So, in light of recent developments, I may have gotten swindled for a decent sum of money. Seeing as how I don’t think I’m going to get a cent of that back, I was wondering if anyone else has gotten scammed before, and how did you recover?
What things did you do to protect yourself in the future (in terms of hiring people for services over the internet)?
I’m not going to mention any names until I’m 100% sure it is a scam, but I’m not liking my chances at this point.
I only hire people I know or people who are vouched for by people I know.
Learn from it 
Especially in the beginning I was scammed pretty much weekly by programmers, going off in the wild with my assets.
I was pretty naive but then some sensible antennas started to develop.
And there’s some techniques that can be applied to not being hit as harsh as possible.
Split up the payment in advance+finish payment, make it highly official with a contract, split work up in milestones that have to be sent.
Oh and there’s tons of more insightful and better advice in here if you just search the forums for “scammer”, just have a go at it
I got scammed out of 6 weeks of work once.
The mistakes I made…
1.) Not keeping the work to small 1 week milestones with a new client until trust was built up
2.) Not getting 50% paid up front before starting any work in the agreed milestone
3.) Continuously working and delivering based on the client’s ‘promise’ that as soon as everything is done and delivered I will be paid.
So in short…
1.) If it is a new client. Agree on no more than 1 week of work and a VERY CLEARLY defined milestone. The less clearly the milesone has been defined, the more room the client has to screw you over and make you work extra for your money
2.) Get 50% paid upfront before ANY work begins. If the client throws the ‘but I don’t know you’ or ‘I did this before and someone ran away with my money’ line on you, move on and find a client that is willing to pay. Chances are if they are prepared to trust and pay the 50% upfront, they can be trusted back to pay the remaining 50% once delivered.
3.) Show the client a web player or send them a mobile build with a watermark with something like ‘Development build’ clearly on the screen. Only once you have received FULL payment do you send them the build without the watermark and source code.
Unless I know the client well, these are the rules I apply to all new clients, until a more relaxed, trusting working relationship has been established.