Lost $4,000 to a scam development firm

[mikez99]

About a year ago I had hired a firm (Carbonon - carbonon.com) to create a site for me. 11 months have now passed and the site is no where near complete. I fired them 2 days ago and requested a 50% refund. They refused. So I have created another site, http://www.carbonon-scammers.com where I have written a review of their service. You can read the full story there.

If you wish to help me out, please comment on this on your blog linking to http://www.carbonon-scammers.com with the text “Carbonon” or “Carbonon Tech”. I want http://www.carbonon-scammers.com to show up as #1 site whenever someone searches for their company name. Thanks.

 

[labrocca]

Yup..another person scammed by Indians. $4k ain't chump change either. I am in the USA and I would have done the work for half that price in half the time all by myself.

As for your database...do you have backups? You might have changed the site password but if you didn't change the mysql password they most likely just deleted the sql from remote. That's likely to be what has happened. Let me know if you have backup and need some help restoring it.

-Jes

 

[lazyleo]

http://66.102.9.104/search?q=cache:...eonn.com/&hl=en&ct=clnk&cd=1&client=firefox-a

cache of your site on google.

 

[Morph]

Gives a terrible terrible name to the good Indian developers out there.

Name and shame, nice one

 

[Skinny]

Wow that is rough.

Hope these guys get out of business.

Skinny

 

[mikez99]

I checked and the database is still there, but the db user has been deleted. It doesn't really matter, the coding is worthless. I'll be getting someone else local to work on the site once I finish with another project im working on.

 

[anunt]

why did you pay them 100% up front...most companies ask for 50% up front...then when you are completely satisfied..then you pay the last 50%

i am in the u.s.a. and i get all my websites done from india...much much cheaper there....and never got cheated.

if they have a feedback system...leave Carbonon company a bad feedback so other people dont get scammed by these people.

 

[mikez99]

I paid in portions. The problem is they refused to keep working until I paid them for the next part. There was a 3 month span where there were so many bugs that we were at a stale mate where they didn't want to continue until I paid them more and I didn't want to pay until they fixed the site. We came to a compromise where I paid 1/2 of what they were asking.

I found them through Guru.com. I didn't know but Guru as a 60 day limit to leave feedback after each paid balance. Since the last payment was 4 months ago, I can't leave feedback. Im still trying to get Guru to unlock it so I can leave feedback.

 

[-NC-]

through Guru.com

On the website, you have:

"through Gugu.com"

 

[godolphin]

I saw the WHOIS info for carbonon.com, it was started only in 2005.
I thought of meeting those guys personally but they reside in another State: Tamil Nadu, the address and phone no. is of Chennai city.

May be someone from Chennai on NP could help.

 

[Albino]

sorry to hear about this mate, not good at all

how they can do this is beyond me, is there nothing you can do?

 

[mikez99]

well there in India, so taking legal action would be too expensive. Basically Im just trying to get the site i setup, http://www.carbonon-scammers.com, #1 when someone searches for their company name. Maybe I can pressure them to refund me.

 

[kwan]

I saw on their website they have testimonials from other clients. One of them is Boxtrotters. It seems they did make their site (they have the same scrolling menubar as Carbonon's site with the same script mmLoadMenus).

So apparently they do sometimes actually create working sites. Maybe you should try to negotiate some more about a refund or them finishing the job before pissing them off like this. :imho:

 

[angisson]

another reason not to pay till you see what they made...........................

 

[aussie]

i am looking to get a web site design for i of my domains and have had heaps of emails from india requesting that they do the design.
and there rules are 50 % deposit and the rest upon completion ?
it all sounds a bit sus to me .
I AM USING A WEB DEVELOPER IN MANILA WHICH IS WHERE I AM BASED AND
CAN RECCOMEND A LEGIT DESIGNER .
JUST PM .

 

[chriscm]

not to be rude but from Indians I usually tend to play before I pay..

If you wish I can blog about it toss me a nice article with anchor text i'll do it for free.

 

[matt_bodis]

Having the site work in Firefox: + $320

Can't tell you how suprised I was with this added cost. I could understand if it was Opera or Safari, but Firefox holds a 15% market share of all the browsers and is the 2nd most used browser. That should be standard.

That alone should have made you change your mind about hiring them.

 

[GFXNow]

If payment was via paypal just file a paypal claim for the money back and they have to give it back or Paypal will get it back for you.

 

[eclouds]

^^ Not necessarily. Paypal does not refund users for non-tangible goods unless the buyer used a credit card to fund the purchase.

 

[Bannen]

I keep harping about Getafreelancer.com;
You can place your job up for bids there, include a price spread, and pros will bid on it. You can read their performance reviews from previous employers on the site, and payment is made through a secure escrow service - the funds are not released to the freelancer until you are happy with the job. The freelancers are from all over the world. The prices are great, and since they have to do a great job and treat employers well in order to keep high ratings on the site, you almost always get great work if you pick the ones who have high ratings.
We have nothing to do with the site, but we've used their freelancers, including from India, and have had great results, no complaints.
There are other freelancer sites out there, but we've found getaFreelancer to be the largest and best. Of course there are always going to be occasional bad experiences... but we haven't had one yet. We only hire those with considerable number of reviews and stars.
Hope this helps you and others.
P.S. If you want to try other sites for freelancers, even for non-web jobs, there's a site called FreelanceSwitch.com that has a monster list, with different categories of freelancer sites. You have to scroll down the page, nail the link called 'monster list of freelance sites;.