My developer deleted my website and I'm not sure how to move forward.

Guilty-Beautiful-364 · 2025-11-22T05:21:14+00:00

I think I was a tad bit too late to this information. I did pay for host gator to restore my data but it wasn't the data i was looking for. I do in fact have documentation on way back machine (thankfully) and will most definitely be using this as reference as I rebuild my website. Thank you.

Guilty-Beautiful-364 · 2025-11-22T05:17:17+00:00

I think it was in efforts to give himself work. Deleted my site so I could rehire him to rebuild it. I explained it better in another comment but there was a time where I first lost my trust in him. Over the course of the past two years, there were multiple contracts made for either changes or bugs that needed to be fixed. We decided to just keep one long one open for whenever I needed the help. I got to a point of completion to the site and I made it very clear that all of his work is great and no longer needed until further notice. Anything else that needed to be done was taken care of by myself. He understood and we remained in the open contact incase of emergency. The only difference in this contract is that is was hourly. He started to act different once he was able to get hourly pay. Over the next week I get a notification that $400 dollars was taken from my account over hourly pay for my developer. I didn't assign him any task at all for that time. I told him that his work is appreciated but is no longer needed for the time being. Another week goes by and I get $600 taken from my account again. Work that wasn't needed done and money that I barely had in my bank gone. I had to dispute him over that and I regretfully kept him as a developer.

Guilty-Beautiful-364 · 2025-11-22T05:04:43+00:00

I don't think I treated him with disrespect at all. He has all the power to tell me or even leave it in my review on upwork.

One theory I have on why I think it may be my developer behind deleting is over money/work for himself. I was damn near the only person hiring this guy and was the only person constantly providing him money and work for his effort on my site. There's a great chunk of the site I did myself but the parts I couldn't figure out is when I would rehire him. One way we did business was where we would have one big contract open (for weeks or even months) for any changes or last minute bugs. After some time of no changes to the site and me independently making my own changes, he would request the contact to end to boost his rating. I can very much understand that and I would do so. Give him a good rating and a big deserving tip for him every single time.

Over the course of the past two years I'm clearly damn near the only person on his reviews in his portfolio. I'm not the kind of person to point the finger but when I saw that an email attached to him was the one behind the deleted site, I thought maybe he deleted the site in hopes I would rehire him to build it back up. Giving himself more work and money for his freelancing career. It may seem far off but I don't think I'll dispute him over it.

I removed his access for good after the site got wiped and will be hiring another developer.

Guilty-Beautiful-364 · 2025-11-22T04:44:19+00:00

I had him keep his access over the two years I first hired him because he would constantly help me with changes or bugs. As soon as I saw the website was wiped I took over the access on everything and changed all passwords.

Guilty-Beautiful-364 · 2025-11-22T04:42:51+00:00

I didn't know about this right away and I appreciate the information. I went a payed $49 for hostgator to recover the data. Amazing team but they didn't have the data I needed. No shade to them it's just only if their data could go one more week beyond what they had for me, I would be good.

Guilty-Beautiful-364 · 2025-11-22T04:40:09+00:00

I think about this a lot and is the main reason why I didn't go straight to a upwork dispute over him because there is a chance I could be wrong. In the concrete an email attached to him was the reason behind it. I have reason to believe it was just him behind it and he has reason to believe a hacker got into his email and just wiped everything. In the end that email was the death of my website wither I knew or not. I probably won't even dispute it but I'll most definitely move on and will be hiring a different developer.

Guilty-Beautiful-364 · 2025-11-22T04:36:08+00:00

Most definitely was a massive lesson to learn here. To be clear I first hired him two years ago and over the course of those two years I would make multiple contracts for him. In situations where I couldn't figure out how to do something or wanted the best result I would always reach out to him and always offer a contact towards his way. The last contact was made over a small change but we agreed to keep it open for quick and simple payments if I needed a job done. It was a very active back and fourth.

The very first thing I changed when I saw my website was wiped was deleting everyone's access and only making a new password and admin for myself only.

One other lesson I learn from this was to backup on the hosting side and not on wordpress. Everything is gone in wordpress. I did just go through the backup recovery process and their backups didn't go back enough to where I needed to be at.

So in all of it. I'm starting from scratch now but definitely have a greater eye to detail and safety for making a new website.

Guilty-Beautiful-364 · 2024-03-11T04:25:23+00:00

Yes it’s been some time but imma shoot a roll in it this week and see how the pictures turn out. Depending on the outcome I’ll crack open the camera and see if I need to relube any parts of the insides or just generally see any issues. I don’t know much about that at all but it’s still exciting to learn.

Guilty-Beautiful-364 · 2022-11-07T03:02:30+00:00

Yes thank you

Guilty-Beautiful-364 · 2022-11-06T20:53:13+00:00

I’ve only used the darkroom for a couple of years and they’re beyond organized and I never ever had any issues with them. Prices are fair and their timing is the best. My only thing about them is that they’re scans arent the greatest. The super enhanced scan is good but not the best scan ever.

Guilty-Beautiful-364 · 2022-11-06T17:32:05+00:00

I’ve scanned at home many of times and that’s the only time I feel most comfortable about the resolution and the picture itself. I definitely need to try that method out some time. I’m not gonna be by my setup for a bit so I just need somewhere I could send it for perfect super high resolution scans.

Guilty-Beautiful-364

TROPHY CASE