In June of 2014, our company contacted Ben Spak to design a new website for us. After much discussion, a contract was made, and an agreement of what we wanted in a site, and what Mr. Spak was capable of doing was established. We were required to pay 50% of a total estimate of the website's creation cost, which translated to $1750 that we sent via PayPal on June 25th, 2014. This listed that the remaining money owed from us would be $1750, and that would be due within two weeks after the site's completion, thus totalling $3500 for the site.
The contract states that our half of the agreement was we would provide Mr. Spak with anything he'd need insofar as images, text, etc, and that we pay in a timely manner judging by the dates that he would be providing. We honored our part of the contract, but Ben Spak did not seem to honor his. Within the contract, it states that he has, "the experience and ability to perform the services (we) need from (him), and (he) would carry them out in a professional and timely manner.
Not only was Mr. Spak unable to perform a data transfer from our current site to this new one, but this did not come up until six months into the work. At the time, we had set up to have the new site and respective ecommerce done through Volusion, which Mr. Spak was listed as a 'certified designer' for (he later admitted in an email that he simply paid Volusion a small fee to promote him as certified, and it wasn't as if he knew the in's and out's of the platform). However, when Mr. Spak hit a problem in Volusion where he was unable to transfer our product data, he informed us we would have to settle with a new platform and effectively start from scratch.
In order to do this, Mr. Spak requested we pay another $500 plus a fee for setting up a new webhost, which totaled $511.96, making the estimated end total $4011.96. We agreed, and promptly made a new conract, as the change in price, the data transfer issue, and the switch in platforms voided the previous contract. A payment was sent on December 22, 2014.
Ben Spak was difficult to get ahold of, and most every email from him was short, and ignored questions we were aksing. From our payment in December until January 21st, 2015 we heard nothing from Mr. Spak. We sent him numerous emails and left many voicemails, but he took a good month to get back to us. It was then that he informed us that he didn't think he could continue working on the site, and wanted to hand us over to one of the designers on his team. We had been led to believe that Mr. Spak was working with a small team that was under him in his business in Florida, but that was not the case. He had apparently been working with a team spread fairly thin, as one of the lead designers was located in Romania (we still have no idea the number of people who were working on this site, or where they are located).
At this point, with nothing to show since the apparent switch in platforms, we decided to terminate the contract and request a refund of some sort. We asked for $1000 of the $2611.96 we had sent, and some of the code or images they had generated. Ben Spak informed us that he could not provide a refund, as he had sent the money to his partner in Romania, who had agreeded to pay him his appropriate dues after the job was done. Because we had no knowledge of this person's history, and they were never a part of the contract we agreed to, this was out of our hands. We decided to dispute a refund through PayPal, but unfortunately nothing came of it (case number: PP-003-678-146-192).
We are uncertain of how to seek appropriate legal action, but are still trying to. Ben Spak is a man in his late 20s and is currently enrolled in college. While we do not think it was his intent to lead us on or scam us, he was highly unprofessional, and bit off much more than he could chew when he drew up the initial contract with us, and took this design job. We would like to use this as a warning to others who may be interested in his work. His profile on Elance.com and other sites that highlight his work in the web design field, show positive testimonals of a cheap, fast, and job well done, but that was not the experience we had.
Ben Spak worked with us for seven months, poorly communicated with us, barely showed any updates, and in the end we're out $2600+ and without a website or anything to show for it. Take this as a warning if you are considering hiring him.
Ben Spak Reviews
In June of 2014, our company contacted Ben Spak to design a new website for us. After much discussion, a contract was made, and an agreement of what we wanted in a site, and what Mr. Spak was capable of doing was established. We were required to pay 50% of a total estimate of the website's creation cost, which translated to $1750 that we sent via PayPal on June 25th, 2014. This listed that the remaining money owed from us would be $1750, and that would be due within two weeks after the site's completion, thus totalling $3500 for the site.
The contract states that our half of the agreement was we would provide Mr. Spak with anything he'd need insofar as images, text, etc, and that we pay in a timely manner judging by the dates that he would be providing. We honored our part of the contract, but Ben Spak did not seem to honor his. Within the contract, it states that he has, "the experience and ability to perform the services (we) need from (him), and (he) would carry them out in a professional and timely manner.
Not only was Mr. Spak unable to perform a data transfer from our current site to this new one, but this did not come up until six months into the work. At the time, we had set up to have the new site and respective ecommerce done through Volusion, which Mr. Spak was listed as a 'certified designer' for (he later admitted in an email that he simply paid Volusion a small fee to promote him as certified, and it wasn't as if he knew the in's and out's of the platform). However, when Mr. Spak hit a problem in Volusion where he was unable to transfer our product data, he informed us we would have to settle with a new platform and effectively start from scratch.
In order to do this, Mr. Spak requested we pay another $500 plus a fee for setting up a new webhost, which totaled $511.96, making the estimated end total $4011.96. We agreed, and promptly made a new conract, as the change in price, the data transfer issue, and the switch in platforms voided the previous contract. A payment was sent on December 22, 2014.
Ben Spak was difficult to get ahold of, and most every email from him was short, and ignored questions we were aksing. From our payment in December until January 21st, 2015 we heard nothing from Mr. Spak. We sent him numerous emails and left many voicemails, but he took a good month to get back to us. It was then that he informed us that he didn't think he could continue working on the site, and wanted to hand us over to one of the designers on his team. We had been led to believe that Mr. Spak was working with a small team that was under him in his business in Florida, but that was not the case. He had apparently been working with a team spread fairly thin, as one of the lead designers was located in Romania (we still have no idea the number of people who were working on this site, or where they are located).
At this point, with nothing to show since the apparent switch in platforms, we decided to terminate the contract and request a refund of some sort. We asked for $1000 of the $2611.96 we had sent, and some of the code or images they had generated. Ben Spak informed us that he could not provide a refund, as he had sent the money to his partner in Romania, who had agreeded to pay him his appropriate dues after the job was done. Because we had no knowledge of this person's history, and they were never a part of the contract we agreed to, this was out of our hands. We decided to dispute a refund through PayPal, but unfortunately nothing came of it (case number: PP-003-678-146-192).
We are uncertain of how to seek appropriate legal action, but are still trying to. Ben Spak is a man in his late 20s and is currently enrolled in college. While we do not think it was his intent to lead us on or scam us, he was highly unprofessional, and bit off much more than he could chew when he drew up the initial contract with us, and took this design job. We would like to use this as a warning to others who may be interested in his work. His profile on Elance.com and other sites that highlight his work in the web design field, show positive testimonals of a cheap, fast, and job well done, but that was not the experience we had.
Ben Spak worked with us for seven months, poorly communicated with us, barely showed any updates, and in the end we're out $2600+ and without a website or anything to show for it. Take this as a warning if you are considering hiring him.