Write it as a timeline — dates, amounts, what was promised, what arrived — because that version is simultaneously your evidence file, a useful warning to other buyers, and the checklist for your own next hire. The emotional version helps nobody, including you.
The moment it happens
How to tell your web developer horror story matters because you will tell it. To your accountant, to the next developer, to whoever asks why the website still isn’t up.
Told as a grievance, it makes you sound like a difficult client and gives you nothing. Told as a timeline, it does three jobs at once.
Write it as a timeline
Take fifteen minutes with your bank statements and your chat history. Format:
[Date] — Agreed [scope] for ₹[amount], delivery by [date]. Paid ₹[advance] by [method]. [Date] — Received [what, or nothing]. [Date] — Followed up. Reply: “[what they said].” [Date] — Paid a further ₹[amount] on request. [Date] — Last response received. Current state: [nothing live / half-built / no access]. Total paid: ₹[amount].
No adjectives. Dates, amounts, quotes of what was actually said. This form is harder to dismiss than any amount of description, and it’s usable in every context.
What the timeline reveals about your own hiring
Read your own timeline back and look for these. Most people find three or four:
| In the timeline | What it tells you |
|---|---|
| Nothing in writing about scope | The whole dispute traces to this |
| A large advance — half or more | The main structural error |
| Domain registered by the vendor | Why you’re stuck now |
| No date attached to any stage | Nothing to hold anyone to |
| Money paid before anything viewable | The pattern that repeats |
| Chosen mainly on price | The selection method that produced this |
| No revision limit agreed | Where the endless loop began |
This is the most valuable output of the exercise. Not the record of what they did — the record of the four decisions you made that made it possible. Each one is fixable and costs nothing to fix.
Where to post it, and what to write
Three places, each useful:
A Google review on their Business Profile. The most-read location by far, because it’s where the next buyer looks. Keep it factual: dates, amounts, what happened. Reviews with specifics are believed; reviews with anger are discounted.
A consumer complaint board. These are where burned buyers search a company’s name before hiring. Your entry is how the pattern becomes visible.
A trade or local group if you’re in one. Word of mouth in your own trade travels faster than anything online.
One thing worth knowing about the review landscape: agency ratings in NCR cluster tightly at the top — we’ve seen firm after firm sitting at 4.7 to 4.9 across hundreds of reviews, including ones with substantial complaint histories elsewhere. Which means a high star rating is nearly meaningless as a filter, and detailed negative reviews are disproportionately informative. Yours is worth more than one star’s worth of arithmetic.
Stay on the safe side of the line
Post facts, not characterisations. “Paid ₹18,000 on 3 March, no delivery by 30 June, no response since 12 May” is a statement of what happened. Broader accusations about someone’s character invite a different kind of trouble and don’t help other buyers more than the facts do.
Keep your evidence — exported chats, payment records, screenshots — so anything you’ve written can be substantiated.
What the story is for, ultimately
Evidence. Every recovery route — legal notice, consumer commission, cybercrime portal — asks for exactly this timeline. Writing it once serves all of them.
A warning. The complaint boards you probably wish you’d read exist because people wrote them.
A checklist. Your next hire should be governed by the seven-row table above. Read it as a list of terms rather than a list of regrets: scope in writing, small advance, domain in your name, dates per stage, payment against viewable work, revision limit agreed, and not selecting on price alone.
And, practically, closure. A thing that has been occupying evenings turns out to be twelve lines. That’s a smaller object than the one you’ve been carrying.
What to do this week
- Write the timeline. Dates, amounts, quotes only.
- Read it back and mark which of the seven rows apply to you.
- Post a factual Google review and a complaint-board entry.
- Keep the exported chat and payment records in one folder.
- Turn the marked rows into written conditions for your next hire.
If you want it done the certain way
Send us the timeline and we’ll tell you what’s salvageable — domain, files, content — and what a clean restart costs. We’ll also read your seven rows back to you as the terms we’d expect you to insist on with anyone, including us. WhatsApp us; we reply in about five minutes between 9am and 7pm.
Related reading
- Where burned buyers warn each other
- The conditions to set the second time
- What proof rebuilds trust after a bad developer
- Recovery routes when a developer vanishes
FAQ
How should I write a review about a bad web developer?
As a timeline of dates, amounts, what was promised and what arrived, with direct quotes of what was said. Factual reviews are believed and are usable as evidence; angry ones get discounted by the readers you’re trying to help.
Are high star ratings a reliable way to judge a web company?
Less than you’d hope. Agency ratings in Delhi NCR cluster tightly at 4.7–4.9 across large review counts, including firms with substantial complaint histories elsewhere. Detailed negative reviews carry more information than the average score.
What should I keep as evidence of a bad website project?
Exported chat history with timestamps, bank and UPI payment records, the quotation or proposal, and dated screenshots of what was or wasn’t delivered. Every recovery route asks for the same material.
