knows when. Just a question though.. apart from the fact that the websites look identical, and mine has in the footer that it is copyrighted and owned by our business name, how do I prove all the work on it was mine in the first place, and show proof of ownership? I have back up files of the site, all the images used on it are royalty free ones, but edited and resized by me. The logo is a font that can be bought online by anyone. There is photoshop work that i have done on the site, that has clearly been copied, and all the text is the same as mine. I own the web domain, this was never transferred. I have written to the new designer asking him to take the site down as it is infringing on copyright laws, so will see what happens. Just want to get all my ducks in a row, and the advice on here has helped me so much - thank you!

URGENT UPDATE!! Hi everyone... I know I have had such brilliant advice on here... but I need more as I am completely gob smacked at what has happened!! I have since agreed with this evil woman to pay her back £50 a month... it was her suggestion as she sent me an email saying Im a new business etc etc... as she said that she was going to get a new site built. I agreed. Ive taken my website down until Ive paid her back. The new site went live today. She has bought the .com version of the name I bought... and the new designer has copied to the exact same - my website!!! To the absolute of copying my logo.. my wording my edited (royalty free photos) the layout the shop the colours the total look and feel of my website.. they look near enough identical - everything.. What do I do? What do I say to this new designer and to her? . She has ripped my website off totally all my hard work for weeks out there copied everything... Im stunned that this can happen. I need advice on where I stand from you guys before I get legal advice.. This surely can not be right? This whole thing has left me feeling unwell and my work has been copied.. and ive lost money and business from all this... surely this isnt right?

*UPDATE* Just thought Id share with you guys what the latest letter from her.. Ive ignored her for a couple days a) because I have been very poorly and sorting the cash for a full refund to her.. check out what she has put below! Still trying to call the shots on what is my work! Unbelievable! Be great to hear your thoughts.. and what you would put in response to this utter nonsense! :-) Thank you for taking the time to respond to the Chamber of Trade. I am not clear what you mean by ‘deregistering’ the domain name ..This implies that you will be releasing the domain name into the public realm. I would prefer for you to transfer the domain to my own hosting account, so that I may take ownership. I would not expect you to refund my registration fee in this regard. Therefore please could you let me know exactly what your plan is for the domain name. That leaves the question of the existing website, as I don’t understand what you intend to do with it. Are you going to take it down? If not then I really would need Wordpress admin access in order that I can ask the new web designer to implement some changes in order to allow me to run the site as I wish. If you wish to retain ownership of the website and are still unwilling to allow the new designer to have an admin account then I cannot implement the changes that I would like to make in order to trade online and therefore the website will be of little use to me and I would be forced to start again with a brand new website, which then means it is worthless to both of us. I understand that you have concerns with the ownership of the site and would like to assure you that I have no intention of removing your design credit from the site, nor ask the new web designer to take any credit for it. He is being asked purely to assist with configuring the site and provide ongoing training and will not be using the site in his portfolio. I would like to suggest that we can agree to keep your design credit and weblink at the foot of the website for a minimum period of 12 months. That should provide you with ample opportunity to use the site as part of your portfolio to help gain other business. It has been drawn to my attention that the text “owned by *your web design” at the foot of the site could imply that you are the owners of my business and run the shop yourselves. When we take ownership of the site I would remove this part of the text, keeping your credit as above, of course. If you are happy to release the site then you can transfer the hosting to my own hosting account. I would not expect to receive a refund for the web hosting costs I have paid. If you could tell me what your explicit plans are for both the domain name and website then I hope we can both draw line under recent events and move forward.

The actual domain name is registered in my husbands name not mine.. so its up to him to decide if he wants to transfer it isn't it? I dont want her having the domain name either. We are going to try to get the money together... if she hadnt of gossiped about the price of the site, I would have had three local websites at least on the go now, and the funds to refund the witch.

Great advice! :-)

If i had the money to refund her i would.. it was all used in the build :-( I want my company name restored & Yes you are right about her being vindictive.. I want to so desperately take the site down - Her comment of: "As a gesture of goodwill I am willing to forgo my full refund (offered by you on the 13th January 2017) “if anything you don’t like it, the full amount will be refunded, no problems” Gesture of goodwill!! This tells me she has actually realised to get a site like I have built with someone else, is going to cost her so much more. Awful woman.

