How to deal with this?
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- 14 Responses
- robco0
just tell them its none of their jamb' business.
- jamble0
Thanks for the responses, I think I've established the person who mailed me is in fact the owner of the business so I've simply left it by asking him to provide a full written request to terminate the site including details of the various bits of evidence he mentioned.
To be honest, I've rechecked my contract and it turns out that the timescales for hosting the site have expired so I'm within my rights to send a reminder for hosting fees then switch off the site anyway so I don't think this will be a problem, it was just the random and out of the blue request that threw me a bit.
- digdre0
erm, ask for evidence.
- jamble0
I will of course ask for evidence but the problem I have is that the person who contacted me is not someone I know or have heard from before so I find it difficult to know where I'd stand if I take their word for it or view some sort of evidence (they're in Canada, I'm in UK) and remove the site only to find out that it's not 100% accurate and the client who signed a contract with me and paid for the site is in fact not at fault.
The problem I have is that the request is out of the blue from someone I don't know basically.
- hey I'm canada...
I could brake some legs for ya!
;o)VectorMasked
- hey I'm canada...
- airey0
if it's the company you did the job for, irrespective of who you dealt with, then just do what they ask. you can't be held accountable unless you don't do what the company asks as it could then raise the question of your involvement.
just make sure you get the request to take the site down from them official like.
- airey0
if it then turns out it's all ok, then just let it go public again.
- sublocked0
Contact the company directly. Ask to speak to a higher-up for confirmation.
Do you have an ongoing contract with them? Does it account for any such things as this? Does it specify who has continuing ownership of the site?
I've found through experience that hosting your client's sites is a BAD idea as you're finding out now.
In the future set your clients up with a hosting provider that runs the VPS for them, and handles the billing.
If you have a lot of clients you can probably even work out a referral / affiliate residual program with the hosting company for the duration of your clients hosting needs.
- and contact i mean phone / skype...something voice. talk to someone above this dude's head.sublocked
- sublocked0
^^ Also in cases where you don't have a contract with the firm in place specifying ownership I'd say ownership defaults to whoever is paying you monthly to host their site.
Who's cutting the check, authorizing the bank transfer, or whose name is on the card? They are paying you to host it, right?
- jamble0
@sublocked, no I'm not doing any ongoing work for them, as far as I am concerned the contract was nearly 2 years ago and paid in full on completion of the work so it's going back a bit. I did them a deal on hosting the site at the same time so that's all paid up because I didn't want the hassle of being a hosting reseller so I just whacked on lump sum to the original contract so there's no ongoing cost/billing/contact basically.
- WeLoveNoise0
If the contract also states the company name on it. Then i would say that its the company's owns property and therefore they own all the rights.
- WeLoveNoise0
many companies appoint finance departments and when they pay bills, they sign it with their signature and not the MD's - this is an example of how people can act on behalf of the company but not own whatever it is they have signed
- Fariska0
As a start you should check with a lawyer to understand properly your situation.
- rafalski0
Good. Don't forget to charge for a day's work, switching off websites is exhausting..
- jamble0
I really should do. Still, I think as it stands, I'll just rename the index instead of completely deleting it for the moment. Just in case ...