Client taking me to small claims for Web Development work completed!

[anix]

Hi,


A client I was recently working for has now out of the blue started treating me with small claims court for some Web Development work completed for his company.


From the beginning on this project I was never provided a full detailed specification of exactly what functionality they wanted and instead given bits and pieces of information here and there. With me being an experienced Software Engineer I carried on working based on the information I was receiving and constantly asking the client to make sure they are very specific on what they wanted me to deliver.


The first part of the work was completed for the core site and they signed off on the invoice and paid the amount in full. They then wanted further work completed after this for creating a Blog & CMS for the site. Again they did not provide me with any detailed specifications on what they expected me to deliver, however I did tell them exactly what I would be able to deliver and they agreed.


They are now saying that the Blog and CMS are not useable and they want some money back, they are also complaining about the sites speed as well. I did a full investigation and have obtained reports to show the speed of the site is grade A(97%) and I investigated further to find the issue was with their server, however they seem unwilling to look into that issue and keep blaming me.


I really would just like to know what case I have against my client in this matter? Also I never signed a contract for the work outlined above but I am not sure if this matters?


Thanks

[teaboy2]

Re: Client taking me to small claims for Web Development work completed!

No written contract means no claim against you really, as the contract would have stated the full specifics they required. As there was no written contract, then there was no written detailed specifics they required, and only specifics given were simply general, basic or non-precise and likely ambiguous at best.

Were the specifics that they did give you provided in writing at all, email etc? This would be useful in proving they were not specific with what they actually required. From Sounds of things they asked for a blog and CMS, but failed to provide any specific needs/requirements for either, so you provided them with standard/basic blog and CMS based on what needs they had told you about. The fact they agreed to what you would deliver itself also would kick any claim they have in to the dustbin.

As for Speeds, i agree, as i myself sell online via own company websites (Though we use 3rd party hosting due to it being more economical and access to free technical support) and speed issues are normally server related. As its their server then you are not responsible for it. It could even be due to how their network is set up or other internal things.

Can you PM me the URL for the website? So i can then verify the speed is fine.

Did they say why it was unusable, is it simply not working? - This could be due to their own actions such as altering settings or files that such blogs/CMS require to run off.

Personally i would write them a letter informing them that you do not acknowledge or accept any liability in regards to their claim. State that you provided a CMS and Blog as per you said you would and as to what they had agreed too. Inform them the speed issue is related to their server hardware, which is their property and is nothing to do with you or the service you provided as they are responsible for the maintenance (unless covered by the hardware providers warranty) of their own hardware. Also state that as their was no written contract, then no written specific specifications/requirements were provided, and the only specifications/requirements given were basic, non-specific and ambiguous at best - In other words, they asked for a blog/CMS without provide specific requirements/needs, so that is what they got. If they had required specific specifications/requirements, then the duty is on them to provide such prior to agreeing to the work being done. State you are quite happy to make required changes but this would incur them extra cost which would be determined by what specifics/requirements they need. Send such letter recorded delivery.

But don't send the letter just yet, as we do need you to answer above questions first, plus any questions other members put to you.

[anix]

Re: Client taking me to small claims for Web Development work completed!

Hi,

Thanks for the reply it is much appreciated.

I have attached a report for the site in question and it clearly shows that the site development has complied to pretty much all of the recommended approaches for today's web standards. I already knew this as I have so many years under my belt but this report shows that using the best industry testing tools this site scores way above the average at 97%.

I have not included the websites address for privacy reasons, im sure you understand





Thanks

Dave

[teaboy2]

Re: Client taking me to small claims for Web Development work completed!

Looking at the report it looks like page load time is 24.1 seconds, which is like forever.

I used the same site to test my own site, and the page speed grade rating was 78% but page load was just 2.89s. So its clearly an issue with their server from what i can tell.

Send them a copy of the report telling them the speed issue is there server as the report shows the sites speed rating is 98% but page load time is over 24 seconds, meaning its a server problem.

[CleverClogs]

Re: Client taking me to small claims for Web Development work completed!

Is it hosted on a ZX81?

[Amethyst]

Re: Client taking me to small claims for Web Development work completed!

We had a problem with page load times when we had images hosted off site so the connection had to go off and find the images for it to load, also the score for image size attributes seems very low, and when we had that issue we also found some images without the size width height etc weren't showing up in IE properly. I'm not a webby my any means but I'm responsible and do all the webby stuff on here. Our page loads pretty quick IMO (well you can see when you visit the site) and our GTmetrix Yslow stats for comparison are; (don't know if that helps at all to be honest, but our server used to be really really slow and we had lots of problems before upgrading) The report looks a bit rubbish actually, but it works okay so I'm happy with it as is.