Hi This is what I acutally put into her first email: "In the excitement of talking about the design, I didn't really talk about the cost of setting up. Big apologies, my error! Most designers will be charging 50% of the total site upfront, which with the quality of what I will be doing will be over £1200+. But I need my portfolio up and running, and as long as you love the site once complete, all I ask is if you could recommend me to others, and not mention the price! The upfront costs are just what its going to cost me. If anything you don't like it, the full amount will be refunded, no problems. " She mentioned the price so broke this agreement. The site is running beautifully and i am very proud of it. Shes got the local Chamber of Trade involved now, a meeting infront of the whole town without me knowing happened a few days ago, slating my customer service and my work. They emailed me directly asking me to sort it out, and in my anger I sent this to them: "Could you please let her know that we will be refunding the cost of the site back to her, minus my extra hourly costs, which I will heavily discount for her, and also we will de-register the domain name, as she clearly is not happy. " Now I feel as if I should have waited until I saw your reply - bugger! I've hung myself out to dry now havent I? She is the most obnoxious person I have met. And it feels like I am being bullied into refunding or handing the site over or else her 'veiled threat' of 'I am sure you don’t want to be responsible for any negative feedback on social media'. feels like she will hound me. If i refund her minus my extra hours which are LOTS, and i can account for them all, then technically she wont be entitled to anything will she? This is what i thought in my hour of rage!

Oh.. sounds complicated.. just still learning.. wouldnt know how to provide her with a copy minus the code.. that sounds like an excellent idea, and would give me complete closure. Being so new at designing - its hard to know who to ask for help :-(

Hi Fisicx She did pay the £300 tho.. I dont have it to refund her as it was all used (and more of my own personal money) to build the site. Do you think its unreasonable to offer her a full refund (I did say this in my very first email to her if she wasnt happy) minus the extra hours I have put in on top of building the site? Which at £30 or £40 an hour - is only approx 7.5 hours of work.. and I did way more than that in time for her, for free.

Please can you look at the post I just made.. she has sent me an email and Im unsure on how to respond :-(

Hi Guys.. need advice again... is this woman for real?! I have tried to call this woman saying that I will refund her the cost of the website as and when I can afford it (she only paid me for the basic cost of the build) I made no money out of her and she cost me business locally. PLEASE let me know what you think of the below from her! Following your lack of response to the letter which you signed for on Monday 3rd April 2017. I have called once again, Trading Standards they are very aware of the situation. I have spoken with my solicitor, his best advice to you is to quite simply provide the requested information immediately to avoid yourself legal costs. As you are in breach of contact under the Supply of Goods and Services Act. As a gesture of goodwill I am willing to forgo my full refund (offered by you on the 13th January 2017) “if anything you don’t like it, the full amount will be refunded, no problems” for the information requested for a second time in my letter dated the 31st of March 2017. All I ask for are the log in details for the back end of the site so I can then forward on to Stuart for the professional completion. As you are aware, I have a competition running the entry form to which is downloadable from my website. I am sure you don’t want to be responsible for any negative feedback on social media. I trust you will be reasonable with the above and be at pains to remedy the situation. Any advice on how to shut this woman up I cant afford to pay her, and out of principle now, she is not having the website. Am I wrong?

Hi The information on here has been fantastic thank you so so much! Its great to hear all the advice, and to know I wasn't a complete idiot - like the client is making me out to be. I've ignored her nasty emails for a couple days, which no doubt she will be hopping about, but just needed to get my thoughts together on what to do. If I had the money and it wasn't a problem, I would refund her now, and then let her go and find a fully e-commerce site with someone else. She may just have to wait for her refund til I'm on my feet. She is still hassling me to get the new designer she hs found to have all the logins, he himslf has sent me an email requesting these too.. Ive ignored that for now. I have learnt a lot, not only on the business side of things, but how people actually treat others. She was so nice at the beginning of this venture, and encouraged me to get a portfolio together by asking her friends to get a site built. Then she blabbed the cost, with no contract! - Big lesson learned. So many great tips on here of what to do, has made me feel more confident to move forward. Thank goodness I found you guys on this site!

