Quit your day job. Go on. I dare you.

The weather’s crap and will probably do so for the rest of the summer. Ha! Like a true Brit I’m reduced to discussing the weather on my blog. I’m not alone. Listening to the news on the radio, watching people’s facebook updates, reading my RSS feeds - everyone’s banging on about the weather.

Chamonix’s a very outdoorsy type of place. It’s not like there’s cinema, theatre, museums, shopping or all the other stuff you get get used to in London. People tend to get bored, drink too much and after a while start going off their heads. I don’t mind the rain at the moment. I’m not bored. I’ve got so much to do for the Listings Lab business right now, both paid client work and a big internal project to open up a new product area.

June was a very bad month for Listings Lab. Mainly due to getting ripped off by these twats and I’m determined that July will be much better. I spent a lot of time learning a new technology (drupal) to a professional standard. Then I took the plunge and got out there and tested the market. Amazingly I found a thriving marketplace with far more sophisticated buyers than the flash market I’m used to. Because it’s open-source, the rates are a bit less than flash development but if it’s easier to find clients, easier to manage the work and importantly, easier to outsource then it’s worth doing. I’ve already found 2 brand new, paying clients for this new technology which I’ll be working with in July.

So sod the rain. I’m very busy and quite enjoying it.

Blogs are often used for good, but can also be used in anger. That’s what I intend doing here. This post is not really aimed at the readers of this blog, but at google. I’m aiming to make this post visible in a google search for ‘Now Wash Your Hands’. Hopefully that will mean that anyone researching them will find this and be warned about the kind of company they are.

In short a really bad one. The worst kind of new media client-fluffers and incompetent snake oil salesmen. I’ve worked in this industry for years and have dealt with all types of agencies. Companies like NWYH (Now Wash Your Hands) are the ones to avoid, whether you’re a client or looking for a job.

So why do I feel so strongly? Because Now Wash Your Hands have ripped me off to the tune of several thousand pounds. Back in April I took on a job with them to develop a flash Quiz Game for the BBC Eastenders website. The job didn’t go very well, but at the end of the day I did build this really cool piece of flash software for them and after stringing me along for months and generally being real assholes they told me yesterday that they aren’t go to pay me anything for the massive amount of work, stress and hassle they’ve put me through.

At one point, when it was clear that the relationship was disintegrating beyond repair, I received the following email from the Managing Director, Neil Jeffries at which point I realised what a bunch of wide-boy media dicks I was actually dealing with.

I am a little lost how you have the cheek to ask for the full amount of £xxxx, in which we would have paid you if you we’re to deliver a completed product.

However if we ‘DO’ find a resource that is prepared to work over your existing code and we can recover the project with our client, we will agree to pay you something, but this will definitely not be the full amount as agreed.

Regards

Neil Jeffries
neil@nowwashyourhands.com
Director

Telephone: 020 7851 7080
Mobile: 07904 517248″

I wasn’t asking for the full amount. I compromised on half because the job had gone badly, but at the end of the day I did deliver them this software (view it here) which took up a lot of my time and effort and stopped me taking on other work from real clients.

To string me along for months and then not pay me a penny is blatantly ripping me off. And while I can’t MAKE them pay me, hopefully this blog post will impose some small discomfort on this very dodgy company.

I can and will try to re-sell the software to other customers to re-coup the money owed, but had I not been strung along with broken promises and lies I would have already done so.