Ken DeCesare, Kenneth Decesare, Built a website for Ken Decesare and he never paid me. He owes me $350.00 for time spent building his websites and logos. Kept making broken promises until never hearing from him again. No integrity Deltona, Florida

I told Mr. Roy that I would donate $375 to the non-profit organization that he chose. The donation has been designated and will be made before the end of the month on his behalf. Once made, Mr. Roy has agreed to post such on this website, as means to show reconciliation.

Just wanted to post another update since Ken promised a donation to be made (mind you this was his idea and I accepted this instead of being paid). I emailed him a reminder yesterday about today's donation. The response is below. You can make your own conclusions.

"Thanks for the reminder Mike. We designate our donations today and they are made within the week or so to follow, depending on how many are actually made. It will he made by a new venture that I am involved with."

Requested an update from Ken through email again regarding the donation he promised.  Below is the reply.  Not really sure why a donation has to be made on a certain date but I will leave it at that.  I will update this file when or if it is received.

"Mike,   I make donations on a monthly basis, usually around the 15th. I plan on making the donation that you outlined then. We can update from there. Thx"

Awaiting confirmation

Mike,

   I appreciate your willingness to put this to an end. I will make the donation and let you know when done, so that you can post confirmation here. Thx

Ken

Ok Ken, I have given it some thought.  Obviously I am still owed the full amount, but you don't see it that way, so I have decided to accept your offer of the $375 donated to a charitable foundation.  The foundation is called the Sweets Foundation.  They are a fantastic organization who helps out children and charities that need to help children as well.  The money will be a help to them and I would accept that.  The website is: http://sweetsfoundation.com/    and you can make the donation right on the site if you like.  As soon as I have confirmation from them that the donation has been received, we can "put this all behind us" as you stated.  Awaiting your response Ken.

I appreciate that nearly a year later you want to try and settle up by offering me half of what is due to me. I'm not sure about anyone else but this seems almost comical. How about you pay me the full amount Ken. Why should I have to accept an "offer" of half of what was due to me already? If you're ready to make good on this let me know.

Mike,

   No, the site was indeed not for me. I shared this with you then and I've shared it with you since. Again, I can understand your frustration. It is justified. I cannot, however, understand the way in which you handled yourself towards me/Feeding Volusia. It was unjustified. I have always dealt with graphic designers/web designers on a success rate basis, as opposed to a fixed project cost regardless of satisfactory outcome. To me, it makes the most sense, as graphic design & web design fall under 'art' and 'art' is too abstract to agree to a fixed rate regardless of outcome (i.e. what you think looks good might not to client). In either case, I digress. That being said, I want to put this behind me. Here is what I can justify to myself to offer you:

1. I can pay you, personally, 1/2 of the outstanding balance ($175). Keep in mind that I do not feel as if this is owed to you from me, but due to the fact that you do & in efforts to resolve this... if I have to I will. Like you, I have learned from this situation.

2. You can pick a charity of your choice (501c3), and I will make a donation for the full $375 to them on your behalf - therefore giving you the tax right-off benefit.

   Please let me know which you would like to do, and that is what we will do. Either way, I will have to ask that you thereby post acknowledging that this unfortunate situation has been resolved.

Ken, obviously you have no idea how the graphic/web design business works. I'm not going to drag this out any further because it's a lost cause. You'll never make good on it. But here's a brief description. When someone designs a logo/web site/any graphic work etc you give them multiple revisions until they are happy with the result and you pay them for services rendered. You did not REFER me to anyone. I have the emails I can share with you agai. If you like. You clearly stated you wanted me to do the new site with a partner or yours and I reluctantly trusted you since you said go ahead and do it and I'll get the payment out right away. We all know what happened after that. NOTHING. besides the numerous emails stating the money was on its way.

As the the other member on this site just stated "the work was done now pay him" they are absolutely correct. But listen, thanks to you I do now always require a contract on my work and in the 3 years ive been professionally doing this nothining like this has ever happened.

Bottom line. If you want to make it right you know how.

Good grief, you yourself admitted you only supplied contact info for your friend when things started going sour. It was way late to be extricating yourself from the transaction. Like it or not, you were part of it. Next time, give them the referral and stay clear.

Yes, I think he should expect to be compensated for his time, which again, he made it clear he couldn't donate. You acknowledge that your friend basically wasted his time, right? He can't get that back by taking the site down. Yet you're basically saying he should eat his labor costs, when he could have been doing actual, full price work instead of discount work for you.

