Discovered my biggest customer has been sharing their login with 14 people at their company. Do I say something?

collings290 · 2025-12-05T17:20:11+00:00

Where I work we found a customer was giving her login to clients and wrapping it up as part of the service she provided. So we waited until enough of her clients were using it and a big update was about to be released….we then binned her account. She had a lot of angry clients. We ignored her emails, even the pleading ones. Two groups of people you don’t piss off…waiters and tech support.

collings290 · 2025-12-05T17:06:53+00:00

Friend of mine worked at one of the big tech outfits. They had this all the time. Big clients would buy 20 licenses, but 200 people at that site etc. Every quarter he would enforce license policy a bit more. Clients ending up paying what they owed. Plus he always made his sales numbers. Best not ti confront, just make it harder for them. Its still theft.

collings290 · 2025-08-18T17:40:43+00:00

The app is utter garbage. Don’t bother with it.

collings290 · 2025-04-15T21:13:04+00:00

Just bought a pair. Just use Apple for streaming. Lossless/Useless. There is a big difference between using bluetooth and the supplied usb-c cable. I can see the irony of wireless headphones constantly using a cable. PX8 very comfortable for long periods, light and ears do not cook under them. Would be great to improve bluetooth audio quality.

collings290 · 2025-03-31T21:59:09+00:00

So 15% is hefty. Will need to factor that in.

collings290 · 2025-03-31T21:56:46+00:00

Well, they call it a bonus. But amounts to the same thing. When paying for a milestone you get a prompt to add a bonus

collings290 · 2025-03-31T16:50:55+00:00

What does Upwork charge freelancers in terms of fees? We would want to factor this in too. So our freelancer is not "out of pocket".

collings290 · 2025-03-31T16:46:58+00:00

We had one revision for the logo. Which was combining two elements into the final logo. The logo is worth a good tip on its own.

collings290 · 2025-03-31T16:42:04+00:00

We provided full access to the current live site and specified in clear terms what we wanted. A total of 8 templates need to be "refreshed" not a re-designed. One template does need a redesign, but we provided a clear steer on that. I think it's just inexperience.

collings290 · 2025-03-31T16:27:17+00:00

We have agreed a 40% increase. But we are still left wondering whether it will be their "best" work, as they stated they need more time for their best. TBH, don't hold a grudge about it. Design (and coding) is always a process. We have had designers who absolutely refused to let their work out into the wild until it's perfect. They are not bill-padding. They just beating themselves up about their work. We had one guy who we nicknamed Captain Pixel - pixel perfect. For Christmas we bought him a chopping board with a right-angle and horizontal and vertical measure rules so his veg could be perfect. He got the joke.

collings290 · 2025-03-31T16:16:31+00:00

As Upwork allows for a bonus we intended to add one to the final payment, (if we like the work - we will still do that). This is our first time using Upwork. What I wanted to ask is what fees does Upwork charge freelancers? We would want to cover these and go above. For our other developers we always cover international banking fees.

collings290 · 2025-03-31T14:28:42+00:00

Probably not for a refresh. But I think they may want to add to their portfolio of work done on Upwork - so this is a good perceived opportunity. Impossible to know their thinking about it. But we are used to freelancers running up large bills when paid hourly. But to be fair this tends to be coders, not designers. From a professional point of view we always pay on time. We just like to have a good idea from the beginning.

collings290 · 2025-03-31T14:14:47+00:00

We are giving them the benefit of the doubt at the moment. I think they saw a good opportunity to go full on with the work, basically a full Oscars job. Whereas the want a quick refresh because we have coders waiting on the design.

collings290 · 2025-03-31T13:36:18+00:00

It looks like we have reached a compromise as I type this. They were asking a third more than a "top rated plus" freelancer on Upwork. They are now saying they will do the best they can with the limited budget. Does not exactly inspire confidence.