F

Page Speed Grade:
(49%) 78%

C

YSlow Grade:
(73%) 78%

Page load time: 5.93s
Total page size: 680KB
Total number of requests: 102

Add Expires headers	F (0)	24%	Server	High
Use a Content Delivery Network (CDN)	F (0)	10%	Server	Medium
Make fewer HTTP requests	E (52)	41%	Content	High
Use cookie-free domains	F (0)	43%	Cookie	Low
Reduce DNS lookups	F (10)	74%	Content	Low
Reduce the number of DOM elements	F (19)	94%	Content	Low
Configure entity tags (ETags)	F (0)	55%	Server	Low
Avoid URL redirects	B (80)	87%	Content	Medium
Minify JavaScript and CSS	A (90)	74%	CSS/JS	Medium
Avoid AlphaImageLoader filter	A (90)	95%	CSS	Medium
Avoid CSS expressions	B (88)	97%	CSS	Low
Avoid empty src or href	A (100)	100%	Content	High
Compress components with gzip	A (100)	67%	Server	High
Make AJAX cacheable	A (100)	100%	JS	Medium
Put CSS at the top	A (100)	100%	CSS	Medium
Remove duplicate JavaScript and CSS	A (100)	100%	CSS/JS	Medium
Put JavaScript at bottom	A (100)	100%	JS	Medium
Avoid HTTP 404 (Not Found) error	A (100)	100%	Content	Medium
Do not scale images in HTML	A (100)	100%	Images	Low
Use GET for AJAX requests	A (100)	100%	JS	Low
Reduce cookie size	A (100)	100%	Cookie	Low
Make favicon small and cacheable	A (100)	100%	Images	Low
Make JavaScript and CSS external	(n/a)		CSS/JS	Medium

[the_d_man]

Re: Client taking me to small claims for Web Development work completed!

That's one of the major issues i have with clients, they just don't understand the web, I can only deal with 3 clients at a time and i explain to them what i expect of them, stops all the crappy emails.
Luckily now i work full time for a comapny managing only a few websites and less stress lol.

If you need any help with anything technical on the site i can help you

Also i don't think they have much to claim against you, seems like you have done the best you can with the given information.

So long as you show interest in their problems and tried to guide them through the problems you should be ok, but don't do anything for free, just advise them. I think you have been fair with them and i doubt they will progress this through the courts...

[wales01man]

Re: Client taking me to small claims for Web Development work completed!

Report shows a lot but would a judge hearing this in court understand it and its meaning?

[CleverClogs]

Re: Client taking me to small claims for Web Development work completed!

Would a lumberjack understand String Theory? :nerd:

[PlanB]

Re: Client taking me to small claims for Web Development work completed!

Would a lumberjack understand String Theory? :nerd:

Possibly

[Tools]

Re: Client taking me to small claims for Web Development work completed!

Would a lumberjack understand String Theory? :nerd:

Sadly, this HGV Fitter does, but then again I'm a geek

[Tools]

Re: Client taking me to small claims for Web Development work completed!

I'm not a webby my any means but I'm responsible and do all the webby stuff on here.

Thanks

WE use web developer tools which can analyze page load times down to the individual element on each page, it will give you a far more detailed analysis as to what is taking so much time to load. An example I just ran on this page is attached

[FlamingParrot]

Re: Client taking me to small claims for Web Development work completed!

The first part of the work was completed for the core site and they signed off on the invoice and paid the amount in full. They then wanted further work completed after this for creating a Blog & CMS for the site. Again they did not provide me with any detailed specifications on what they expected me to deliver, however I did tell them exactly what I would be able to deliver and they agreed.

They are now saying that the Blog and CMS are not useable and they want some money back, they are also complaining about the sites speed as well. I did a full investigation and have obtained reports to show the speed of the site is grade A(97%) and I investigated further to find the issue was with their server, however they seem unwilling to look into that issue and keep blaming me.

I do web design work and, from the above, it sounds like they are just looking for an excuse to recoup some of the money spent on web development.

Presumably the blog and CMS were built on Wordpress? :noidea:

There are many variables that may affect the load speed of a site, if it's hosted on a shared server then it may be overloaded, especially with the cheap hosting accounts.

A little off-topic perhaps, but relevant to those who build sites on Wordpress and their clients, some cheap hosts have been disabling the WP log in as a result of DDOS attacks for variable periods of time. :mad2:

Whenever you build a content-managed site, it has to be clear that you can only be responsible for delivering a site in working order, not for anything they may do after that. You may come to an arrangement for tech support, etc. but you cannot be held responsible for what they do with a site they can change themselves. If the site is 'unusable', it could well be a result of a plugin they installed or a change they've made to the site.

I really would just like to know what case I have against my client in this matter? Also I never signed a contract for the work outlined above but I am not sure if this matters?

They are the claimants so the onus is on them to make a case against you, not the other way round. :thumb:

[anix]

Re: Client taking me to small claims for Web Development work completed!

Hi All,

Thanks for all the replies

Well I have been looking into the issue further and it definatly appears to be a server issue as they are routing all their internet traffic to the site via another DNS which looks like it is a company designed to sell extra security against attacks.

However when looking at their server there are over 700 sites registered to the same IP, so with these sites and the fact that it takes extra time to reach the root server for First Byte then this is definitely where the issue is. As when I tested the same site on my server it loads in less than 1sec

I know the images got a low rating but that is simply to do with the home page being so image intensive (Which I advised against) and them not providing me with the correct assets that I requested. To be honest this client has been particularly bad as they expected me to be We Developer, Wed Designer, Content Writer etc all at the same time and only wanting to pay a very small amount.

If I hear anything back I will let you guys know and thanks again for all the help and advise.

[Johnysam]

Re: Client taking me to small claims for Web Development work completed!

Hi There,
Do you have any written contract with your client? In case you have the documents then you can very easily take help from the lawyer and solve the matter.