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On March 1st 2015, Angele (the business owner) was contacted through Odesk.com for assistance with bookkeeping for my business. She was to prepare a corporate tax return and GST filing, for a total cost of $1660, with 50% due up-front. I paid the initial deposit via e-transfer on March 1st.
We had many email communications over the course of March, and she was very positive and helpful throughout. On April 11th, I paid her (via e-transfer) the remaining 50% for her work, on the promise that she'd be sending over the completed corporate return and filing that evening. She failed to do so, and I received no subsequent communication from her.
Over the next two weeks, I emailed her several times, and also attempted to contact her through social media (where she is active daily).
On April 26th, she finally responded via email, blaming a busy tax season for her lack of communication, and blaming "Harriet" (her admin) for failing to send me the tax documents. She promised that I'd "get everything tonight". In the three weeks since, despite several more attempts to contact her, I've heard nothing from her or her team, and still have not received my documents.
Being as Angele has failed to deliver the promised documents, and I am now behind on my payments to the CRA, I have had to seek out another accountant for immediate assistance.
I have utterly no faith in the calibre of Angele's character, thus my most modest hope for recovery from this situation is for her to issue me a full refund, though I doubt anything short of a court order would convince her to show such a shred of fairness. Of course, I would prefer that she be held accountable for some portion of my late-payment fees owed to the CRA, that she be stripped of this illusion of a business that she has conjured and uses to trick unsuspecting folk like myself, that she be publicly shamed for knowingly refusing to act like a well-behaved adult in society, and that she compensate me financially for the trouble.
But for lack of this, I will settle for a full refund, and the knowledge that her daughter will someday look upon her with deep, deep disappointment.