She called about a website for her cell phone popcorn store. One of those businesses you walk past and wonder how it stays open — like an Arby’s, where some part of your brain quietly asks if this is a money laundering front because the math just doesn’t add up. But she wasn’t calling about that. She was calling because she’d already paid thousands to another company and had nothing to show for it. No website. No answers. Couldn’t even get the person on the phone.
And the worst part — the part that sits with you after you hang up — is that she couldn’t afford to start over. We could help her. That’s what made it sink. She was exactly the kind of small business owner we built this company for, and the money was already gone.
The Money’s Gone and They Know You Can’t Leave
We’ve seen it in other industries. Indexed annuities in the financial advisor space — awful products with ten-year surrender penalties that lock people into something they didn’t fully understand when they signed. Web design contracts work the same way. You’re stuck in a web design contract with a company that stopped caring the day you signed. The website might be half-built, or it might be built and terrible, but either way the customer service is gone because they know you can’t leave. That’s the trap. Once you’re locked in, they don’t have to try anymore.
And the exit is designed to cost you, too.
Some of the big-name web design companies — if your cancellation date is the first of the month and you don’t call by three weeks before, you’re still paying that extra month. One last dig on the way out. And even when you do leave, there’s the guilt of hiring a new web designer when someone else thought they had your business. I don’t understand how companies can operate this way. I don’t know how these people live with themselves.
Never Chase Good Money After Bad
A plumber I used to work with — he repaired some of our rental properties — said this all the time. Never chase good money after bad. When he said it, I was younger and naive and doing exactly what he was warning me not to do. He just shook his head and did the work. Told me I shouldn’t be doing what I was doing. I paid over five hundred dollars for that job, and it ended up costing more because it wasn’t done right.
He warned me. Never chase good money after bad.
That’s the pattern. Somebody paid thousands for a website that never materialized, and now they’re staring at the hole in their budget wondering if they should pour more into it just to get something out of what they already spent. The answer is no. The money that’s gone is gone. The only question that matters is what happens next.
What the Next Conversation Should Sound Like
When someone who got burned finally decides to try again, it won’t be with the same company. It’ll be with someone new. And that first conversation should feel like an interrogation.
It should.
It doesn’t need to be hostile, but it needs to be pointed and direct. No messing around. This is what happened. Give me proof, not words, of how it’s not going to happen with you. That’s the difference between someone who got burned once and someone who’s about to get burned twice. The first one asks hard questions. The second one takes promises at face value again.
If I’m going to hire you — speaking from that prospect’s chair — then I need assurances that this isn’t going to happen again. Not a pitch. Not a sales line. Proof. Because fool me once, shame on you. Fool me twice, shame on me.
And I’m not shaming me anytime soon.
That woman with the popcorn store — we couldn’t help her that day. All we could do was let her vent and hope that at some point down the road, when she’s ready, she gives it one more shot. But with someone who earns it. Someone who can look her in the eye and answer every pointed question she’s got — because leaving a web designer who isn’t delivering is hard enough without worrying that the next one will be worse.
You don’t owe anyone a second chance just because they ask nicely. But you owe yourself one. And the company that deserves your business is the one that doesn’t flinch when you interrogate them first.
Yeetish Questions
What should I do if I paid a web company and never got a working website?
Stop paying. Don’t chase good money after bad. The money that’s gone is gone — no amount of extra payments will fix a company that disappeared on you. When you’re ready to try again, interrogate the next company. Ask for proof, not promises. The right company won’t mind the hard questions.
How do I know the next web company won’t do the same thing?
You don’t — not from a sales pitch. You know it from how they respond when you push back. A company that gets defensive when you ask hard questions is telling you something. A company that welcomes the interrogation is telling you something different. Trust the one that doesn’t flinch.