Ramblings & Rants

Michael Sanford on Windows Installer, Software Development and life in general!

Guru.com & Dispute Resolution

If you’ve been following along, I am trying to recover some money that I paid for web design work that I ultimately learned had been stolen from http://www.creative.com by Shayna McCullough under the name of a non-existent company called Iconic Media.

Early on in the process, I went to guru.com which is where the transaction took place, hoping that they had some policies in place to protect me under these circumstances.  I search ed all over the place and couldn’t really find anything, so I eventually ended up scouring their terms of service.  I was disappointed to see how vigorously they position themselves as a provider of payment services.  I guess I understand this in a way since they really don’t have any control over who does what when it comes to actually executing these projects, but it does seem that a basic tenant of their service is to provide some insulation and protection should thing go bad.

I did not get guru involved in this early enough, I guess because I just didn’t think they would offer any help.  I was wrong to have made that assumption, and while this is not yet resolved, I think their actions thus far are commendable and I’d like to thank them for the effort they have already expended.

Within a couple of hours of filing my complaint on their website, I received a fairly lengthy reply that was organized and well thought out.  This wasn’t the kind of template based reply you might expect, but a couple hundred words that dealt specifically with this case and the people involved.  The message described exactly what they would do to try to resolve the matter, and what my options were if they were not successful.  They asked for more information, which I supplied to them, and they followed up again to let me know exactly what they were planning to do.

I have not heard what the outcome of those efforts were yet, but I am really impressed by the sincerity with which they are pursuing this.  I still don’t know if I’ll hire anyone off guru.com again or not, but I do feel a lot better knowing that they do care.

I think the lesson here is that it is always better to try to get someone to help you than to just conclude based on the their legal mumbo jumbo that you are all alone in these kinds of matters.

To the folks at guru, I thank you for your efforts, whatever the outcome may be!
Posted: Jan 15 2005, 08:30 AM by Michael | with 1 comment(s)
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Comments

Michael said:

Wow... you are either the ballsiest or the dumbest guy to ever post in a blog! Do you have any idea how much damage this woman or company could do to you in a defamation lawsuit? It's one thing to post a company name in a blog, but it's entirely another to make unproven defamatory claims and then post personal contact information about that individual. You'd better pray to whatever Geek-God you worship that she doesn't get half a clue and sue you into the Stone Age, dude...

I speak with some authority on this topic, coming from a family of lawyers. While I myself didn't pursue the legal profession, I've been around them enough to pick up via osmosis enogh information to tell you that first off, you don't have anything close to a claim. There appear to me some similarities, but your're asertion that your site was built off of copywrited material is pure crap. You might as well say that you can copywrite the idea of using an array to get a list of items from a database, or using cookies to store user information. You can't copywrite colors or shapes. On another note, I think what they did looks pretty nice, and if you didn't like it, maybe you shouldn't have paid for it to begin with.

I have to be honest, dude. You sound like a weapons-grade asshole out to hurt someone, and if you really read between the lines, it kinda sounds like you have an alterior agenda. I've been a web developer for a long time and yea, I sometimes borrow from other sites (in fact, many of my clients use other sites a a basis for their aestetic designs). The term is called "emulating functionality" and there's not a good geek on the planet who hasn't done it. The fact that you would actually slam another developer who gave you what looks like a pretty decent product tells me that you are either a total moron, a complete liar or both.

People like you make me want to blow chuncks - not only because you seem to belong to a breed of whiny bitches that should be turned into Soilent Green, but primarily because I stupid people really piss me off.

Personally, I hope she sues ya! I'll be sure and send her an e-mail to let her know her options.

Good Luck!
# January 21, 2005 3:29 PM