Ask HN: What can I do if someone dupes me into working for free?

I would talk to a lawyer.

wow, you should at least mention the URL and the company name here.

  Peter Parker: Spider-Man wasn't trying to attack the city, he was trying to
                save it. That's slander. 
  J. Jonah Jameson: It is not! I resent that! Slander is spoken. In print,
                    it's libel.

Build the pages on your own servers and use server-side code that would break the page if it wasn't present.

On the plus side, you now know that you do not want to work for that company!

As for what you can do about what has already happened, definitely consult a lawyer if you feel it is work perusing. It may be worth taking to small claims.

When he inevitably comes back to you wanting changes, refuse to do so until you receive payment for work done so far. Make sure that a suitably solid contract is in place for future work.

What terms did you agree to before making the webpage? If you didn't license them to use your code or give them ownership outright, you probably have copyright and they are probably in violation of your copyright if you can prove they misappropriated your code wholesale.

Cheap lesson learned. We have all been burned. You may spend more time trying to recoupe anything from this. Others have advised similar, write it off, he's a bad customer.

Later, if he wants changes you have a few options:

1) Do the work and keep in safe, and send a screen shot.

OR

2) Ask for payment up front, and back pay.

Then collect before giving anything over.

Edit: Call him on the phone, leave a message and be totally honest, "I feel you are dodging my communication to avoid paying me". If he's honest, he will pay up, and even be ashamed and embarrassed. If he's dishonest, you'll get nothing, at least you will know for certain either way.

> What can I do in this case?

You can simply Move ON. Lesson learned.

Don't expend any more time/money/energy on these clowns!

If you believe you are legally entitled to money (you agreed upon a payment) or didn't assign copyright, you can sue them. I don't know where you are, but in the UK for example, the small claims court handles cases like this (up to £10,000 of damages), and it's a case of filling out a form and sending it off, you don't need to have a lawyer but it's sometimes advisable. From the Intellectual Property Enterprise Court guide: "The IPEC small claims track is designed to be used by parties who do not have a legal representative acting for them. Accordingly it has more simplified procedures than a standard civil claim...".

I would advise looking at what small claims options your jurisdiction provides.

They did not pay you for your work, therefore the work is yours and they have stolen it. They are in violation of your copyrighted works. Speak to a lawyer and seek damages.

Do you have a contract with said company? What are those terms? Can you prove you made it 100%? The code and graphics? A copyright case is long and expensive so it may not be worth it to chase bad or no money. Pro bono maybe, but I doubt that too. I hope you learned a valuable lesson tho.

How much do you care about it? Options are:

* Let it go.

* Keep contacting the founder hoping this is just a misunderstanding.

* Be proactive.

For option 3 you would want to write down timeline and gather all of the evidence (commit logs, website screenshots, communications with the founder). After that you can let him know that he is using your work without permissions, submit a small claim court case, or talk to a lawyer.

Well if ya have $1200 to burn, you should sue them. It’s a good exercise because if you’re freelancing, you should get use to it. It’s highly effective to be litigious if you’re freelancing.

ALWAYS protect yourself and your work or, as you can see, you’re worthless.

Treat this like you would any other copyright infringement (presumably you didn't sign anything giving them ownership of the work or you would not be asking HN?).

Find out where the site is being hosted, usually through a WHOIS search, and contact the hosting company's abuse department. Try a web search for a template of a takedown notice appropriate for the jurisdiction. For example, if the site is hosted in the USA you can send the host a standard DMCA takedown notice. Make sure the wording is correct.

You can go to a lawyer for reassurance (and if you can afford one), but for a simple copyright infringement notice sent to a web host, this is not super complicated and you can get it done yourself.

Obviously you are 'burning a bridge' here with the company that interviewed you, and you will never do work for them again, but they are treating you badly and it's OK to get more aggressive in your dealings with them. If they later claim this was a misunderstanding and remove your webpage, go ahead and invoice them at full market rate for the work anyway. They may tell you no but it's worth a try. These are all good skills to have if this happens to you again.

We ask candidates to do real technical work for us as part of the interview process. We also pay them for it, and have them sign a contractor agreement which includes transfer of IP. Shitty that these guys didn't seem to offer you that level of respect.

Are you entitled to be paid for your work? Yes. Do you have a case against them? Probably yes. Is it worth your time? Probably not.

I'm guessing we're talking about a pretty small code test that took you maybe a day tops, in that case it's really not worth putting yourself through the ringer just to prove a point. Yes, they're assholes for doing this, but as many have said before, the best revenge is your own success without them.

You could choose to accept payment in the form of a life lesson. This jagoff just taught you that there are jagoffs like him in the world. Maybe this will save you from a much more damaging jagoff in the future.

It might be nice to stop this jagoff from being a jagoff to other people but it's probably not worth the stress.

Send them an invoice.

Negative review on Glassdoor?

This doesn't add to the conversation but I'd really like to know the website.

That's why your code should have included a backdoor. You missed a golden opportunity here.

Department of labor, "employment fraud"

File a DMCA takedown notice with the webhost, and file a case in small claims court for the amount you should believe you should be paid for the work. small claims filing should cost about $25-100 to file, depending on the county. Small claims court caps the damages to a few thousand, but no lawyers are required and many small claims courts don't even allow parties to bring lawyers.

You can sue. I'm not sure where you are but most places have something called small claims court where you can sue for small amounts of money without hiring a lawyer. Most small claims court don't have the authority to make them remove the website though, all they can do is make them pay you.