I have a few sites on the web and have had many good experiences with buying asp and php scripts from many online vendors.  The best companies are too numerous to list but beware: scammers (especially from 3rd World countries) are lurking everywhere.

Just one example of a  webmaster script scam pops in my head right-a-way.  It is  a script written by a company called Jilmail, a Gmail/Hotmail/Yahoomail clone php script.  We had this cheap $99 script installed on one of our servers and paid one of its programmers another $500 to customize it for our needs.

While the Jilmail.com program seemed to run pretty well for a little bit, within weeks of its installation, it was hacked and all emails for our clients were lost.  So, this cheap $99 Jilmail script obviously is useless!   Yet, the Indian programmers still expect to be paid for a crappy product that can't handle a simple hack.

Now why would we want to get a product that has a huge security hole and is of no use to us?  Why should we pay these programmers: they should pay us for making us lose face with our clients.  THEY did the installation & customization so THEY bear the responsibility to our clients for loss of their important information.  That's why THEY just lost $600, a lot of money for someone who lives in the Middle East.

Yes, I am sick and tired of scammers in countries such as India thinking we Americans are stupid.  If you want to join the civilized world, perhaps you should learn a thing or two about customer service, Jilmail.  If your product sucks, stop selling it and satisfy your clients.   Perhaps then, an article such as this wouldn't show up in the search engines when people type in the words 'Jilmail Review'.

Here's a tip for webmasters: if you buy a script from a vendor outside the United States, charge it on your American Express.  That way, if you get screwed over by useless programming, you can just charge it back and be done with it....  That's why America is great: American companies like Amex, helping other Americans who get screwed by a bunch of foreign scam companies who haven't yet joined the civilized world!