Do these in order: salvage what still exists, total what it actually cost, decide whether pursuit is worth it, then rebuild on five terms that make a repeat structurally impossible. All five terms are free, and none of them requires you to become confident about anyone.
You are not unusual. Complaint records carry many buyers describing exactly what happened to you, often on their second or third attempt. That’s a market pattern with identifiable causes, not a judgement on you.
Step 1: Salvage, before anything else
Do this today. Some of it is worth more than the money.
1. The domain. Search “whois” plus your domain name. Read the registrant email and the expiry date.
- If the email is yours, log in and reset the password — you hold the most valuable asset.
- If it isn’t, search your own inbox for a registrar welcome message; the account may already be yours.
- If it’s genuinely theirs, request the transfer as routine records-keeping.
2. Hosting access. Contact the hosting company directly as the account owner. If you can reach it, download a full backup — files and database — and keep your own copy off the server.
3. Your own content. Text, photographs, logo files you sent. Collect them into one folder you control. This is the slowest thing to recreate and the most commonly lost between attempts.
4. The evidence file. Export the chat rather than screenshotting it, so timestamps survive. Gather payment records, the quotation, dated screenshots of what was and wasn’t delivered, and the account holder name behind any UPI ID.
5. Cancel anything still charging you for a site that doesn’t exist. Often still running.
Step 2: Total what it actually cost
Fifteen minutes with bank statements. Include both halves.
Direct: every advance, every further payment, domain and hosting renewals, logo or content work paid separately, photography, ad-hoc charges, any recovery costs.
Uninvoiced: your own hours chasing, any peak season that passed, enquiries you couldn’t answer with a link, renewals paid on nothing.
People typically find the direct total is two to four times what they remembered, and that their own hours are the largest line. The full worksheet.
That total is now your honest budget reference. If two attempts cost ₹40,000, you were never a ₹15,000 buyer — you were a ₹40,000 buyer spending it badly.
Step 3: Decide about pursuit
Three questions settle it.
Is the vendor traceable? A registered firm name, verifiable address, GST number, an invoice, money paid to a named business account — pursuit is rational. An anonymous UPI ID and a disconnected number — it’s a long shot.
Does the amount justify the process? Put a number on the fees and hours, and compare.
What is continuing to chase costing you? Every additional month is a month without a website, which for many businesses exceeds the advance.
If pursuit is worth it, the routes in order of what produces results: a legal notice from an advocate (modest cost, 15–30 day reply window, and where most settlements happen), a consumer commission complaint filed online through e-Daakhil, a cybercrime complaint at cybercrime.gov.in for online payments — since July 2024 these matters fall under the Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita, with criminal breach of trust and cheating under sections 316 and 318 — and a civil recovery suit for larger documented amounts.
Realistic expectations: refund policies are near-universally absent from small website offers here, and some work genuinely was done, so a full cash refund is rare. The detailed routes, and when to stop chasing.
This isn’t legal advice. For amounts that matter, spend one consultation fee on a local advocate.
Step 4: Read your own timeline
Write what happened as dates, amounts, what was promised, what arrived. No adjectives.
Then read it back looking for these, because most people find three or four:
| In your timeline | What it tells you |
|---|---|
| Nothing in writing about scope | The whole dispute traces here |
| An advance of 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 whole exercise — not the record of what they did, but the record of the decisions that made it possible. Each is free to change. How to write it.
Step 5: The five terms for attempt two
Not a bigger budget. Different structure.
1. Register the domain yourself, in your own account, before hiring anyone. ₹700–1,200 a year, ten minutes. This alone converts the worst case from losing your business name to losing an advance. Why this ranks first.
2. Advance of 20–30%. Not half. A vendor confident of being paid on delivery doesn’t need half.
3. Payments tied to stages you can open on your phone. Design approved · all pages viewable on a staging link · live on your domain. Final instalment 10%, so nobody deadlocks at the end.
4. Written scope: named page list, revision rounds as a number, delivery date, and the year-two cost.
5. GST invoice from a registered firm, or a written bill on letterhead where they’re below the registration threshold.
With those, being wrong about someone costs a modest advance and a few weeks. That’s the achievable goal — the fuller version.
Step 6: What proof to trust now
Trust what costs a vendor something to give you: a GST invoice, the domain in your name, payments against openable stages, and a past client you can phone.
Discount what costs nothing to say — and specifically discount star ratings. NCR agency ratings cluster between 4.7 and 4.9 across hundreds of reviews each, including firms with complaint histories elsewhere. Read the one- and two-star reviews and search each name plus “complaint” instead.
The single most informative check available: ask a past client “what happened after you paid in full?” That covers the period reviews never do. What proof actually counts.
Step 7: Set the budget honestly
Neither instinct after a loss is right. Spending much more buys presentation, not protection. Spending much less makes failure more likely, because at the floor of the market there’s no margin for support and domains sit in vendor accounts.
Sit in the honest middle for your scope — roughly ₹15,000–40,000 for a properly built five-page site in NCR where you supply content — and spend your caution on the five terms. The reasoning.
Step 8: Publish what happened
Twenty minutes, and it matters more than it feels like it does.
A factual account — dates, amounts, what was promised, what arrived — posted as a Google review and on a complaint board. Given how compressed the star ratings are in this market, detailed negative accounts carry nearly all the useful signal, and the boards you probably wish you’d checked exist only because other people wrote them. Where buyers warn each other.
The reframe worth holding
You didn’t fail at buying a website. You bought one using price as the main filter, which is the method the market rewards and the one most likely to produce this outcome. Most bad outcomes here are structural rather than dishonest — the fair truth about that.
Changing the method costs nothing. Concluding everyone is a fraud costs you the website you still need.
What to do this week
- Run a WHOIS lookup and secure the domain if it’s yours.
- Collect all your content into one folder you own.
- Total both halves of what the attempts cost.
- Get one advocate consultation if pursuit looks worthwhile, and set a spending cap.
- Write the five terms down before contacting a single vendor.
If you want it done the certain way
Send us what happened and what you paid. We’ll tell you what’s salvageable, what a properly done site costs against your real total, and whether finishing what exists beats starting again. All five terms in writing before you pay anything — and register the domain yourself first, with us or anyone. WhatsApp us; we reply in about five minutes between 9am and 7pm.
Related reading
- Add up everything: the true cost of failed attempts
- The conditions to set the second time
- You’re not alone: buyers on attempt two or three
- The serial-rebuild loop
- Recovery routes when a developer vanishes
FAQ
What should I do first after being cheated by a web developer?
Salvage before pursuing: run a WHOIS lookup and secure the domain if it’s yours, get hosting access and download a backup, collect your own content into one folder, and export the chat so timestamps survive.
Can I recover money from a web developer who took my advance?
Sometimes. A legal notice from an advocate is the highest-yield step and where most settlements happen; free online consumer and cybercrime complaints are worth filing alongside. Full cash refunds are rare since refund policies are near-universally absent and some work was done.
Should I spend more on my second website attempt?
Not for safety — price is largely uncorrelated with delivery. Sit in the honest middle of the market and tighten the terms instead: domain in your name, 20–30% advance, stage-linked payments, written scope, and an invoice.
