judda

Do you have an idea about roughly how much you are looking for?

It's a really tough topic. Something that I constantly struggle with. I bought IcePets with an amazing community, to begin with, so I didn't have to fight through lots of the difficulties. I think, and I could be wrong. But a lot starts from the staff. If the staff are approachable, friendly and are actively interacting with the members of the community, then more people will be drawn to it. In my opinion, they need to come across as humble, and really, just another member at the end of the day. Overly preachy leads to people condescension which leads the members feeling like they don't belong. The problem is building it up the initially (i.e. getting people to come to your site). That you have to build up through advertisement (i.e. social media, forums, etc.). ~judda

I've had similar experiences with them in the past as well. I was fortunate enough to get the money back. My past experiences with them: Beginning of January, I contacted them for two reasons: To buy VirtualPetSite.net from them (they put it up for sale at the time) To do some coding for HellKeepers for me At the time of the deal, they weren't willing to take less than $500 for VirtualPetSite.net, however, if I was willing to pay $200 for that, and $300 for the recode of VirtualPetDirectory (totaling $500), it was fine. So, a deal was met. I would pay $500, they would give me VirtualPetSite.net AND recode VirtualPetDirectory.com (due February 17th, 2017). Around that time, he also posted on VPL looking for work, so I asked if my work would be prioritized as I had not only reached out first, but I had also committed multiple paid projects. At this time, I also gave them $70 worth of work for HellKeepers. All of these changes were committed to my git repository. However, I checked a few things and they just didn't run. It looked like they just rushed through the job to make the money without testing. As you can see in the chat history, just me doing a quick spot check (not even running the code), I noticed issues which would have been noticed had they actually run the code. Needless to say I was a little disappointed. But I persevered and had them work on another small change. This code yet again I looked at and saw visible issues which would have been caught by just visiting the page. I was far from impressed. At that time, I also noticed they had posted on VPL saying they would code "complete pet site projects" for a fairly low price, so I asked again if it would impact the deliverables, and they said no. 6 days after my last message (January 31st), I reached out asking how VPD was going since the original due date was February 17th. February 9th comes, I message again and get crickets. February 18th comes, still no word. I start to get a little worried at that point. Then, on the 19th, I receive the following message: To which I responded: Which was our last piece of communication. However, on February 25th, I received $382 CAD (all other transactions were in USD) to my PayPal account from "Exceed Games". Which I assume is another one of his businesses. I sent you a PM with an email address I got early in the conversations. Hopefully, that will allow you to get a hold of them. ~judda