Dionne was referred to me from a friend, so I figured she must be legit. I should have been certain to get a phone number from her before I ever paid her anything.in a near 2 month time, we never spoke on the phone, which seems strange when someone is designing something as personal as a website.
In any case, I paid her up front for services that I thought would produce an entire website. No, all the extra pages were more money, and she was to be working on all of it simultaneously. Not a big deal, I must have misunderstood. A month and a half later, I've spent over $600 on nothing but a LOGO, when the initial package, as according to her website includes the following:
*custom layout and graphics
*homepage setup
*favicon
*three social icon buttons i.E. Facebook, twitter, linkedin
*categories and subcategories setup
*custom headers for categories and pages
*shopping customization to match website
*installation if using one of my approved hosts
*two print designs i.E. Business card, label (excluding items over 6? In width and height)
*four web ads 125125,150100,46860 and 150150x
I sell collegiate and Greek products, so I stressed the importance of having the website live for football, rush, back to school. Also, I do not have a physical store, only my online business so a website is KEY to everything I do. She knew about that timeframe since the first email on July 19. After threats and begging, she finally sent me the photo shop file (a pretty picture of what the homepage should look like) so that I can turn it over to another designer. She tried to charge me an additional $45 for it!!! Now, after all of her empty promises and dragging her feet along with personal excuses like she was moving, had no internet connection, etc. I am left completely out in the cold with no time or money to rectify this; I've missed Greek rush, am in the wake of football season (first home game this weekend), and have no website.
What kind of a person does this to someone? It's less about the money for me and more about being pushed off, ignored, neglected, and ultimately hung out to dry while she keeps money that I had to scrimp to come up with in the first place, for a job that she did not deliver. I don't know how she can sleep at night, but I'm going to make sure that every design blog across this world hears something about Studio Chic Design. Hopefully I can prevent this from happening to anyone else.
I will have lost thousands of dollars after it's all said in done, in new design fees, finding a new host (as I used the one she requested, so it would be easiest on her) and in lost business. All I can say is what goes around comes around.
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