I was approached by friends I have known for years wanting a redesign for two of their sites. I had spent a total of about 20 hours on the sites. a total of four redesign to make them happy and at the last minute they backed out of the deal.

First site In question:

before:

http://www.idobar.com


after:

http://www.sydpixel.com/0-2/index.php


second site in question:

before:

http://www.kevinobryans.com

after:

http://www.sydpixel.com/0-1/index.php


My question is this.

1. Should I send them an invoice for services rendered?

2. Are the redesigns really all that bad?


Thanks

They're not that bad. I'm not feeling the Georgia tont (never do) and there's a float drop case on the first one but they're definitely an improvement over what's there.

By the way, this is why I never design sites for friends. It's the quickest way to lose them.

As far as sending an invoice, you did the work, send the bill. If you had anyone else around that witnessed the oral agreement (and you hopefully did), try to call them into the battle if they'll let you.

As far as oral contracts are concerned, there's nothing wrong with them IF both parties can be trusted. Mind you, most of the people I deal with sign something before I get started and I've only dealt with 3 people on an oral contract basis, 2 of which I knew long beforehand and knew were good for the coin.

I wasn't actually to far into xhtml at that point (I'm still learning)

None the less. The price was right. because they WERE friends of 17 years, I cut them a pretty affordable price.

Yes, they may not be "top notch" but for the price in comparison to what they had as to what I did, I thought it was fair.

Not to mention, I worked with them in the design. The over all look was per their request, not necessarily what I thought was best.

Friends or not, they CONTACTED / CONTRACTED you to do the job and you deserve compensation -- if they don't want to pay, remove all of the files immediately, as it proves they really weren't friends at all ... just "Associates" looking for a free ride!

For what it's worth, I liked your re-designs so much better!

Send the bill mate, if they dont care enough for you even after being friends for 17years then why should you care. Send a bill.

Yep, I'd send the bill too, Denny. If they were really your friends there wouldn't be a quibble over money. Sometimes it takes a situation like this to find out that someone claiming to be your friend, really never was after all. It's a painful way to have to find that out. Hope things work out for you without any damage to the friendships.

What you may want to do before you bill them is look up oral contract law in your area. It varies from place to place; from what I've read, in some cases (e.g. Ontario), oral contracts are legally binding and in some cases they're not.

Having said that, bill 'em. The worst thing that happens is you don't get paid. As of right now, you won't get paid anyway, so that's a no-lose situation.

I don't know squat about contract law but I just wanted to say that I really liked the first "after." I think it's pretty nice even though I don't like that green for the header but if it was for me I'd have gone with it. It's a huge improvement over the before.

Thanks for all of the feedback. I have officially sent the invoice and received an email response already. It seems they are ready to talk.

This should be an interesting soap opera

Dude, they just burned you, I wouldn't call them real friends

Originally Posted by ADAM Web Design

What you may want to do before you bill them is look up oral contract law in your area. It varies from place to place; from what I've read, in some cases (e.g. Ontario), oral contracts are legally binding and in some cases they're not.

I think that's kind of a side point. Unless there were people around to witness the oral agreement, it may or may not be enforceable, in theory, but it probably isn't in fact.

Still, since they asked you to do this, agreed on the hows and whys, and even went back and forth with you on the design, it's not like you did this out of the blue and are sending them a bill for something they didn't buy. I'm sorry that it sounds like these people weren't the friends you thought they were, but the fact remains you went out of your way to accommodate them, and they're bound by honor if not law to uphold their side of the bargain.

The new designs certainly aren't earth-shattering, and even still they're huge improvements.

Originally Posted by theseokit

Dude, they just burned you, I wouldn't call them real friends

Gee ... DUUUHHH -- isn't that what the rest of us have already said?

...shaking head...where do these people come from?

I was simply agreeing TravelAgent

Ok .. let me clarify a couple of things.

First, These people aren't what I would call my "Best Friends". They just so happen to live in the same community as I and practically grew up together. I am very close with direct relatives of these people and have completed other work for them with no issues.

Duuuhh... Apparently some of you think I'm questioning our friendship? After this I wouldn't necessarily call them friends. That's a no brainer!

I didn't post to get advise on friendship. I posted to ask whether or not the designs compared to the old designs were terrible or an improvement to what they had. And if I should; despite no written contract, send them a bill or just walk away.

1. I will NEVER do work for them again

2. Shortly after I was approached to redesign these two, I got burnt on one other verbal agreement. I will never do work with ANYONE based on a verbal agreement.

But thanks for all of the input