DO NOT DO BUSINESS WITH THE FINAL CODE. They never even came close to finishing the rebuild of our old website for our spiritual organization. We don't like saying bad things, but this was the worst business experience any of us ever had, and we want to save others from this.
Final Code's contract stated they'd finish our site in 30 days, for $13,500.00.
Six months later it was far from finished, and they were complaining they had underbid. Being the fair, honest people we are, and hoping to get it done, we paid them $6000 more than the contract, for a total of $21,000. As soon as they cashed that check they never did any further work on the missing parts, and they stalled for another three months.
They actually sent us an email saying sorry, but we're "too busy with bigger clients and we have to make a living."
Turns out Final Code took our money knowing they did not even have the ability to do the scope of work we gave them. Larry wrote a vague contract, and when I had asked why my 20 pages of detailed, thorough, and clear scope of work wasn't in it, he said, "Oh, this is just the standard contract we use, don't worry, I have your list right here." Soon as the ink was dry, they started complaining that we were asking for things that were "not in the contract."
By Larry's reply and other reviews here, you can see we're not the first they did that to.
They once accidentally sent us an email thread where Larry the owner tells the whole staff to stall us and only do little tiny things for us to make it look like something's happening. If we confronted them Larry made excuses and finally resorted to screaming abuses.
NINE MONTHS into this "30 day contract" and still no finish, we bit the bullet and started all over, and paid a new webmaster a total of $17, 960.00. He completed that exact scope of work in 2 1/2 months, with only one intern helping him. He completed all our items to the last detail, plus extras he threw in at no charge because he thought we needed it--no problems, no complaints, great communication. We've been completely happy for the past year with our new, complete site.
THE FINAL CODE had a staff of 7 or more people and still couldn't (or wouldn't) finish that exact scope of work in 9 months.
We asked for some settlement from Final Code--Larry refused to make any. The credit card company carefully reviewed our documentation and cheerfully refunded us $6757.00 that was charged on a card, but because the rest had been paid by check, we sadly had to take Final Code to court.
Larry made at least fifteen false or misleading statements to the judge. For example, he told the judge Final Code created my website so we were stealing it from them--of course, a total falsehood--FC was supposed to simply copy my seven year old mature site over to their new platform (and didn't even complete that or do it with any accuracy.) I created every word, picture, and pixel inch of the site myself over the past seven years. He screamed in court about how we abused them and added to the scope of work. We had never experienced anything like it. It should have been on a reality TV show.
DON'T PURCHASE A WEBSITE ON ANY PROPRIETARY PLATFORM. They're all smiles during the sale, and there are advantages to it, but once they have your money, you're at their mercy, so you'd better know their integrity.
With any proprietary system like THE FINAL CODE's, if they over-promise, are incompetent, shady, inefficient, or if they get "too busy for you," they have your money and your website, and no other webmaster can get into that closed system to finish it, fix it, or work on it at all. You have to start over again, and as above, they might have the nerve to claim you stole your own website from them.
With any open-source platform, you can just fire a dishonest or incompetent web company and get a new one to take over or finish it. Final Code calls their platform Total Control. THEY take total control of your website--you lose control of it.
Larry will sound very convincing in denying all of this. We heard a mind-boggling array of justifications, excuses, and untruths in those 9 months. But once we caught onto their deal, we documented every detail.
We are real customers, not their friends posting reviews. You may call us at 805-500-5492 and we're happy to let you review the thick file of documentation. We'd like to spare everyone the year of grief we went through with The Final Code. read more