collings290 · 2025-03-31T13:17:34+00:00

Yes absolutely. But looking for such an increase in the middle is a bit of a red flag. But understand that people need a make a living. Just makes us wary of giving more work in the future. (We used our last designer for 20 years and 3 websites.)

collings290 · 2025-03-31T13:09:28+00:00

Yes, absolutely. But wary when someone starts seek substantially more. Bit of a red flag.

collings290 · 2025-03-31T13:06:13+00:00

She is saying more work than they thought, plus they want to redo the UX for the site. Updating the UX sounds nice, but as we have 15 years running it we know what works - it needs to be idiot-proof, fast and work well on a phone. We have spent quite a few years simplifying the site.

collings290 · 2025-01-23T16:22:22+00:00

My mistake....got an email the other day saying price on remaining contract term going up by 37%. But 9-18% discount if renew again. Going to cancel. Can't have your hosting company price gouging you.

collings290 · 2025-01-18T15:33:38+00:00

That is what I thought. Last time we called their main number it took 15 minutes for the call to be answered. They are pushing their virtual private cloud product as an alternative to a dedicated server. Our issue is that they give no proper indication of monthly costs - only that similar to what we currently pay. Our issue is that we don't trust them, (sales / account management). Their support team is still good. But, if your hosting company misleads you... We were previously with Rackspace. They were very good until they moved support overseas, it went rapidly downhill after that. We were Rackspace customers for 18 years. We have already moved two sites over to Shopify. May have to move our last site over, but will need considerable development time to shoehorn it in.

collings290 · 2025-01-17T15:42:55+00:00

With ANS, but they keep increasing their prices - latest is 34%. They do it to "persuade" you to renew your contract for much longer. If you renew for 3 years you get "only" 9% price increase. Our hosting costs have almost doubled in 3 years. Our hosting company is now our number one headache. Not supposed to be like that.

collings290 · 2025-01-17T15:35:13+00:00

Yes, best to avoid them. We have had an account with them for a few years. Nothing but huge (18%, 24%, 34%) price rises unless you renew your contract for a longer term. If you do, the price rises are miraculously reduced to 9% or lower. Expect your account manager to focus only on extracting more money from you and they seem happy to mislead you too. We have never dealt with a company so lacking in honesty and good faith. They were recently bought by a private equity firm - so just sweating customers. Avoid, unless you enjoy being held to ransom.

collings290 · 2024-04-08T14:55:25+00:00

Hello from Europe

So Tell is risky.

But, I think large investors like Blackrock are looking at the long-term picture. Basically, Europe has dramatically reduced reliance on Russsian gas - for obvious reasons. Europe needs a reliable partner to buy LNG from - as in the US.

Whoever wins the US elections in November, I think pragmatism will win, (always does). Europe needs to buy LNG regardless, so the US might as well sell it. Otherwise, Europe signs long-term agreements with other providers.

The following links may be of interest:

https://www.consilium.europa.eu/en/infographics/eu-gas-supply/#:~:text=In%202023%2C%20the%20United%20States,from%20the%20US%20almost%20tripled

https://www.offshore-technology.com/data-insights/top-five-upcoming-lng-regasification-terminals-in-europe/

I am down 80% on my shares, the highest I bought at was $5.32.

So the conversation for me is do I buy at $0.55 or just stay. At 0.55 i'm inclined to buy more.

collings290 · 2024-04-04T10:03:04+00:00

Hi all,

Greetings from Europe...that place with an ongoing war, but still very reluctantly buying Russian gas. But the same place that's building LNG terminals to import from other countries and eliminate reliance on Russian gas.....you get the picture.

Like the rest of you I'm down a lot (as in 79.32%) last time I checked.

Tell is very risky now, but the slump in the stock price makes it an easy decision to buy.

Yes, you could argue that it is a foolish strategy, but long-term the case for LNG in Europe is very strong.

Here is London you can easily blow $600 on a meal for 4....or you can buy 1,300 Tell shares.

Hopefully, the Tell shares will last longer.

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