I worked with him for a client (not me hiring him) on odesk.com and he was flexible with the work that I was doing for him, and paid me a slight bonus when the work involved went over time, so in all he was very fair.

From what little I do know of him, he seems to be an individual web developer working for himself (the concept of Minim group notwithstanding). As such, I don’t find it hard to believe that a job between him and another individual client went sour, in my experience all projects have wrinkles that you didn’t forsee when you’re doing independent contracting, and even negotiating simple things like deadlines and overages can’t always be resolved favorably for both sides.

Obviously if you really can’t finish some work that you’ve legally contracted for, the only real way to turn that into a legitimate exchange is to negotiate a refund. Maybe that was what Anders should have done, or maybe there are more extenuating circumstances of the deal that $haz hasn’t mentioned. I reserve my opinion on that.

This “testimonial” so to speak, hasn’t turned me away from working with Anders, but it has reminded me that I should cover my ass (e.g. half up front, give a sample of the work you’ve done instead of the actual work, or do work for a site that has some measure of guarantee, which I suppose is one benefit of odesk). So thanks for that reminder.

Maybe I’ll come back and post an update, though I doubt my experience will be the exception that proves the rule.