Database purposely erased by angry web developer

  • BACKGROUND:
    My site has been deliberately erased, all files deleted by web programmer I was using recently. I had been working with him for a month and when I questioned him about some of his fees, he flipped out.
    I am not a programmer and have no idea where to turn for help since he was doing everything for me. I am in the US, he’s in Canada (he’s actually a supposed volunteer on these forums) and he will not return calls, emails, etc. Posting on this forum is my last gasp attempt to finding a resolution to this issue.

    MY QUESTIONS:
    1. Is there any way to get my site back or is it gone permanently? My site is MakeLifeEpic.com, the developer who deleted everything is [redacted].

    2. I have proof he deleted everything (from activity logs from my hosting company), are there any steps i can take against him? I really don’t want to, I just want to get my site back up but after paying him a ton of money I don’t want this to happen to another person.

    Again, I’m not a tech guy so I really appreciate any advice, suggestions you have for me.

    Thanks..Jim

Viewing 6 replies - 1 through 6 (of 6 total)
  • Moderator Ipstenu (Mika Epstein)

    (@ipstenu)

    ?????? Advisor and Activist

    So https://makelifeepic.com/readme.html loads, which MEANS if you have the Database still, you’re mostly good.

    Ask your Webhost for backups. You may luck out. DB backups are generally more reliable.

    Sadly, we cannot provide legal advice (not being lawyer) but since you hired this person, if you have a legal contract I would recommend you contact a lawyer about breach of services.

    Looks like the site is hosted with Inmotion Hosting.. hopefully they performed automatic backups of the sites (files and database) on the server.

    I would simply ask your hosting company for the most recent backup.

    Is it your hosting account or did the developer host the site?

    Thread Starter jimsimcoe

    (@jimsimcoe)

    Thank you all for your suggestions/comments. Here’s where this stands:

    1. Hosting provider does not have a clean backup. They tried to load what they thought was a backup and it didn’t work.
    2. Database is gone, all files have been removed from the cpanel account, etc. They have all been deleted.
    3. “https://makelifeepic.com/readme.html loads, which MEANS if you have the Database still, you’re mostly good.” Since I don’t have the database I am apparently out of luck.

    With all of this said, please let me know if you have any other suggestions. I found this developer on Upwork and am realizing now that everything I’ve worked hard to do on this site and all the money I’ve spent is probably all gone now.

    I hate being the bad news delivery person but it sounds 99.9% like the developer took his unprofessionalizm and anger on you with the loss of your site.

    It’s all gone, specially if the database is gone.

    Thread Starter jimsimcoe

    (@jimsimcoe)

    Yes, CureWP, I guess that is the case. Thanks for at least trying to help.

Viewing 6 replies - 1 through 6 (of 6 total)
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