Not sure where to put this: Warning about a designer found here.

I'm not sure if this is the appropriate place to post this, but I found the designer by posting here and I wish to inform the rest of the designer seeking public about working with a certain individual.

Designers Name: Aaron Faulkner
Website: www.designmyway.com
Synopsis: Designer never completed project and refuses to give refund.

What happened: I hired Aaron to design a "Skin" for my vbulletin, to design a matching portal for it, and to design a banner for advertisements. After emails were exchanged back and forth, the price for the skin design was $60 for the premade "trendy blue" template found on designmyway.com, and additional $40 for template modifications that I requested, $40 for the design of the matching portal, and $20 for the banner. The total cost was $160. Aaron represented that he could finish the work in 2-3 days.

I gave Aaron a $115 deposit via Paypal. Several days later, I hadn't heard anything from Aaron. After an email to him about the status of the design he sent me the a forumbit found on his website with a different logo and asked how it looked. I mentioned that none of the customizations that I had paid an extra $40 for were implemented.

I didn't receive a response back from Aaron for another 3-4 days. This time, he responded with most of the customizations in place, but not all. He also said that it was now his finals in school so he wouldn't be around much. (I thought he could do this in 2-3 days???)

Finally he sent an acceptable forumbit. I then inquired about the portal. About 5 days later Aaron responded promising that the portal would be done that same day. Of course, it wasn't done that day. Around 1 week later, without any communications from Aaron I opened a Paypal dispute. Aaron responded by promising to refund all the $ we paid if he couldn't finish the project within 24 hours.

No, the project wasn't finished anywhere near 24 hours from that point. Aaron insisted that we keep pushing the 24 refund deadline back since it takes time to communicate by email and he was unsure of what we wanted. I reminded Aaron that the description was laid out in our initial emails and he didn't need my communications.

Nevertheless, almost one week after I opened the Paypal dispute did Aaron finally send PSDs of the forumbit and portal. Keep in mind I ordered a skin, not a forumbit. Moreover, I ordered his template, with customizations, and on the website the template shows a forumbit and postbit.

I sent the designs to my coder who reminded me that a postbit should have been included and that he would have to charge me more to redesign a postbit from scratch. I emailed Aaron, asking for the postbit. A few days went by when Aaron finally responded that I never ordered a postbit. I replied that I had ordered a skin, which includes a postbit.

At this point, over 1 month late, I was forced to mitigate my circumstances and tell my coder to go ahead and design the postbit page he needed, at an added cost to me.

Aaron, finally replied to me, after I had told my coder to design the postbit (which took him just 1 day), that if I really needed one he would design it for me but I would have to wait 24 hours because he was in finals.

I informed Aaron that I would seek a refund from him for the cost of the postbit since he never completed the work, the cost of the banner since it was never delivered, and the added expense that I was forced to incur for his lack of diligence.

I am writing this to you since I feel obligated to leave some feedback about this designer. I have all communications between Aaron and myself and will provide them to anyone interested. So far, Paypal has refused my claim since they're claim policy applies only to goods and they consider my situation "something other than goods". Although from my perspective I selected "virtual goods", which is a subcategory of Goods. That's a whole different problem.

The moral here is: Don't work with this guy. He admits that he made statements in emails to me but that 1) they don't form a contract so he doesn't have to live up to the promises that he made.

For anyone interested: my email is tlatraffic@gmail.com.

Ouch. Shame to hear about this. I'm not sure what else to say, as I don't know what Aaron has to say for himself.

Well, I sent him my $$$ upfront and he produced a stunning layout in 2-3 days so ..

sorry to hear about this, but the templates are freaking hot!!

I definitely agree that the templates are great designs. I haven't argued about that. I just mean to warn those who might be using him for work that his honesty is in serious doubt.

whats his forum name on TFL?

I'm not sure since he emailed me directly. It might be jfaulkner since his email address (from some of his emails) was jfaulkner@nc.rr.com

Found it, his username is proactiv. Kinda makes sense that his user name is proactiv and he's a pimply faced 17 year old high schooler from NC. But why would he want anyone to know that he uses proactiv? Weird. lol

Originally Posted by jetski217 Found it, his username is proactiv. Kinda makes sense that his user name is proactiv and he's a pimply faced 17 year old high schooler from NC. But why would he want anyone to know that he uses proactiv? Weird. lol

http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/proactive

And I'm sure the version with the 'e' is taken on these forums.

He used to copy my designs, and say to people I copied him.

Hes a very immature designer, and probably the worst to work with. He only got quite known because of his acting role as a staff member on clantemplates.

Why didnt you go with a more respected designer than this fool?