Deliver what you were paid to do, and then there will be no reason to keep the topic up.
(I’m writing this, mostly adding to what @Eldamar said, so a big part might be redundant on what was already said.)
So, on behalf of a friend from the TalkingIsland team, who got scammed by @unsimple, a well known web development group in L2 and WoW groups. After the scam was reported, the scammer sent a message saying something like, "I can't keep working unless you delete the post." (as seen above in @Eldamar's message).
He proceeded to spit random untrue statements above on this same topic, and then, he deleted the group chat with the devs and my friend, wiping out all the previous messages. Since then, he’s ghosted; no updates whatsoever, no communication, nada.
It’s clear now that this bullshit is a scam. No one’s been able to reach him since. To make things worse, he deleted all the evidence and chats. (Apparently, on Telegram, you can wipe messages for both parties, leaving no trace.)
For two months, he kept saying stuff like, "We’ll update tomorrow," but nothing ever happened. Weeks would go by, and the same empty promises continued. The only thing he actually did was upload a basic template with placeholder lorem ipsum latin text, yada yada. None of the features that were paid for worked; Multi-platform support (like being able to access it from an phone, etc) was broken. And none of these things are working to this day.
My friend initially contacted this guy because a lot of the "top servers" had websites made by him. But now, the scammer is refusing to refund the money or finish the project. He’s even blocked and erased all the chats. His so-called developers were no help either; they just played the victim and ignored all messages.
This scammer claimed the project was finished in May 2024, and that it was ready for installation. He showed my friend some "proof of completion," and based on that, my friend paid the rest of the money. He’s trying to say that the completion time matched the estimate, but that’s not even close to be true; in reality, the only thing he finished was a template with placeholder text. None of the important stuff worked, like multi-platform functionality, the wiki, or the updater (which was included in the package they paid for but was never even brought up again). The UCP (User Control Panel) was also non-functional.
My friend paid for the most expensive package, but this guy didn’t even deliver what was promised in the cheapest package ($1500). He claims that installation was done in July 2024, which he says is the “official delivery date” according to the contract. But the contract clearly stated a 30-40 day delivery window from February/March, so obviously, July is way past that.
Here’s what they paid for:
1. Multi-language website
2. Multi-platform website
3. UCP (User Control Panel) with all features
4. Custom, proprietary designs and icons
5. A logo
6. Updater with a custom design
7. Wiki for the game
Here’s what they actually got:
1. The multi-language function is broken (languages zoom in weirdly).
2. The site doesn’t work on other devices.
3. Most of the features aren’t even activated, and they have to be “enabled” by the developer, but they never bothered.
4. No custom designs or icons were made, and they ignored my friend's complaints.
5. After 6 months, they got a logo. When my friend asked for some changes, they claimed the designer couldn’t agree with us, so they eventually gave up.
6. The updater was never shown, started, or even discussed.
7. The wiki looks copied from another site, they showed a screenshot of a wiki about 4 months ago, and never actually delivered or enabled it so that my friend could check it out, so pretty much it was never presented, never installed. ( @unsimple was asked about this MULTIPLE TIMES, and the only answer they got was, 'my dev will show you tomorrow'. Same answer every day, a minimum of 10 times.)
TL;DR: TalkingIsland got delayed pretty much by an extra year, potentially losing $4500 in the process, @unsimple NEVER offered any sort of compensation other than saying 'sorry' (which doesnt really help with the loss of time and money invested), then even after they started working on the project again after a month of inactivity, at the same time they were asked to scrap it completely and return the money, but they denied it saying that the project was completed, when we clearly can't even see 50% of it in talkingisland's web to this day.
Didnt even offer a partial refund, nothing. As i said, no true compensation was ever offered, nor any sort of way to end the issue in a friendly or polite way.
Instead, he went ahead and deleted every possible proof that could be used against him, and threathen the person who reported the scam.
TL;DR 2: The amount of work that was put into the web arguably does not reach the value of $200