Please stay away from Vbulletinskinz.com. I had deposited $3000 to his account almost 2 months ago for 3 skins for sqlforums.com, xbox360talk.com, and csstalk.com.
First off, he kept delaying with just the mock design. Then after he couldn't get it done day after day, he just blocked me. I had a feeling he blocked me so I had a buddy add him to MSN and my buddy was reporting everything everyday. The guy has been on daily almsot 24/7 while offline on my MSN list.
I emailed him. No response. I emailed him again, no response. Now it was 3 weeks after mock design was due, and I emailed him a third time, saying he has 30 minutes to respond to the email. He responded saying he sent out the mock design the day before to my email address. I said, I never received it. This was such a dumb lie on his part, how can I get every email from his email address, and not get the one that had the skin. So I told him to resend it. He said it is at work. I said, what's the difference, log into your email account via Home, go to Sent Mail, and forward to my email again. He said it was in Outlook. (Another dumb lie because Outlook always has to be connected to a POP/SMAP mail account). He told me he'll resend it tomorrow at work, told me to be on MSN. I go on MSN the next day, he isn't online. I send him an email that night, and he said he sent it to my email account. I never received it. He said, "Oh, this time I brought USB drive with me home, so I have it on here, I'll resend it now". I said okay, resend it.
He sends me. What does he send me? An old skin he used for past clients that was denied, and he said it was purposely designed for sqlforums.com. This is the skin he sent:
http://i15.photobucket.com/albums/a3...Kicker/sql.gif
I asked him, why does it say Deuce Ace (past client) in the bottom of that skin? Where is the logo? Why is there a weight-loss sample banner? Why is all the text about Raw Food Chat (another past client). He said it was mock text, and that this skin was purposely made for sqlforums.com. I told him, how could it possibly been made for sqlforums.com if it doesn't represent anything I asked for when I sent in the description. I specifically said no bright colors, etc etc. Obviously, the skin was made for a client long ago, and then when he gets lazy and doesn't want to do the work, he tries to sell it to his potential client.
I figure this is it, I just lost $3,000 to some whack job in Dubai. I tell him I need a refund for the last 2 skins (xbox360talk.com / csstalk.com) because I need to invest the money into domains. He gives a refund for those.
Now I go out and ask his past clients. They told me that he showed them the same skin which they turned down! I knew right there, that this guy...this is not my type of guy. I asked Sheldon, where is the logo? He said, "logo? I thought you were going to give me it?". I said, no, "I payed you for the logo...". He said "you did?". And I said "...?". And then he says, oh right you did! How can you possible not know if a client payed you for the logo? $3,000 is nothing to joke around. Funny, first he told me he does skin based on logo, now he tells me that sometimes there's an exception to that. I know this guy is completely scamming me. He didn't even take a minute to see if I payed him for logo, he had 2 months for this 1 MOCK skin. Yes, mock, not even a complete.
I told him to refund for logos, he did. Now I had $800 left with him. $800 for the skin for sqlforums.com. I asked for a refund, he started going off on how I never trust him, and he showed me alot of attitude basically.
So what did I do? I had no choice. I had to confront him about EVERYTHING I knew. I explain to him how he blocked me and how my friend so him online day after day when he lied to me that he was out of town for a family emergency of some sort. He lied to me about sending the emails. He blocked me when he said he was going to work. I told him everything, how he showed me attitude when I tried to help him, how the skins weren't made for me, how I have past clients confirming that he showed them that same identical skin. I told him everything, how he registered on a website of his client's on the day he was supposedly "out of town". I had him, but I hadn't had my money, and that was the problem.
His excuse? He has internet connection problems, and maybe he appeared on one person's MSN list, but not mine. Worst lie ever. I told him sincerely to refund my money and I explained to him why. He said he done nothing wrong and that the skin was meant for sqlforums.com. He started talking about other things, etc etc. I told him, I want 100% refund. Finally he said, I can only give you 50%. We argued about the 100% refund for over an hour, he wouldn't agree. He said he'd send $400 out of $800 via Paypal. I said, I better take the $400 now before he ends up giving me nothing, so I said "okay.". He told me he had to get hsi friend to do it since he has no paypal account. I think his friend disagreed. So he had no choice but the refund the invoice on 2co for $800. Since you can't refund a part of the invoice, the entire $800 had to be refunded. He agreed with me that I'd send him back $400 via paypal right after. I said "okay". He basically thought I'd be dumb enough to send back that 50%. As soon as I got my refund, I called 2checkout support line to see if all refunds went through. They said yes, and they locked the refunds so that he can't do anything to get that money back. Then I cursed at him, and blocked him forever. Since then he's been writing me emails and laughing at me, etc.
I learned 3 lessons in this.
1) Never trust anybody, no matter how good their work and past clients are. Like my friend said, vb skin designers never last forever. And when they got alot of clients at once, they "MAY" close down and you'll never see your money again.
2) If you are going to send somebody money for web work, make sure they are in your area, or atleast your country. Don't send it over seas.
3) Pay for one thing at a time. Don't order 3 things like I did.
It was a nightmare for me. But luckily I received all my money back. And from this day, I know who the snake in the vb skin business is.