Hired for script, didn't meet the deadline, refund sent. Trying to sue!

MusicLemon, that guy has nothing against you. But you are not out of the water on this one. You knowingly entered into an agreement with an adult knowing you are 15! You should know the law and with that I would say if I was your mother, you would have been grounded for several months.

Gosh, what do parents do these days to let their kids do things like that? I understand that people aged 14 and over do small jobs to get extra pocket money, but this is ridiculous.

If I did that at your age, my mother would have grounded me full stop and I wouldn't have had privileges for ages.

@ bilawal360 - even if someone was trying to scam you at that young age, what justifies the act to scam them back? Says a lot about your character doesn't it. Once again, I have no idea where your parents were in all this shit, but seems to me you had a lot to learn and the same can be said for your parents if they allowed this kind of crap.


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Plus what no one mentioned in this thread is the fact that your parents can get sued. Yes, according to law they can easily get sued because they are responsible for you. In the UK, the government will jail a parent if they don't watch their kids actions and something bad happens then the parent is reponsible (hence why he says he will sue you since here that is what happens in the UK). And yes, because he is from Europe he can sue your parents and it will go to court in the district you live.

I am not saying you should give him a free script or anything, but it can easily come down to that. You didn't stand by your end of the bargain and yes, legally he shouldn't threaten you, but he can take your parents to court if he wants to. That is perfectly legal.

Any agreement whether written or verbal is still an agreement. If you have this attitude this young in life that if someone's written words or verbal agreement doesn't count, then I would suggest you go read up on your country's law. Or ask your uncle as you said he was a famous lawyer. Gosh I would be rich for every person I hear say they have a lawyer in the family.

Anyway, if he has the MSN conversation saved, which most people do, it counts as a legal agreement between you and him. But because you are underage, he can only sue your parents.

 

Your "advice" and comments are incorrect in almost every respect.

 

Block this guy! Block him from your emails or any other way he has to contact you. He is a weird-O!
Don't give him 1 more second of attention in any way.....

 

Yeah, you are quite incorrect. Maybe inthe UK. MAYBE. But in the states all that happens is the agreement is void. Did you happen to miss the part about the client not finishing the payments as agreed upon? That right there voids the contract had it been a legal contract.

If Me and another legal adult enter into a contract for me to write a script for him. We agree he will pay me a portion up front and a portion when he gets the money on a certain day, very soon after the agreement, say 3 days. I have a week to do the script. I know I can get it done in less than 4 days. I wait to work on it until I receive the money in entirity. I don't receive the money, so, I do not complete the script. The other person broke the contract, not me. So the other person can not win a civil suit. Good try though.

And if your grounding your kids because they are doing this, than, maybe you shouldn't have kids.

 

Yes, he may not have completed the payments. But we only know one side of the story. Let's say for example this kid told him he could complete it, and as the days passed by realised he could not complete it. Let's say for example the person contacted him numerous times and on one of those times the kid said something that made that guy wonder what the hell is going on. So then that person may have had a change of heart. Why would he pay almost 'most' of the money? Have you ever asked yourself that. He could have been waiting for a paycheck or anything of the sorts. At this point in time you are only hearing one side of the story.

And yes, a simple search brings up the following:

Any breach of contract gives rise to a cause of action; not every breach gives a discharge from liability. This will depend whether the term breached is a condition or a warranty or whether there has been repudiatory breach.

Damages

Damages are intended to compensate the innocent party for the loss that he has suffered as a result of the breach of contract. In order to establish an entitlement to substantial damages for breach of contract the injured party must establish that:

- actual loss has been caused by the breach; and

- the type of loss is recognised as giving an entitlement to compensation; and

- the loss is not too remote; and

- the quantification of damages to the required level of proof.

A breach of contract can be established even if there is no actual loss. In that case there will only be an entitlement to nominal damages.

Of course the guy would have to prove that by not completing the script he somehow made a substantial loss or whatever he feels like. But regardless of that, here in the UK the law isn't like the USA. Parents are responsible for their children. And that is fact. You only have to look at the various papers you get here to see how many times parents have been threatened with jail and ended up in jail because they couldn't look after their kids and their kids did something irresponsibly. That is all I am saying. For all we know this guy had a legitimate reason to with hold the last bit of money. Never imagine someone is totally innocent. It might go both ways. For all we know this kid could have tried to scam that guy. It happens often enough on this forum so I won't put it past him.

 

Sarah you are the one who has missed the point. The only one that matters.

The OP is 15 years of age and lives in the US. He has no legal right to enter into any legal agreement. No contact he enters into can be enforced in a court of law.

End of story.

 

Ignore that guy, you refunded him the money, end of story.
If the site was so important to his business that it would cause him the massive and devastating damages to his business that he claims, he probably would have hired a professional design firm, and not a 15 year old freelancer.

As for the threats that he will show up at your door, etc. Think of it. Assuming he has your address in the first place, he is in the EU, you are in USA. Do you really think he is going to spend $1000 in plane tickets to come to your place?? Do you really think he will take the chance of going to a complete strangers house and starting trouble??

