Entering lawsuit, seeking advice

Tenzin SG

Hi all,

Any specialised advice is highly appreciated.

A contract to build a website (around $6K) which I signed with a software development small company has expired. The company now claims they have completed the website, justifying whatever that are missing as 2% undone that requires 'fine-tuning'. The website is far from satisfactory and not as per the guidelines provided before the contract was signed.

As such, they refused to refund my money. I am looking into seeking compensation for the months of delays as well.

Initial deposit was $3K.

Where should I seek legal action? Small Claim Tribunal or a full fledged lawsuit?

If there are lawyers specialised in the IT field, kindly please PM me or reply here. Will greatly appreciate your generous help here.

Thanks a lot!

hunger2007 SG

What kind of website cost u $6k?

Can share ur URL?

Tenzin SG

By right it was supposed to be $10K. A retail/wholesale platform, that will have combined features from novica.com and hhstyle.com, complemented with multilanguage support that toggles the site between the languages, allowing specific information to load in that partciular language. A CMS will be in place as well for shipping management and more.

silvercap SG

This site pretty nice(hhstyle.com), found some nice items, if I place my order, do there ship to SG?

Fatum SG

well ... sorry hor ... but as someone who taps on a keyboard for a living ... I have to say .... you pay peanuts, you get monkeys .....

6k or even 10k is not really a lot for the website and functionalities you have in mind ... I'll be blunt, it's peanuts actually ... (real ones, not Mrs Goh's)

sure, of course, there are lots of companies that'll take your business for that kind of money ... but it's like buying a car .... there are toyotas and hondas ... and they are cherry QQs and proton kancils ....

this may not be what you want to hear .... but you'll have to see if everything was already done to your specs or not ? ... do you have copies of the design documents ? ... is everything that you want laid out and specified properly ? ....

silvercap SG

Fatum,

10k to setup an ecommerce not cheap already, if I let u quote, how much are u going to charge ur customer?

Tenzin SG

I totally agree with you there. That's why I regretted going for budgeted service like that.

Some small companies seeking quick buck overpromise and when they cannot deliver, they resort to undercutting clients or blatantly disregard the contract by justifying their stand through various means.

I can 100% confidently say and prove that they have not done the website to the specified requirement. It was a very detailed, bulleted, 5 page guideline for them to follow.

And the reasons for the delays were coding bugs, connection problem to my server, and many more. Despite them having to host in on their own server, they still could not present a satisfactory website. Even in the latest checklist i sent them, they even stated they missed some modules out. The rest are due for 'fine-tuning' when they are not even complete.

Now, they do not want to refund, much less compensate. They won't return my calls and only use emails. How professional is that?

Tenzin SG

Erm... think they only serve local (Japan) customers.

AndrewPKYap SG

small claims better lah... the other way, you have to engage lawyers... maybe you can scare them to refund... they might think it is too much trouble to prepare for court appearance and settle with you...

If they offer some sort of refund, just take that and go on with your life and business... sometimes it's just not worth the effort...

if the company is really very small, they close down and re-register another one you also LL.... so just go to small claims and see and grab whatever they offer...

But be smart, tell them send the money first (if they offer) then talk... no money no talk...

Fatum SG

I know there are e-commerce kits out there you can grab off the shelf for cheap ... but if you're looking for backend inventory management, databases with reports, security, load balancing etc .... plus hosting, and tech support, you could be looking at 100k onwards .... some of the more experienced chaps at my place have worked on banking and transactional systems that runs into 7 or 8 digits ...

unless, of course, you're content with those mom-and-pop sell-a-trinket sites ... a nice static website you can get for 5-6k .... but with e-commerce and bells and whistles ? .... hmmmmm .... Confused

but yeah ... it seems like the TS has a case .... but then again, I'd hesitate to resort to a lawsuit ... the bloodsucke .. sorry, lawyers, will cost way way more than 6k for sure ... Laughing

AndrewPKYap SG

20 to 40K

Tenzin SG

The thing is, they won't even consider refunding and threatens to go to SCT to demand my full payment if I sue them. I suspect this is a scare technique as they have already slapped themselves in the face for saying they missed out certain parts of the guidelines.

So now is bo bian... I offered to talk to them nicely already. If I do not pursue the case, I have no capital to even subscribe to professional web development services.

I doubt they will close down. They have a 5 digit project on hand now; news from my close friend who is in the same business network.

Earlier, there was another company just like this. Did halfway, then quote me more for items not listed in the contract. They simply created new terms for the specific modules they failed to list in the general contract, and tagged new quotations to demand my further payment. In the end, they kept the 50% deposit. I am still considering what I can do about that coy. Same business network also. I wonder where I can complain about these companies. CASE doesn't handle.

Tenzin SG

No lah, for static site, going for professional firms is really overkill. 5-6K for static, I rather do it myself. haha..

My site is only slightly over average as compared to those 'off the shelf' kits.

In fact, the first company I approached did just that and claimed they coded it from scratch. They gave a full refund, so I didn't pursue them for more.

Tenzin SG

Yes, I was told by a lawyer too, that the court session per single day could already be $5K, totalling ard that amount for the entire proceedings. That of course won't be the SCT already. However, he said I MAY get the respondent to pay that amount if I win.

AndrewPKYap SG

I did an internal web portal for one of the PSA divisions a long time ago... not so easy if you want web services incorporated into the site.

So many issues involved. My guess is that they will just say that you changed your mind about this and that (quite natural for clients to do that because they do not know what they want, most, if not all the time and most, if not all the clients)

Or they might say that you asked them to do extra work (you think that it was part of the original agreement when it wasn't).

If the judge believe them then you LL. Since, how can the judge believe you when you have no idea what you are talking about? You need expert witnesses to testify for you and where are you going to find the expert witnesses?

The small claims court is your only hope and there is no guarantee that you will win.

Remember also that small claims do not have the ability to enforce decisions and that means you will have to sue them again in sub court if they refuse to accept the small claims judgment.

This works to your advantage as well since if they win, you ignore the court's decision, they have to take you to higher court.

So the small claims court strategy is not to win but to waste their time only.

In Singapore, you get away with murder when it comes to civil cases. You win, people declare bankrupt and you lose all your legal fees as well as not get your money back.

AndrewPKYap SG

Not full amount hor... just to let you know...

AndrewPKYap SG

In other countries hor, if people think you cheat them ... around S$5K/- they can hire a gunman to take care of you...

Aaron8209 SG

Shocked Shocked Shocked Shocked Shocked

AndrewPKYap SG

U wanna try?

Rephidim SG

I think you got a case, but you have a few course of actions.

Terminate contract, they pay u losses (u have to justify to the court) and u find another contractor:

what u mean by contract expired? is there a clause for time period? Or they claim to have finished the job? If the contract expired, u have to pay them the full sum before sueing them for negligence in work or misrepresentation in contract terms. Then u can claim damages to restore ur website to the original clauses or for time wasted (hard to prove) if u succeed in ur case.

Go to the tribunal first, mediation is always better than litigation. Once u go into lawsuit, both sides tend to lose out. Try to get them to compromise on reworking ur website to original specs for no extra cost. If u demand refund, the company will tend to be very resistant, because they die much more than u.