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When you don't fulfill your scope of work, legal implications?

by MaxwellB
6 replies
So I have a web design client that paid for his website, upfront with a check. At the time I was offering email marketing to all web design clients for 6 months for free, and we would provide the list.

In my contracts I have a scope of work section that describes everything, so mine says

Custom design (any color, design, style)
up to 8 total pages
Contact form if desired,
basic on-page seo
full mobile version, development, hosting and maintenance
Full email marketing management, 10,000 emails monthly, free for 6 months

Long story short for various reasons that don't matter I can't/don't want to/will not do the email marketing, with a list I buy or his....we should never have gotten into it it's not what I want to focus on or spend my time on.

He is the only client that was effected by this.

I am trying to explain it to him and he's not really getting it, he keeps sending me emails he wants me to send and I am about to say straight up

"Look Joe I apologize I know we said we were going to do this but because of XYZ I cannot do the email marketing, it's not going to happen with us but I can point you in the right direction, I hope you understand"

Does he have any real legal options against me. In NO other spot in the contract does it mention the email marketing besides that one line. and the terms section just says:

"This is an agreement for creative web design work to be completed as an independent contractor by Sales Source LLC for ........"

"......" being the clients name.
#fulfill #implications #legal #scope #work
  • Profile picture of the author kcom
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    • Profile picture of the author MaxwellB
      Originally Posted by kcom View Post

      Can you not just outsource the work for the remainder of the 6 months? Have you offered to compensate him in some way? You did not mention offering other services that you could do for him instead, just what are the legal implications by not fulfilling the contract. Sorry to say, but it sounds like your customer service is terrible.
      This is one single incident and I did offer him free seo work for 1 keyword until we get him to page one.

      People make mistakes and I wasn't ready to offer email marketing I didn't know what I was doing and it backfired.

      And no I can't outsource the work for the remainder of the six months do you know how much opt in email marketing cost? The lowest I've found is $150 per 10,000 emails ($15 cpm) and that's only because of a 50% reseller discount.

      So it would cost me $900 to do, know how much I got for this site? $900

      So instead of being rude and speaking about my customer service which you know ABSOLUTELY NOTHING about or outsourcing email marketing which you know nothing about, maybe you should ask the questions first, find out if this has happened before and then you can publicly bash me once it's apparent.
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      • Profile picture of the author iAmNameLess
        Originally Posted by MaxwellB View Post

        This is one single incident and I did offer him free seo work for 1 keyword until we get him to page one.

        People make mistakes and I wasn't ready to offer email marketing I didn't know what I was doing and it backfired.

        And no I can't outsource the work for the remainder of the six months do you know how much opt in email marketing cost? The lowest I've found is $150 per 10,000 emails ($15 cpm) and that's only because of a 50% reseller discount.

        So it would cost me $900 to do, know how much I got for this site? $900

        So instead of being rude and speaking about my customer service which you know ABSOLUTELY NOTHING about or outsourcing email marketing which you know nothing about, maybe you should ask the questions first, find out if this has happened before and then you can publicly bash me once it's apparent.
        Force him to get the emails. He probably doesn't have 10,000 opt in emails... ask for proof they were opt ins.

        Sign up for like 5 mail chimp accounts and it's free... 2K per account, I think.
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  • Profile picture of the author iAmNameLess
    Does he have a list? Just do it if he has a list.... If not, and you don't have your own list, you can twist it up a bit to say you were offering more email marketing management services to load his list and send the emails, because you scraping emails and spamming is illegal. Even if a contract has something illegal in it, it doesn't mean it can be enforced. In landlord/tenant law if something illegal is mentioned in the lease then the entire lease is bad.
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    • Profile picture of the author MaxwellB
      Originally Posted by iAmNameLess View Post

      Does he have a list? Just do it if he has a list.... If not, and you don't have your own list, you can twist it up a bit to say you were offering more email marketing management services to load his list and send the emails, because you scraping emails and spamming is illegal. Even if a contract has something illegal in it, it doesn't mean it can be enforced. In landlord/tenant law if something illegal is mentioned in the lease then the entire lease is bad.

      Thank you Iamnameless I appreciate your response.

      Yes he has a list of about 1000 people who he has personally met/done business with in some form or fashion.

      He doesn't want to use them because he already sends emails to them and he is looking for new emails.

      But if he didn't care yeah I would do that.

      About the illegal thing, yes that's my main concern, I have no experience in this and was ignorant to email marketing and I realized the legal issues for me and risk is so high if I am reported for spamming.

      But thank you, you have read my post and answered my question. I will just have to explain to him that there is no way to me to do it legally and the risk is too high.
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      • Profile picture of the author iAmNameLess
        Originally Posted by MaxwellB View Post

        Thank you Iamnameless I appreciate your response.

        Yes he has a list of about 1000 people who he has personally met/done business with in some form or fashion.

        He doesn't want to use them because he already sends emails to them and he is looking for new emails.

        But if he didn't care yeah I would do that.

        About the illegal thing, yes that's my main concern, I have no experience in this and was ignorant to email marketing and I realized the legal issues for me and risk is so high if I am reported for spamming.

        But thank you, you have read my post and answered my question. I will just have to explain to him that there is no way to me to do it legally and the risk is too high.
        You know what.. email marketing management... he would be responsible for the list, the content, and you would be responsible for clicking the send button LOL..so he should also be buying the subscription to the email marketing script.

        Plus sides to this... he can't leave you a consumer complaint because it's a b2b agreement... he can't issue a chargeback...and if he took it to court, it's hard to justify doing because how can he place any value on something you were offering for free? I think you're okay.

        Sometimes, no matter how hard you try to explain, or how good your intentions were, things don't go according to plan. Everyone that has been successful in this business has customers that have been pissed off. LOL... it's okay, all you can do it brush it off and move on.
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        • Profile picture of the author MaxwellB
          Originally Posted by iAmNameLess View Post

          You know what.. email marketing management... he would be responsible for the list, the content, and you would be responsible for clicking the send button LOL..so he should also be buying the subscription to the email marketing script.

          Plus sides to this... he can't leave you a consumer complaint because it's a b2b agreement... he can't issue a chargeback...and if he took it to court, it's hard to justify doing because how can he place any value on something you were offering for free? I think you're okay.

          Sometimes, no matter how hard you try to explain, or how good your intentions were, things don't go according to plan. Everyone that has been successful in this business has customers that have been pissed off. LOL... it's okay, all you can do it brush it off and move on.
          Thank you, this is exactly my line of thinking I just needed someone to validate it haha.

          Thanks again, always helpful.
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