The rational thing to do is make sure your contractors get fairly compensated or they won't be in any hurry to help you again. Moreover, I bet this instance will prevent other designers or companies from donating or discounting time or services to you. What is that going to cost you in the long run?

Your bit about bullying is trite and stupid. You brought the work in, you were the contact (unless you're going to change your story on this?), so yes, he should be coming to you with issues like payment. And as the point of contact, it's your responsibility to make sure things get settled to everyone's satisfaction.

To the OP: next time you offer heavily discounted services to a non-profit, make sure they pay the discounted rate in advance.

Web designers get paid to deliver a service, correct? Yes. Web designers bill for their service with the understanding that their client will be satisfied, correct? Yes. If their client does not like the service delivered, it is not expected to be paid for.. correct? Yes. And if not paid for, the web designer can simply take down the website that they have created, correct? Yes - which Mr. Roy did.

These all seem like easy & rational answers to me. Now, add in the fact that the client was referred by another client... Would it make sense to bully the referring client for this dispute? Not to me. However, I guess the bullied rarely understands the motive of the bully.

So, the rational thing to do is pay a debt that I do not owe? For a site that someone else requested and wasn't satisfied with, that Mr. Roy took down anyways? I have paid plenty of web designers before & since this (just like I paid Mr. Roy), and I have NEVER encountered this. But, you're right, it must be me! It can't possibly be Mr. Roy just being frustrated at not getting paid for his work that wasn't satisfactory to someone else, can it?

Mike,

All you seem to want to do is try to bully me. I "should be in jail"? I've never been in trouble in my life. All that I did was PAY you for work you did for me, REFER you to a former friend, and relay to you what he told me (mistakenly on my part). The last thing I heard from him was that he didn't like the site you made and he wasn't going to pay you for it. This is after he asked me to tell you he had mailed his check. We both know that when I realized this, I gave you his contact info for you to work out with him directly. Look Mike, I can relate to your anger about this. However, what I cannot relayed to is how you have misdirected your anger towards me. Again, all I have done is pay you for work you did for me and refer you to a former friend who wanted a website too.

What is it that you would like me to do Mike? Are you asking me to pay you for work you didn't do for me? Was me paying you for the work you actually did for ME not enough? Will that cause yo u to stop slandering me? Sounds like cyber extortion to me, but at this point, whatever. And, no, I do not have your address... As when I PAID YOU, I did so via Paypal. If you are seriously asking me to pay you off from slandering me further, let me know your address & how much it will cost for you to stop. You can email me at ken.decesare@gmail.com or reply back thru here.

So I see that Ken has placed a rebuttal here after nearly a year stating he has tried to settle the matter??! Ken, if you wanted to settle the matter you would have just paid me. That never happened. All I got was email after email stating the payment was in the mail. Oldest excuse in the book. Of course I never received anything. Honestly I'm surprised you aren't in jail yet. If you truly want to be a stand up person and regain even the smallest amount of dignity you still have my address. And you can still send me what is owed. But you know as well as I do that will never happen.

Try settling it by paying him.  I bet that would work!

If you were the one who asked for the site, it doesn't matter if it was "for a friend". Pay him. He made it clear he couldn't donate the time and frankly the friend not liking the site isn't a good enough reason to not pay for the services rendered. YOU asked for the site for the friend, finishing out the transaction is YOUR responsibility. Next time give your "friend" the contact info and stay out of the way.

Mr. Roy is correct in stating that I reached out to him, being he was a local (Volusia County) web designer, and asked him to help with a non-profit project focused on homelessness (Feeding Volusia). Regarding asking him for free website development for Feeding Volusia, I did and it is common practice for non-profits to ask vendors for free services. He said that he could not do it for free, but that he would give me a discounted price for the website. I agreed and compensated him for the site in which he created. I was both satisfied & appreciative of his work, so I referred him to a friend of mine that was looking for a new website. Things went downhill from there..

Unfortunately, I was placed in the middle of a friend who had requested a recommendation for website design + a vendor that I was very pleased with from my personal experience. I communicated thoroughly with Mr. Roy that I was not the individual requesting the second website design project and that it was instead a friend of mine. I gave Mr. Roy the contact information of my friend when I saw that things were beginning to go sour. The moral of the story here is that 'no good deed goes unpunished'. My friend was not satisfied in the website and decided not to compensate Mr. Roy + Mr. Roy directed his frustration towards me for mistakenly relaying communication between both parties and decided to post this lovely report about me.. Nevertheless, I compensated Mr. Roy appropriately for the work he did for me + I would even gladly continue to recommend his website design services (although not playing middleman again).