Was I scammed by this Web Design Company? -Need to get this off my chest.

Ok, this is something that has been bothering me for nearly a year now and I want to find a resolution to set my doubts to rest. It's going to be kind of long so bear with me.

Early last year, just a few months or weeks after having first heard about making money online I decided to set up a website and start reeling in the cash. This was of course a stupid, newbie idea on my part and looking back on it a year on such an obvious pitfall.

I know nothing about web design so I went to getafreelancer.com to have someone create a page for me. I got a million messages from Indians with broken English and no portfolio, but one of the messages seemed legit and professional. I was looking to have a 6 or so page blog and logo designed.

The person who contacted me worked for a web design company called w-ww.dreamcodesign.com. I went to their page and it looked legit though somewhat underwhelming considering that their page and salesmen claim to work with numerous fortune 500 companies. They charged me $2000 for the job and said it would take about 3 weeks to get done. I was building the website for a specific event and needed it done in that time frame. They also charged me a monthly $24 hosting fee and moved my domain over from bluehost to theirs.

At the time I knew nothing about templates or the sort, but now I can see, looking at their site that their portfolio consists of nothing but templates. -red flag. So in about 3 days time they send me my logo. It looked like horseshit so I begin editing it myself in paint and to my surprise I created a nice piece of eye candy, at least 10 better than the shit they sent me. The weeks keep passing and after 3 weeks they tell me that there will be a short delay. I ended up receiving a god damn PICTURE of the homepage about 5-6 weeks after handing them the job (and weeks after the event deadline!)

Needless to say that the homepage looked like piss mixed with puke and stirred with a shit stick. I gave them my idea's, resources, images, etc to give them direction. The page looked like something made by a 5 year old in paint. The colors where drab, compressed quality shit. the entire thing looked like shit. I cannot stress enough how shit it looked like.

At that point the cheese had slid halfway off my cracker, so I told them to give me a refund (1000 I paid upfront) for the shit they created and for the ridiculous delays that made the site useless to me at that point anyway.

Well, I didn't get my refund back.

Looking back now, I know I would have failed with that site anyway, because I was too green and too greedy. In that, they did me a favor by saving me an extra 1000 and more, trying to keep afloat a destined to failure project.

However, I want to KNOW whether I was scammed by them or not. whether they are a truly legitimate site that just decided to fuck me up the ass. It's been bothering me ever since, because their site is still up and running, I never got a refund and never heard from them since. The experience almost turned me away from ever dabbling in IM again.

Fast forward; About 5 or so months ago I accidentally stumbled upon an indian web design homepage that looked eerily like dreamco's. They may have ripped it from them, I don't know. I just checked the website today and the look is largely the same as they did a year ago though with a bit more polish.

Also, when typing in my domain name they still have their own placeholder (under construction by blah blah blah) as the homepage. However, the domain are actually still hosted on my bluehost account! This makes me wonder wtf I actually paid the 2 months worth of hosting at $50.

Last week I made a wordpress blog in a matter of hours that looked and functioned 10 times better than the shit they took two months on (they also used wordpress for my blog). I still have no web design skills though I just began self teaching myself the past week -so I don't have to deal with fucks like this again.

Most of you are more experienced and knowledgeable about scams and such than I am so I would really appreciate it if one of you could examine or maybe from experience say whether this looks like a scam site or not. I really want to bury this thorn now, but first I need to know whether I was duped for sure or not.

Thanks.

Hi,
I don't know this company, but what I have learned the hard way (and with 30 times your $$ amount) is that you have to tell the programmers EXACTLY what you want.
Many webdesign firms think they can do what you ask, because their vision is clouded by the $$ in their eyes. And than fail to deliver a marketing savy site.
There are good ones also though.
Best thing to do is get a solid understanding of IM and than know how and what to ask and at the same time be able to see it from miles away if they are just talking the talk.
Also get a good contract.
I don't think it is like being duped. You ordered a site, they deliverd you one. You might have had something else in mind. I understand though, the use of templates many times doesn't equal quality. Sometimes it does though.
You might like scriptlance as people can leave reviews there.
But why not mark it as a lesson learned and move your mind to more positive things?
How will they screw you the most... in just the dollar amount or in the scenario where you keep going over this in your mind?

i looked at their site and did a search on google and they appear to be legit in my opinion, there portfolio appears to have legit businesses on there... i am wondering if the people you where dealing where infact dreamcodesign and not someone pretending to be them???

have you contacted them directly using the numbers and contact forms on their site or have you just been dealing with the guy on the freelance site?

its people like this who give this industry a bad rep - pisses me off!

Looks like these guys are just flogging $60 TemplateMonster.com templates as a reseller. Also funny how their BBB logo don't link to their listing.

That's a nice site they have. Let's see,

The fonts they are using are not so proffessional and their design is mediocre,
Everything is so nice looking, phone numbers, random company logos in the footer, its so well setup that it makes you think that they are a company targeting people getting into online business and don't know shit, their goals are to charge a shitload of bucks, have the clients wait months and deliver crappy designs that a begginer would adore.
It makes you think why people don't hire Indians, no matter how annoying their english is, you might find someone that will design you something good for cheap.

The example templates are scraped from templatehelp.com.

I am almost convicted this is a scam, but I am bored anyway.

neokk said:

Hi,
I don't know this company, but what I have learned the hard way (and with 30 times your $$ amount) is that you have to tell the programmers EXACTLY what you want.
Many webdesign firms think they can do what you ask, because their vision is clouded by the $$ in their eyes. And than fail to deliver a marketing savy site.
There are good ones also though.
Best thing to do is get a solid understanding of IM and than know how and what to ask and at the same time be able to see it from miles away if they are just talking the talk.
Also get a good contract.
I don't think it is like being duped. You ordered a site, they deliverd you one. You might have had something else in mind. I understand though, the use of templates many times doesn't equal quality. Sometimes it does though.
You might like scriptlance as people can leave reviews there.
But why not mark it as a lesson learned and move your mind to more positive things?
How will they screw you the most... in just the dollar amount or in the scenario where you keep going over this in your mind?

Click to expand...

You're right. Despite how negative the OP may have seemed, I do think of the experience as a necessary one. Had it not gone that way I would have lost far more time, money and drive trying to manage that website that had no real potential in that form.

I do go over it in my mind time to time, however it's not something that hinders me but rather something that has added to my drive to succeed, to become more self reliant. It is the reason I have begun to do my homework and research far more thoroughly, my work far more cautiously and precisely and why I am striving to become self reliant and independent by learning necessary coding, scripting, etc myself. -Which will payoff in the long run.

It's just the fact that my experience and what they presented themselves to be differed so much that I've had a nagging to get to the bottom of this ever since.

Thanks for the reply.

yea you got played my dude i would charge way less to do something like that