- Impact
- 17
A project of mine went into arbitration in May this year after the coder had made insufficient progress.
It dragged on for absolutely months. I was forfeited twice, and twice a senior arbitrator admitted that a mistake had been made and that the arbitration should be reopened.
RentACoder says in it's contract that if a dispute arises, they test the deliverables to decide what percentage of the project had been completed.
During a period of 5 months, no testing on the deliverables had taken place and Rafeek Kulkarni (the arbitrator) had not even got the point of finalising what the deliverables should be. I was disguisted.
Then, about 1 week ago I had computer problems. My computer went bust and it took three days to fix during which time I was required to respond to the arbitration. I responded, but as it turned out I was a few hours late in responding.
RentACoder immediately used this as an excuse to have me forfeit the arbitration for a breach of the contract, which they claimed would delay the arbitration (the contract says that you have 3 days to reply). I had no way of notifying RentACoder of the problems.
All of the money was sent to the coder and I didn't get a single penny back even though the coder had completed only a small amount.
What really annoyed me was the fact that RentACoder would not be flexible at all in terms of my lateness, they said that it was against the contract and therefore I had forfeited. However, I had responded on Thursday Sep 14, 2006 6:03:25 PM Rafeek then responded on Friday Sep 15, 2006 9:30:59 AM 15 hours later! Yet they have the audacity to say that I held the arbitration up.
At one point during the arbitration it actually took Rafeek more than 7 days to reply to a comment made, yet I wasn't allowed an extensions of less than a day due to unforseen circumstances thus loosing me over $300.
To sum up:
An arbitration with NO PROGRESS lasting 5 months.
A loss of $300 due to a slight delay which was explained.
Numerous mistakes on behalf of RentACoder (self admitted)
Arbitrators taking more than 7 days to reply.
Copy and paste answers with no real understanding of the situation.
If you want to avoid all of the above, DO NOT USE RENTACODER.
I have reported them to BBB and SquareTrade, although I doubt I will get any money back. I just wanted to make people beware that their arbitration system is useless and wastes a lot of time.
RentACoder actually said that my arbitration lasted for a record amount of time, and at one point Ian Ipolitto had to step in to say that Rafeek had forfeited me wrongly and to reopen the arbitration.
It dragged on for absolutely months. I was forfeited twice, and twice a senior arbitrator admitted that a mistake had been made and that the arbitration should be reopened.
RentACoder says in it's contract that if a dispute arises, they test the deliverables to decide what percentage of the project had been completed.
During a period of 5 months, no testing on the deliverables had taken place and Rafeek Kulkarni (the arbitrator) had not even got the point of finalising what the deliverables should be. I was disguisted.
Then, about 1 week ago I had computer problems. My computer went bust and it took three days to fix during which time I was required to respond to the arbitration. I responded, but as it turned out I was a few hours late in responding.
RentACoder immediately used this as an excuse to have me forfeit the arbitration for a breach of the contract, which they claimed would delay the arbitration (the contract says that you have 3 days to reply). I had no way of notifying RentACoder of the problems.
All of the money was sent to the coder and I didn't get a single penny back even though the coder had completed only a small amount.
What really annoyed me was the fact that RentACoder would not be flexible at all in terms of my lateness, they said that it was against the contract and therefore I had forfeited. However, I had responded on Thursday Sep 14, 2006 6:03:25 PM Rafeek then responded on Friday Sep 15, 2006 9:30:59 AM 15 hours later! Yet they have the audacity to say that I held the arbitration up.
At one point during the arbitration it actually took Rafeek more than 7 days to reply to a comment made, yet I wasn't allowed an extensions of less than a day due to unforseen circumstances thus loosing me over $300.
To sum up:
An arbitration with NO PROGRESS lasting 5 months.
A loss of $300 due to a slight delay which was explained.
Numerous mistakes on behalf of RentACoder (self admitted)
Arbitrators taking more than 7 days to reply.
Copy and paste answers with no real understanding of the situation.
If you want to avoid all of the above, DO NOT USE RENTACODER.
I have reported them to BBB and SquareTrade, although I doubt I will get any money back. I just wanted to make people beware that their arbitration system is useless and wastes a lot of time.
RentACoder actually said that my arbitration lasted for a record amount of time, and at one point Ian Ipolitto had to step in to say that Rafeek had forfeited me wrongly and to reopen the arbitration.