The Web Development Con

Due Diligence

In 2006, the United States Federal Trade Commission announced that complaints against web developers, included in the list of complaints versus other internet service providers, ranked fourth on a list of prominent customer complaints. The list is topped by identity fraud. That same year, similar complaints also ranked seventh in the overall list drawn up by all Better Business Bureaus in both the U.S. and Canada. In Arlington, Virginia alone, the BBC received 1,971 complaints against web design outfits, and this was a steep rise from just 603 in 2003.

Clearly, the problem is huge and “definitely growing,” says BBB spokesperson Alison Prezzler in an article for BusinessWeek. “More small businesses realize the need to have a web presence, so there's more demand for web designers. But as more companies enter that market, you're seeing more that are not on the up and up,” she notes.

Horror Stories Abound

JUST AS there is an explosion of fraudulent providers and unethical developers, so too do web development horror stories abound:

• One frustrated businessman in California, for instance, ended up with a site with half of its pages still filled with Latin gibberish even after months of waiting.
• An owner of a start-up dress shop in a small east coast city got, from her web developer, a CD containing her "web site,” and was left absolutely clueless about how to obtain a domain name, get web hosting, upload her site, or put it online.
• Too many entrepreneurs also complain of their websites being incompatible with different browsers, despite the development of CSS and other new web dev tools.
• A quick look at www.complaints.com reveals many similar complaints, and even the story of one businessman who paid $10,000 for a website that never came live. That customer complaint site is only one of several.

In yet another incident cited by BusinessWeek, the owner of a small pest control company recounts how she hired a web designer she'd met through her church. She wanted him to create two web sites to boost sales for her 11-employee, $500,000 company. Her requirements were by no means difficult: she just wanted an site that would present information about her company and include the latest news about pest control. But after two years of waiting, she got stuck with two sites that couldn't be updated. Her web developer also registered the domain names himself, so that only people he designated could change them. Today, the poor woman couldn't shut the sites down, or have another web developer redesign them.

For Businesses, Little Recourse

UNFORTUNATELY, despite the growth of web-dev fraud and horror stories, businesspersons have little recourse when they find themselves cheated.

Some may try to buy back their domain names, but when developers disappear and cannot be contacted anymore, that recourse turns out to be a dead end. Some try to recover the fees they paid through small claims courts. But since such courts were set up to deal with simple cases like evictions and non-payment of debts amounting to a maximum of $5,000, these courts cannot order the erring developer to give you the code for your site, or to release control over your URL.

Plus, the amount of money you can try to win in small claims court is capped in each state. In California, for instance, awards cap at $7,500 for an individual and $5,000 for a corporation, limited liability outfit, or other entity.

Entrepreneurs who choose to bring their cases to traditional courts face uphill battles. Ownership disputes are fairly straightforward but most development contracts may not have a clear ownership agreement. In such cases, the web developer is going to win. Mostly, when a business argues in court that their developer failed to deliver the site it promised, the judge and jury will not have the technological expertise to decide if this is true.

Treating Your Small Business Small

SADLY, it is the smaller entrepreneur, fighting to stay in the ring, that is worst-hit. Multinationals and bigger companies have teams of IT, marketing and content experts to design, develop and put up their sites—but the smaller firms do not have this luxury.

Considering the fact that fully 99 percent of all independent enterprises in the U.S are small businesses that employ fewer than 500 people, this is so unjust. Small businesses are a major contributor to the American economy, producing around three-fourths of new jobs.

Small companies are also the main consumers of web development services—and their numbers are growing. According to Boston-based Yankee group, an independent IT research firm with a growing global presence, the number of small companies that have chosen to contract out the design and development of their websites has risen sharply since 2005.

Typically, the entrepreneurs design their sites themselves, and when they want to add more features, such as e-commerce, they seek a professional.

Hence small companies want to have a successful offshore web development relationship and have a certain degree of confidence on the design and development process of their sites should work with credible web providers. They want –and deserve—constant project updates and steady communication with their web developers.