Web Template Scam
Scores of web designers today are incredibly deceitful and are fundamentally scamming their clients out of money through web design fraud and template scams.
While doing some freelance work, there are a lot of web designers out there who offer to do web design service for very cheap. A lot of the time this includes offering their "custom web design" service. Shrugging my shoulders, I usually say to myself, "Oh well, I offer my quality services at a premium and some clients simply want cheap designs… for cheap", and move on.
Custom Designed Templates
Then one day I noticed one of my friends made a job posting looking for a web designer and online marketer. After contacting him to get more details what he was looking for, he goes on to tell me how hard it is to find outstanding and trustworthy web designers. He recently was talking back and forth with a designer that agreed to create a custom design to update one of their older websites. A couple weeks later, after lots of dialog back and forth of about what he was looking to get done, the designer finally showed him the design. He couldn't help but to start laughing at the designer when he saw the design.
The "custom design" that the designer showed him was clearly a standard web template. Even though my friend is not a web designer, he could easily tell the difference between a pre-made template and a custom web design. Web templates are not hard to spot once you have the experience of working with them.
How to Spot a Scam
If you would like to train yourself to be able to determine whether a design is a template or not, the quick and easy way to learn the difference is to simple visit Template Monster and browse through all their web templates. Probably within a few minutes, you will notice that most of their templates basically look the same. The colors, images, flash and text all change but you will start to notice that they all just look like... templates.
When you are done, you can visit a site such as CSS Mania and browse through their listings. You will notice that each and every design listed has simply one thing in common - uniqueness. It's this uniqueness you want to be looking for. Take some time and review a design from a designer.
Template vs Custom Design
Can you make the distinctions between a custom design and basic ready-made template:
vs 
Obviously, the custom design is on the left and the web template is on the right. This is just a basic example used for illustration purposes only. It's not really fair to pick and choose website designs to compare, but hopefully it'll help you able to spot template scams from schiesty web designers.
Know the Difference
Immediately, the "web designer" in question started getting defensive regarding his design and things blew up from there.
The sad truth is that the designer probably bought (or downloaded illegally for free) that template for $30, modified it for an hour or two, then was trying to submit it as his own custom web design and sell it off for about $2,000.
My friend jokingly made the comment that this is "actually a great way to make easy money". It definitely is - if you have no ethical morals and like scamming honest and hardworking individuals and businesses.
What I have learned in the past year or so, is that there are an amazing amount of people in today's world will do anything to make a quick buck – even if it means screwing over their friends, family, or more often their own clients. Greed, not money, is the root of all evil.
From a designer standpoint, every web designer should know the differences from offering someone a template vs a custom design. However, with my clients I clearly make the advantages and disadvantages of both made before I take the project and let them choose whichever suits them best. The main deciding factor on which one to choose is usually money.
You can definitely offer a template at a cheaper price than a custom design, but do not try to pass off a template as a custom design. If you are looking for an ethical and trustworthy web designer, send us a free website consultation service request. We will make sure to treat you with the honesty and respect you, and your website, deserves.
* Get the latest web design tips & advice by subscribing to our rss feed or by email.
Related Information
I purchased a template design website from Mint Tree Media in Montrose Colorado. I now know I have been scammed but at the time I did not know that I should have seen a contract. It took 3 months of begging and pleading and threathening to get a VERY poorly designed site with incorrect information. I was told all along (even in emails) that I would recieve a disc with the FLA codes so that I could update my site in the future. Now the owner is refusing to give me the code and wants to charge me $150 per hour to make the corrections that he never go right in the first place. I cannot go to anyone else to make te repairs with out the FLA code. Is there any way that I can get the code off my website? I do not know what to do.
Your article on web scammers passing templates off as custom hit home for me. I just lost in court to a scammer (an out of work receptionist) who passed herself off as a web designer. She downloaded free templates, told me they were custom, told me she could put my videos on the site,,but couldn’t, I had to find someone to SEND them to her..then she sent me a bill for 3500 dollars!
I sued, she only got 1300. Lesson learned. I wish someone would do a newspaper/web article on how web design is the Home Improvement Scam of the new millinium! The courts are impressed by the web designers apparent mumbo jumbo and are so confused, they end up legally splitting the baby. You can’t win if your a consumer!
It’s really sad that I have people contacting me all the time with this exact same problem. They paid for a custom web design to later find out that it is basically just a web template.
The only thing i can think of to help so others won’t fall into the same trap as you is to report that company to ripoffreport.com. Hopefully by doing this, it will show their potential clients what kind of web design company/individual they are dealing with and will look elsewhere.
Does anyone else have any suggestions on how to deal with web design scams & fraud?
What’s up with the fact that there are a whole bunc h of webtemplate sites all carrriying the same web templates?
@Richard, all these templates sites re-sell their templates to multiple buyers.
If you take Template Monster for example, the re-sell the same template for about $50 to whoever will buy it. They also offer a ‘unique price’, where you can purchase the template for about $1,500 and they will remove it from their website so no one else can purchase it again.
Most template sites operate this way – that’s how they can continue to sell quality templates at low prices. Compared to buying a 100% custom design, they are usually worth the cheap price… as long as you don’t mind other sites having the same design as you somewhere else on the web. But the chances of you running into one is slim.
I’m in the process of having a website built by a company that told me from the start that its a template I select and they modify it to my requirements. They are a company from India so I was a bit hesitant. It costs me $699.00 for everything including flash and hosting. The website isn’t finished yet but I must say the level of service has been excellent. However, I would be unhappy if I’d paid $2000 and then found out its a template. I think if they tell you its a template and the price reflects that, then there’s no problem. They have almost finished my website and it looks great, it should be live sometime soon. I hope this feedback helps.
FRAUD-SCAM ARTISTS
We were ripped off $950 from US Website Builder
They took our money and did nothing but kill our business
We were okay on ranking before they made sure to eliminate us on the search engines.
There is one lady who controls it and says she is 10 different ladies(she sounds exactly the same-she doesn`t bother to change her voice