designhill.com designhill design hill They refused to pay for my work, although they took the client's money and client was happy with the project I completed. new delhi Internet

Designhill is a crowdsourcing platform for graphic design, similar to (much better) sites like Designcrowd and 99designs.

As a designer I won a total of 3 contests, the first 2 went fine and I was paid once the client accepted the work and approved payment. On the third project, they flat out refused to pay me despite client approval. They cited a "technical" requirement which isn't technically applicable to the type of project, and never came up on the first two jobs.

They didn't inform me they were holding my payment until I inquired about it, which was a week after it was due. Then there was about 3 weeks of useless back and forth emailing with their "tech support". Each of their responses was scripted and didn't address anything I tried to communicate. There's no way to escalate an issue or reach anyone except emailing, and waiting 3-4 days for a response. 

The "technical requirement" they stated I didn't complete was submitting the design files in .ai format. This was a flyer layout project, so .ai format isn't applicable. .AI is Illustrator which is used for vector graphics and illustrations, not layout. I didn't create any original graphics for this project, it was only layout. Their request is ridiculous, unreasonable, and inapplicable, and would have generated an additional couple of work.  The client stated this wasn't required and was happy with the files I submitted.

I gave up trying to reason with designhill. They make no sense and will grab onto any excuse to keep as much money as they can. They are liars, cheaters, and scammers. This company is based in India, yet most of the clients seem to be in the US, and they advertise heavily online in the US and Canada. Yet they don't have a phone number and you won't see any employee names besides "Lucy" who apparently handles everything all the time for everyone. Clients should be aware their projects are non refundable... although designhill claims otherwise. Designers shouldn't count on being paid, and they won't be paid fairly or promptly in any case. 

Bad experience!