Posted by Christina Barker on 12/19/03

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Ok, ya'll are goin to want to smack me before the night is
out,

I have recently found myself in a sticky situation, and am
very unclear on quite a few things, here's the situation.

I have a client, who has been a repeat client for the last
year..he has spent about 4,000$ with our company in the
last 6 months. This client is a realtor, who has a number
of different websites, that we created for him.

He (dumb dumb dum of him to do) referred a competitor of
his, to see me about a website. Not sure if he actually
refered or not, i contacted him to see if he would mind if
i took the project, and assured him that they weren't
going for the same market area, bla bla bla , my existing
client said "Sure no problem, do i get a discount for
referring?"

So we took on the new project, our existing client calls
me on Monday, and says "Hey I need you to do me another
website for Undisclosed Community, so i said sure, but we
do have a waiting list right now, you'll have to put a
deposit down bla bla, he said noo nooo i dont want to do
that, I'll wait til theres no list, I have time.. same day
the refered client calls with a descision on what to do
with their website, they want to build a community website
for that same Undisclosed Community, (jeez what a pain).
Because the existing client had already mentioned it, i
went to him to give him another chance, explaining that if
he doesn't put deposit, or contract us at the last, to do
this job, that I was going to have to take it as a first
come first serve basis, the new client was ready willing
and able to put deposit and sign contract.

Existing client puts down deposit, signs contract three
minutes later, i called new client and let them know that
I would not be able to do it, beucase i was already under
conract for it, that they'd have to pick another community
to go with (they had narrowed it down to three). They
picked another, with a much simpler design then the
original, which was quoted at 2500 more then the one they
went with.

2 1/2 months later, the existing client is short on money,
wants his money back, and is furious that i won't refund
it.

My standpoint (i think) is that I signed contract with
others, on a tight schedule, the two weeks planned to do
his website, are now "open" becuase no other clients on
the waiting list are ready to proceed with their website,
they were all expecting more time to gather information
for their sites. It looks like I'm going to be taking a
mini vacation from work for the next two weeks because he
contracted me for these two weeks, but he now wants his
money back.

What do I do? Legally are deposits known to be
refundablel, or non refundable? Or is there even such a
thing as a 'known rule' on deposits.

Legally do I have to refund his money and have that result
in lost project from the new clients?

Any advice would be great, even if you wanna laugh at how
stupid this all must sound :)

Christina
VERY happy that the two weeks is over tomorrow :) :)

Re: Deposits, refundable or non?, 12/22/03, by sean.

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