(By the way, I'm also a huge Arrested Development fan).
Here's my response which I'll be sending Monday afternoon:
The following is made "without prejudice" to the matter concerned.
Liability is denied.
Reference is made to a meeting on Tuesday 10/12/2013 at 11:30am where it was mutually agreed between [Company] ("[Company]") and Ricardo ("the client") that any agreement would be terminated given the client's unsatisfaction with the progress of the project as made clear in several emails (in particular the one dated 04/12/2013), and [Company]'s failure to deliver materially on her quotation.
The client had expressed in multiple emails the same concerns and complaints, [Company] had multiple opportunities to rectify the same, and had failed to do so.
Reference is made in [Company]'s quote that "Final deposit will be required upon delivery of the finished project." Since the agreement was terminated, the project never finished and the finished project never delivered, the amount demanded, which is the full amount of the quote (after deducting existing payments), is disputed and liability denied.
Reference is made to various emails from the client to [Company], expressing, inter alia:
- concerns over unclarities in the quote
- unhappiness over various deliverables (or lack thereof) by [Company]
- an understanding that the full amount of the quote is only payable upon deliver of the finished project
- costs that the client had to pay separately which were inclusions in the quote, such as a website template and images for a slider
- queries as to how the graphic design elements of the website would be implemented, such as a 'textured background' which is listed in the quote but was never delivered.
- etc.
The amount demanded of $3,025.00 is further disputed by virtue of the fact that the client was asked to pay various expenses separately from the quote which were in fact inclusions in the quote, and the client complained accordingly. You will find these attached. Since these items were supposed to be inclusions in the quote, the fact that the client had to supply them warrants that those expenses would at least be deducted from the total amount of the quote. In fact such costs are normally charged with a markup and so argument could be made that the quote amount should be reduced even further.
After accounting for just the costs, you would find the amount to be less $372.48, and therefore the amount of $3025.00 that has been stipulated as owing would be $2652.52, notwithstanding any further ancilliary charges that may have been bourne by the client such as credit card fees, PayPal fees, administrative costs, professional fees etc and notwithstanding that the liability is disputed and this discussion is without prejudice.
[Images attached]
You will further note, that expecting the client to pay for items separately from the quote when such items were inclusions, adds credence to the fact that the quotation was unclear and disputed, that ultimately the agreement was mutually terminated, and that [Company] failed to deliver for the client.
The client had expressed concerns of unclarities in the quote from the beginning and any alleged acceptance he may have had of the quote was with the caveat that such unclarities would be rectified. It was put to [Company] by email, that if these aspects of the quote were not settled satisfactorily, the agreement would be cancelled and the payments already made to [Company] could be applied to her "consultations" as a good faith compromise by the client. This was not disputed in [Company]'s response.
The quotation further stipulates inclusions that were at no point delivered or provided, such as a customised themed background (no such background was provided), Testing at a cost of $550.00 for the full project (testing, or at least full testing, which is normally done last, was never performed because the project was never completed or delivered. If it was performed, would not have been performed for the entire project, and therefore the full Testing amount cannot be claimed), "Design (3 initial concepts, 3 rounds of revisions)" at a cost of $1540.00 (Argument can be made that the template was purchased by the client, not [Company], and as such any 'design' was not performed. In any case, any design by any definition was unsatisfactory to the client and numerous complaints and instructions were made by the client, such as several requests to resize an 'image slider' which went ignored. Since the design was never finished, and any existing design duly had requested changes by the client which were never peformed, it follows that the full design costs cannot be claimed),
"Development" at a cost of $1540.00 (Similarly, any development that may have been done could not have been based on the completed project as the completed project was never delivered, therefore the amount is disputed).
You will note that [Company] has already been remunerated $1815.00, which together with the costs bourne by the client for items that were inclusions in the quote, bring the total remuneration for the project to $2187.48, which we feel is more than reasonable and you will note it would completely cover [Company]'s quote items for
- Project consultation ($650.00)
- Requirements gathering ($660.00)
- and approximately 2/3 of "Design" (which we argue was never fulfiled ($1540.00) or at least not in entirety)
We further feel that if the parties were to agree to mediation, it's likely that mediation would reach a similar conclusion that the remuneration was reasonable.
In conclusion we feel this matter has been addressed and closed.
