Hey everyone,

My name is Ron Park and I have been working with a service provider, TechnoUSA, from Houston/India to create my real estate mash-up site. My project on getacoder.com was for a Redfin.com clone, in all functionalities and appearance. They were supposed to finish the site by January 25th, 2008 but yesterday, 4/24/08, I told them I'm through with them. The site is nowhere near being a Redfin clone, and they've just been problematic from the start. I have given this company a total of $10,500; and the amount of money I can possibly retrieve back with these credit card disputes is $8,500.

*They took 2-3 weeks to insert the zoom ability onto the google map. (This is only one of their many inabilities)

So I opened credit card disputes on all the money I gave them, and Chase credit card asks for supporting documentation. This is what they have to say...

If we're talking about the code that they uploaded onto my hosting, and told me that they're finished (and it doesn't even work).

The agreement was for a Redfin clone.

And these are the problems associated with my dispute with this company.

*Late (January 25th completion date)
*Incomplete code
*Works only on PC Internet Explorer. No Firefox. No Mac browsers.
*Load time ranges from 20-47 seconds (and this is each time you move the map's position)
*Map functionality is buggy and glitchy



I really need your help in this matter. If you can lend me some of your time, it'll be greatly appreciated. Let me know if you need any more information for me to provide you.

-Ron Park

Please don't hate me

I don't know what was your exact request on the rent a coder website.
You mentioned that you asked for a clone of www.redfin.com.

I had a look at that website and I am a coder and a web designer and I am guessing that you don't have to much experience in this field .

www.redfin.com on my personal opinion is a Ferrari website class.

1. Let's think outside the square for a moment from the designer point of view.

You come to me and you ask me to build you a Ferrari look alike car very cheap ($10.000) .
If I am desperate for the money I will take the job and rent a Ferrari take it for a drive so I will have some idea of how it drives.
In a few months I will give you a car which looks similar to a Ferrari , you can drive it .. it brakes , it has air bags ... etc.
Then you come and say to me that it doesn't perform like one and my replay will be well a Ferrari which you look at costs easy $500.000 so this is what you got for $10.000.

I don't really want to speculate but I don't think you mention in your request that you want to have the page loading in x no. of seconds and before you post things and ask them to build cheap you should do your own research on how the things work what are the minimum hardware requirements to obtain the same performance , what software was used.

If you can't do this then you pay someone to do the research for you.

I had a look at your website and is slow .. has bugs but nothing which can't be fixed the hosting used for the website is slow and probably you need a bit more Google map inside info to build something like this.
When you complained how long it took to put a zoom in button in the map you probably don't know how much code and testing is required even for things which look simple from outside.

My advice is : be happy with what you got back the $8000 , invest them in someone else who can fix the bugs on your website.
Don't aim to high when you start something like this , build it in steps with deadlines so you have control over it.

I hope I brought some light here.

P.S.( in real world prices you would pay easy $20.000 - $30.000 for some one ONLY TO DESIGN the database for a site like this if you want a lot of functionality and reporting in the background which this guys have it. If you are curious just ask them how much will they sell their website to you then you have an Idea how much work was done .)

hi
i have read your scenario but on the oher hand we will go with the developers.they have done very good job in my eyes.and you paid them only 10,500$ for this.I am also running a small web development company in Califirnia and i would have charged 40,000 USD -50,000 USD to get what they have done in 10,500USD.

you should understand this.we dont know about the product you are asking and in terms of timeframe this project should take 1-1.5 years to get anywhere near to redfin but they are tremedous and talented guys.they have just made a solution very near to redfin.

i will go with the developers.Sorry Mr Ron Park.

You are not from California, - you are likely the developer trying to play up your case. Honestly, there is no reason to be deceptive, say who you really are, and state your case. Well - actually I am going to ban you for the deception, but try to keep it in the back of your mind for next time.

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Ron,
You had asked me to respond in this thread to support you, but honestly I do not think you are going to get much support.

My best advise before you get sued by Redfin, is take that site down until such time as you can have a designer change it significantly - Attempting to make an exact copy of someone else's custom work is extremely unethical and illegal (Intellectual property theft / copyright infringement)

As for the job and the cost - You had asked me for a quote to create "something like a Redfin" to which I replied

You knew full well what to expect going into this thing from a "reputable developer" - and it seems like you are now suffering from a case of getting what you paid for.

You sought out cheap Indian labor - and are expecting a champagne website on a beer budget. Not going to happen. You are likely going to need to start over as likely it would be easier for the "right" developer for this project to re-write the code from scratch as opposed to trying to use what these people have.

In my professional opinion should you be given a refund? I don't know, that depends on the specifics of the contract you negotiated.

In my personal opinion, I think it's a bit of karma - You are trying to steal someone else's intellectual property (By creating a clear and admitted derivative work of redfin.com) and you tried to do something very complex without respecting the abilities of those who are required to make it (And the cost associated with them)

__________________
Webmasters who spend their energies upholding the spirit of the basic principles [Of Google] will provide a much better user experience and subsequently enjoy better ranking than those who spend their time looking for loopholes they can exploit. Google.com

Thanks for your replies, everyone.

What can I say. I, of course, know now that this isn't something that you off-shore to India. But they told me that they'd make me the Ferrari. It's like.

The deal was to get a plane that flies me from JFK to LAX in 5 hours, but they ended up giving me a bike with a flat. It can take me from point A to B, but I'd be fighting against the current more than I should be.

So I know that if I pay peanuts, I'll get monkeys, but in our emails and chats, they promised me the Ferrari. So I'm just trying to get most of my money back, which I haven't been awarded yet, and this company can learn not to bid on every project up on getacoder.

To be honest, I'm just trying to save my ass because I paid with CC. And webmaster, I had your quote and their quote side by side at that time. And I was green back then. They promised me the world. But now I know. I'm just trying to save my ass.

Haha, that's exactly how the outsourcing manager talks to me. Hi Sunny.

He never said he was from California.

* Disclaimer: Sorry, just couldn't resist

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I agree with the Webmaster. It's a kind of karma.

I really love the copyright at the bottom of a page that was... copied.

:/ Learned my lesson, and taking it rightfully as a loss.