Legal Question in International Law in California

Scam at Elance

We are terminating our outsource a web development project and demanding refund of USD450 from a developer in India on the ground of project delay more than 6 months and the developer is obviously lack of skill to deliver.

We have reported the case to Elance but they did nothing much other than forwarding emails, claiming that they act as a finder service only and suggested 3rd party mediation service. The developer is refusing refund with lots of lame excuses and stalling time to participate on 3rd party mediation wasted another 4~5 months since the case reported to Elance.

My question for the situation is

1. How can we make Elance liable to its duty as the owner of a marketplace to protect its member from fraud and fair business practise?

2. Is there a way for us to venue for us to demand refund from the developer as they are in India, though a bulk of their business could be from US?

3. Is this case worth to be pursue, refund amount is $450 plus delay penalty and other damages could worth more than $5,000 is chargeable.

Thanks in advance for taking time to response to our concern. If there is something worthy for us to pursue, I am surely with you to go all out.


Asked on 4/14/07, 12:55 am

1 Answer from Attorneys
Johm Smith tom's

Re: Scam at Elance

You would pay mor in legal fees on this, but contact me if you think there are other customers that have this same complaint. I don't want to advertise, but this problem is very common and so I created and have patents pending on TROANN.com to protect web designers and their customers from fraud. My law firm is focused on Internet, media and entertainment law.

Read more
Answered on 4/14/07, 7:34 am


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