programmer extorting money for stolen databases

I'd like to get some feedback from the vb community on a serious case of a programmer gone wild...

I hired this man, Greg Lynch, aka Noppid aka FX, to upgrade my forums on two large websites with 60,000 members combined.
http://www.vbulletin.org/forum/member.php?find=lastposter&t=100435
http://www.cpurigs.com/forums/member.php?find=lastposter&f=20
http://www.vbulletin.com/forum/member.php?u=30305
http://www.riderinfo.com/forums/members/fx-1.html
http://forums.digitalpoint.com/member.php?u=4148
http://www.vbseo.com/members/noppid/

Greg promised to do the job if an old invoice of $225 was cleared.
I asked him if he would upgrade my forums and give me net 30 day terms if I cleared the invoice...
He agreed, so I sent the $225 via Paypal..
For a week straight, we schedule to begin work every day at a certain time...
Every single day he is either too drunk to do the work or is missing in action, having his kid reply to me saying "dad's not here"
One day I was able to get him before he was too drunk and we successfully upgraded my Photopost galleries...
After a week of re-scheduling my entire life to revolve around this man's evasive schedule, he says he doesn't want to do the work.
I contact Paypal and dispute the money I paid him, since he broke his word...
He then starts threatening me with bikers and 9mm guns and says that if I want my databases back, I have to pay him $1000.
He says he will give my backed up databases away to my competition and sell my email databases for thousands of dollars...
Lies, threats, thievery, extortion all in one ball of wax.
I get pissed and a bit concerned, so I let him know about my family background in the underground biker world and to take his empty threats and shove em...
I also said i would send my friends from Flooida to collect the data in person... which I can do, but he has kids, so I don't want to go there...
What would you do if backed into a corner and your top secret company databases were stolen and then used to blackmail you?
He then starts calling my house leaving weird messages on my answering machine all hours of the day and night with sounds of guns being cocked repeatedly, parts of movies, long periods of silence and sinister little laughs... telling me he has family in the fbi and that I am screwed and my data now belongs to him and he can do whatever he wants with it...
This is getting absurd, ridiculous and straight up sick... this man needs help, he seems to have flipped his lid..
I have since retracted any statements to him of me coming to get my data personally...
I am meeting with my attorney on Monday to discuss the lawsuit we are preparing...
I would like to get some feedback from the vb community to see if there is any more information I can gather for this case.
Anyone else have a similar experience with this programmer?

These are his websites
http://www.riderinfo.com
http://www.cpurigs.com
http://www.lakecs.com

 

We're playing this game over here...

http://www.vbulletin.org/forum/showthread.php?t=136421

and over here too...

http://www.vbulletin.com/forum/showthread.php?t=216071

You can follow along if you wish.

 

Personally Noppid has always done great work, been nothing but friendly and going above and beyond what most programmers do, as well as doing it for a very good price.

Guess no single programmer can please every single customer, especially a customer who owes him money.

 

Thanks for the kind words Grim.

 

Don't know noppid. I have met your type before.

I would keep your databases for about the same amount of time that I waited to get paid that old balance.

 

He not only owed me the money. He paid it and then stopped payment. He planned on committing bank fraud.

 

why wudnt you upgrade the forums yourself? its farily easy in my opinion and it doesnt risk your members or site

 

He has many intergrated apps. It's not an easy upgrade.

The biggest problem that he had that caused the week delay was he was running an illegal copy of vBSEO.

When he sorted that out, my time schedule was thrown off. He wanted it done right now cause he was caught up and I wouldn't jump the second he was ready.

Then he copped an attitude and I told him thanks for the past payment and we don't want to work for you anymore.

He then charged back the past due balance of $225.00.

So as of now he owes me $375.00 total and won't pay it.

Beware of this guy, he don't pay his bills when you work for him. He has more excuses then carter has little pills.

These are his domains.
420times.com
FourTwenty.com
420Magazine.com
420Girls.com
420Gear.com
420WebSolutions.com

 

I don't really care about the rest, but it seems lame to withhold money you owed Noppid in order to get him to do more work. First of all that is a dumb business move on a multiple of levels.

You should have realized the potential was there that he was simply telling you he would do the work to get the money you already owed him.

You said the payment was for an old invoice, so you OWED him the money, he did what he had to do to get you to pay him. You are an idiot for assuming you could get someone to give you net30 terms and future work when you won't even pay him for the last work he did without strings and conditions attached.

I won't defend Noppid and his described harrasment of you, but you owed him money and you would not pay him. Then you paid him and took it back.

The fact that you tied that payment to future work is not relevant. That would never hold up as a contract. You owed him the money irregardless of if he did any more work for you or if he said he would do any more work for you.

Your best course of action is to pay him the money you OWE him, and I am sure you two can part ways and he will release whatever he has of yours.

If you really wanted him to do the work, you would have paid him for the last job, and part of this job up front, since you took so long paying him last time. Why do you think anyone in their right mind would allow you to dick them around like you did and then come back for seconds. That is extremely naive.

Why on earth was this your first post here?

 

Interestingly enough, I have nothing of his to hold hostage. :/

I stored his SUPER SECRET DBs locally on his server when I did backups.

 

The only real mistake I see here is Noppid's mistake in getting the money you owed him via PayPal.
He should have insisted on Western Union.

To The Peon: Pay for work you hire out from now on and my guess is that you won't have problems with people who do work for you.

 

I don't think people like Noppid would do anythging to hurt their reputation, rather, they would do everything to support and maintain it.

 

A client of mine had his $80,000 project held hostage by a developer for a while.
They did work things out OK, and I got to learn a few things.
Good luck to both of you

 

I've gotta believe the person with more reputation points than 95% of DP users.. rather than the person with 1 post, forum jumping to start trouble.

The marijuana influenced websites arent helping your case either. And as far as a database is concerned, I find it hard to believe that anyone that has 60,000 users wouldnt know how to backup a database / website. I mean... would you buy a Ferrari without automobile insurance as well?

Something doesnt seem quite right about that.

 

Your story is not completely credible. I suggest that if you have the database, then just pay the money owed, find another programmer for future projects, and learn not to document your admitted threats in a public forum.

 

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