Thankyou for the reply.. so appreciated.. ive no one to ask for advice.. shes paid the money.. but I'm still out of pocket - she knows this but she has not paid what the site has cost me, and I'm looking at my site being taken away from me - and me being left with a bad name.. surely that isn't right? I will happily hand it over to her at a cost to get her out of my life, and move on. She has ruined my chances of being a designer here locally, so is that what I should do? The domain is in my name, there was no contract, Im not a nasty person at all... just want this sorted. The verbal agreement was I build her a site for my portfolio, if i give her logins for Admin.. ive now lost everything.. or have I? .. seen this...does this count? https://ipo.blog.gov.uk/2014/12/04/do-i-own-my-website/

Just to give you the back ground. I've been building websites for the past year for friends, I love how WordPress works, and enjoyed doing it. We have just moved to a new area because of hubby's job. We've been here 3 months, and he has been signed off with depression.. a whole 'other' story! Anyhoo... I decided to make ends meet (as times are dire) to use my skills and get websites built for local people in our town. It's a lovely place, but people seem to think they can survive without an email - let alone a website! So a few Facebook posts and conversations, saying exactly why I'm starting the new business, and things looked great. I told people I'm new, I live here, I need a portfolio, so I could build the sites fast and cheaply for them. I had at least 5 or 6 people interested and one particular person, who was first to say yes. She at first, was very open to any ideas I had, she wanted me to register the name, I did, its in my name. I gave her (it makes me shudder) the breakdown of exactly what it would cost me to do the site. She knew everything, the cost of the hosting, the plugins - everything. She knew I was working for ZERO pounds on this site to get it into my portfolio. She agreed that not a word was to be said about the prices, yes - she agreed verbally.. I know what you're thinking... I see it now. There was no contract. I trusted her. She was only paying my costs of £300, for a fully responsive e commerce website, email hosting and unlimited changes. It took me hours of work.. and I mean hours. I was learning things I've never done before. Up all night most nights, trying new things, watching tutorials, and making her site look fab, as this was the first website I could show people here, and say how good I was. A few weeks in, I realised that her stock was coming, not from the catalogues like she had praised in the meeting before, but instead, trips down to London buying knocked off stock with no labels.. that I'm guessing are returns or last season. She then said about photographing stock. I originally thought it would be supplier photos... yes another major mistake, but no... new stock every week in fact. So she started with asking me to retouch awful stock photos she'd taken on her phone - which I started to do, as I want this site to look amazing. It was starting to be so many hours of work, that all I was doing was working on her site, and not getting others. Then the clanger. All the people locally interested before,all in one day, called me and cancelled. It was surreal. They all said that they weren't interested. I had quoted them only between £500 & £700 for what I was doing for the first business, but they all said they were not interested. I smelled a rat. I confronted one of these people, in the local supermarket, asked him to be honest. He was embarrassed and said, they were interested until they had heard from 'her' the cost of 'Her' site. Why should they pay more. I tried to explain I couldn't afford to do that again, I just needed one site to get up and running, but it fell on deaf ears. She had blabbed about the deal. I called her and said this is what has happened. She denied it all saying that she had kept her word. Anyway, it all went horribly wrong after that. She was sending me messages demanding photos be re touched, the site be finished faster, basically treating me awful. There were royal mail post plugins and extra code, I needed to buy in to get the site running properly.. I had to find the money for this. I explained to her that to finish things it would be another another £100 towards this £300 bill I had to pay to get it all finished.. which she kicked off. She accused me of bullying her out of money that she was unaware of.. and wasn't going to pay. So I told her the site would not get finished, as I couldn't afford it. After two days of her being awful to me on email.. she paid. I was £200 out of pocket, but I swiftly got the site finished, handed her the passwords to emails, and paypal logins etc, but only put her on the site as a shop keeper. I was still the administrator. Bearing in mind - I've not done this before.. I was unsure on how to handover a site so I was still in control - I needed this in my portfolio. She agreed this fact at the beginning. Anyway - so sorry to waffle! But today I got her husband knocking my door, telling us to stay away from her and her shop, with a written letter saying because of irrevocable breakdowns, she wants the Admin login and hosting passwords, as a new designer four miles away is taking over. If I fail to agree, she will take a legal route. I'm sorry for the long post. I'm new to this, I took her for her word. The site is amazing, I'm so proud of it and I just feel so let down. There was no contract signed. I understand her need for the admin login, which I would have given - I think yet Google search tells me otherwise! But I know once this is given, my blood sweat and tears will be signed to a stranger now and they will have this on their portfolio, not mine. Meanwhile, my name in our new local town is mud because of her, they think I am a rip off merchant. Any advice would be very much appreciated. She is saying I have until the 29th March to respond or its court papers. This is doing nothing for or struggle to make a living, my husbands depression, or my name as a designer. Would be great to hear what people thought.. like I said I'm new..I know I've made fatal errors.. but what do I do now? Regards Jules