The OP has refunded the money. Thats all the other guy is entitled to in this case. If you buy a laptop on ebay, pay for it, but then the guy has problems with his supplier, and is unable to send it in the time stated on the auction, he refunds the money. Most you could do in this case is leave bad feedback. Do you think it would be worth it to try and bully the seller to ship it to you for free because it caused you "massive delays in your work"?

@ sarah_harvey

Ok, I am not licensed to practice law in the United States. But the gov't will only file criminal charges against a parent if they showed extreme negligence (i.e. giving fireworks to a 13 year old, who then ends up burning a building with them). This case is a simple business dispute, it is NOT a criminal matter.

And if he does sue the OP or his parents in the US, he will have to present himself in court, therefore incurring thousands of dollars of travel and acomodation expenses. This might have been worth it if the OP scammed him out of 100k, but this case is laughable. Like I said before, if the site was so critical to his business, and he has the money to spend thousands of dollars on a lawsuit, he would have hired a professional firm, and not some random 15 year old on the internet that he doesnt even know!

Errr..... ok. Hmm... that other guy scammed back a scammer. Wow that makes him a horrible, horrible person right? So if I walk on the street and someone starts shooting at me, and I have the ability to return fire, can I do so? Or according to you, is it best to just stand there and get turned into swiss cheese?

 

I want to meet the person who wants to file a lawsuit for $120 spending 10 times of that! Even the police will not file a petty case for such an amount. LOL! and this is cross continent!
Try to get information if he has an obsessive compulsive disorder for "sueing" - some people do have and they sue 100s everyday in their dreams.

 

As colbyt said, a person under 15 can not legally enter into a contract. But, for humor sake, lets pretend he's 18.

The agreement at the beginning was that he would pay X amount of Y up front, and in a couple days pay Z, which is the complete sum (Y). Doesn't matter what was said that caused him to be scared. He still broke the contract. By breaking the contract, he is techinically not owed a refund and not owed a script.

You really need to study up on this side of the law if you're going to give advice. You have absolutely no idea what you're talking about.

And if he really wants to file, he will have to fly to the US, file, the court will laugh at him because it is not a legally enforcable contract (all contracts must comply with applicable laws, i.e. all party's must be 18)

Please, stop while you're behind.

 

I think this has been a dead issue for some time now. this is just all hearsay to what the OP
said, if they went to court, it would be hearsay there too unless both parties had enough
contract evidence to prove on both sides, then the judge decides... and this was
over what? a mere $100? case closed.

 

Actually, read the dates. The topic is still active. And the MSN logs is enough in the US (most states) to be condiered a contract. And both partys don't need enough contractual evidence, only one.

Do you know how much the burden of proof is in civil court?

 

Just curious, is it possible that the judge would just throw out the case, since it's such a low amount that's being argued over? I've heard stories of such things before, and I know that there's certain limits on these things. Anyone know for sure?

In any case, I think you'll be fine MusicLemon. The circumstances are extremely stacked in your favor, and I think that, if anything, those threats would definitely change the judge's mind if this guy even does buy tickets (~$700), get a lawyer (hundreds of dollars), stay in a hotel for the entirety of the case (anywhere from ~$250 - $5000, depending on time and quality), eat, drive, etc. I doubt he'd pay over $1000 just to come and get $120. Tell him to go jump off a cliff!

 

I assume that's your parents paypal? Because you aren't old enough to have one.

 

This would probably be handeled (sp?) in small claims court in the US. You really don't need a lawyer for that. But, just the $1k plane trip makes it no where near worth it. All the OP would have to do is move for dissmissal to small claims court. That is, unless the other guy were to try to sue for more, which he really wouldn't have any grounds doing anyway. Court wouldn't take that long once the contract and payments were shown lol. Different states have different limits on how much can be handled by a small claims court.

 

fps-hacks.com related? 123-hosting.com related?

I think i no the guy ill have a word

add me up on so i can get your side

 

You're underage, the lawsuit threat is bogus. He obviously want's your services for free. If he was actually concerned about a certain deadline and wanted some sort of "warranty", he would have went with a professional company, or at least someone who's over 18

 

Hi Aaron, I think your guy client is a moron.
I waited a designer and even paid him half in advance to get it coded for around 2 weeks(when he promised me 2,3 days work) with him giving excuses as too much work and so on and when I asked for a refund politely he even asked me for another 3 days which should be today to refund. This probably means that he was using my fund for something else and needed to gather enough funds. Even then I was polite and was being patient.
I got another better design coded for me with reasonable price during that time he was lagging to refund to me. What comes around goes around.

 

@sarah_harvey - It doesn't justify anything about my age; anyone in the right frame of mind would not tolerate anyone trying to underpay talented people. We don't really care what would of happened to you, because that's you and this is us (in all due respect). You're pretty lacking of taking ideas from our perspective, now you're all wise and enjoyful. Of course, now is a different matter. That occurence was over 3 years ago, and I've grown up a lot since (and frankly, I'm glad of it).

@wptheme - I don't understand your scenario. He didn't refund you, so you got a better design? I hate designers ever since I got a proper one (and probably never want to have a design done for me, a lot of them suck).

 

OP isn't replying, maybe the guy got to him! j/k

 

Yeah hire the legal firm of Sue, Grabit and Run to defend yourself! LOL