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What Do You Do When Outsourcing Goes Bad?
Xphox wonders: "Recently we have been referred to an outsourcing company to finish customization on a script that the author had no time to complete. Everything was going fine until recently. At what point do you consider they may have just ripped you off, and how do you know when to file complaints and withhold payment?"
"I have been working with what I thought was a reputable outsourcing company, referred to me by the author of the software package. We agreed that payment would be made once everything was completed. After a few missed deadlines, the project finally seemed to be finished. The only thing left was a small bug fix, and an install script which needed to be completed. As agreed, he delivered the install script, and we made the final payment. Upon testing the new install script we noticed things did not work as intended, and all attempts to contact the outsourcing company has resulted in the following answer:
'My guys are still working on it.'My fear is that if I don't act now, I will not be able to recover any funds, and will be stuck with a product that is useless. It has been 9 days since I've received an email from them, and I'm starting to think I've just been taken advantage of. Since the script is protected with Source Guardian, I am unable to finish the modifications myself."
1: Stop payment on cheque.
2: Demand refund of deposit.
3: Get one return ticket to contractor's location via Expedia.
4: If 1 or 2 fail send return ticket to "IcePick" Vinnie.
5: Pick up Vinnie at airport in a couple of days.
6: Take money home and count it or enjoy photos of mangled corpse(s).
7: ???
8: Profit!!!
Trolling is a art,
Get the source code! You might have called it outsourcing, but what you really did was pay someone to have an code empire in your domain. Even if they do finially deliver the finished product, you stuck with them for further development.
The force that blew the Big Bang continues to accelerate.
Name them, especially here, and let them know you've done it. That will teach them a lesson.
So you paid without testing the final product? I suspect all you can do now is sue. We've received "finished and tested" outsourced projects before that didn't even compile. You have to be very careful out these things.
Disconnect your television. Do your own research. Draw your own conclusions. They're probably lying. Don't be a sheep.
Before the inevitable avalanche of anti outsourcing and anti india comments, let me point out that the author hasn't made it at all clear which country their firm is located in, and wether or not the outsourcing firm in question is located in the same country.
What time do you have to react? Like if you act now as opposed to two weeks you'll make back your money? Unless you sent the money through a very trusting (read, you do a lot of business with) bank that has some sort of angel stop-payment plan.. you are S O L.
Where is the contract? Whose laws govern it?
You went with a company outside of your country to do a deal..
Why didn't you test what you got first and then pay for it...
I smell FUD... no details here, is this just an anti outsourcing fable?
As agreed, he delivered the install script, and we made the final payment. Upon testing the new install script we noticed things did not work as intended,
You made payment BEFORE you ran formal acceptance testing of the application (yes, including the installer). That was your fatal error. Once you've ponied up the bucks, you've lost all leverage short of a lawsuit.
If I were you, I'd email then and request a specific timeline/deadline for completing the work. Make sure your email contains language stating that what they delivered does not meet their obligations. Assuming they respond similarly (i.e. "we're working on it"), then at least you have some level of proof that they acknowledge that they are potentially breaching the contract you have. Then take their asses to court.
Good luck. Next time remember
- formal requirements
- explicit deliverables (see requirements above)
- formal acceptance test to ensure that the software actually meets requirements
I consulted for an Atlanta firm which dealt in Sarbanes Oxley compliance software and my firm agreed to develop a rule based data adapter which sucks in raw data from external enterprise systems such as SAP and translate it. And my firm agreed to do so without having any one (else) with a bit of enterprise development experience hoping we would be able to outsource it to someone else in India (despite all my "muted" protesting).
Well, we picked a firm (which I believe was cheap enough to be picked), talked to a couple and they seemed knowledgeable and we were on. I wrote down the requirements myself and passed it on to them. There were two who where hands on and I provided any help they required plus the project management. It all went to shit in a couple of days. First, they wanted to bounce ideas off and around for a few days. Here, I am working from 8:00 AM in the morning through 2:00 at night, drilling requirements in to their thick heads, answering questions, go to bed late, only to wake up and realize that they had the same questions and were waiting all day for me to wake up!!
I got so pissed off after having to spend most of my waking day working on what they were supposed to, putting together answers to questions already answered, and chatting with them over IM, losing layers of patience bit by bit before calling them morons to their face. They were still billing us a full 8 hours for doing nothing, blaming it on unclear requirements.
After going to and fro for over a week, when nothing got built, I turned around and got my buddy who works for HP in Cupertino to pick it up. He coded it in his sparetime and pretty much finished it single handedly in the time that it was promised.
The biggest pains in outsourcing, from where I stand, is the disconnect between the teams, the clarity in requirements and the work ethics. I have seen the other end of the spectrum too, when I left for India for a short stint and worked with a team on a high risk project and had to deal with all sorts of management stupidity and workplace politics, putting my team through 14 hour work days, getting pissed drunk together on build nights and delivering on our promise with in the expected timeframe. The work ethics atleast on a developer level is not that different, if you get good young kids, they are smart and loyal. But if you step up to the level of management, you do find hundreds of incompetents who suck the living blood and exist solely to serve their own interests and to collect their paychecks.
I am not prejudiced. Infact, I am Indian and everyone mentioned above is, as well.
Rapid Nirvana
I assume from the lack of considering a legal option that the OP is talking about off-shore outsourcing (I know the outsourcing apologists in this thread have been busily suggesting it isn't off-shore... Sure, guys). Getting any satisfaction from an off-shore court is almost impossible.
My last company was the victim of out and out fraud on the part of a Chinese firm. When my company threatened legal action, they basically laughed at us. They were right to laugh -- essentially there was no above-board way to get any legal judgement against them. We were foreigners, plus we didn't know who to bribe (the Chinese legal system is incredibly arbitrary and corrupt).
We never saw a dime. When the investors found out we'd lost a huge amount of money *and* didn't have the scheduled release, they took over the company and liquidated it.
That's part of the reason I'm not too worried about offshoring as a long-term trend (as opposed to the fad it is now) -- you can't entrust anything critical overseas because you have zero recourse if you're screwed over or incur liability.
Every year during my review, I just pray the words "slashdot.org" aren't mentioned.
don't get mad, get even.
just write a nice letter to the chinese embassy / chinese law enforcement, that a company you were working with turned out to be a front for a pro-democracy revolutionary group, falun gong, or pro-taiwan-independence movement or something.
i've gotten chinese spammers shut down this way, when they laughed at me. they aren't laughing anymore.