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OK, so why the delay then?

Did you also dispute after 8 months? I would understand if you are willing to cut your contractor maybe a week or two worth of slack. But in OP's case 1-2 weeks difference still doesn't make 1250$ reasonable payment for 2.5 months work.

And if the work was estimated as substantially less, why did OP delay filling the dispute for so long and how is that the web site's fault?

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I didn't go through a service---I contracted them directly, so there was no real way to dispute except via small claims court.

Because of that, I ended up contracting someone else for the work who finished it on time. The originally contractor dripped in the work over the course of 8 months with many weeks delay in communication between each dribble of work done. In the end, they completed the job but I had no use for the work at that point, and obviously won't be recommending them to anyone.

I got pulled into a similar situation when I had a how it works video produced on Odesk. Learned real fast that you have to make them meet the milestones in a timely manner and not to pay anything up-front on a fixed price job.

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