3rd party developer feedback forums.

Just my two penneth worth.. when we decided to move our forums to xenForo our biggest issue was the importing of the database from a Snitz based forum to xenForo - the two were nothing alike.

I did what I would expect anybody else to do in this situation and that was to ask for advice and in return I was given a few recommendations.

The next step was to contact those that had been recommended and put to them what was required to ask if they would be interested in taking on the task.

One person did and so costs were discussed, and then the all important due diligence .... before parting with any money check out the person/company that you are intending on using.
In the days of search engines, not just xenForo, it's easy to research anyone or anything and bearing in mind some developers also work on other platforms, if there are any bad reviews posted on the tinterweb you will come across them.

Now the trick is to also look beyond the 'bad review' as who's to say that the review is not misguided, two sides to every story, even malicious. But if the same name results in several bad reviews, or none at all then it's down to you to decide if you want to continue -> caveat emptor = buyer beware.
Likewise you will also come across the good reviews and if you do, check the dates. A cluster of good reviews in a very short period of time could be a warning flag.

Once you are confident you have made the right decision, put what you want in writing and ask the developer to agree to do such likewise; agree a timescale.
Request an invoice for the work or deposit and if the invoice does not have the person's contact details on again beware. If it does check it out; again Google offers some excellent tools for this.

That way you have just about covered all angles, you've conducted your due diligence, you've obtained the services of a respected and legitimate person/company, and you have in writing what you want and what they have agreed to do.

Most developers (not just on xenForo) will request payment or part payment up front - don't forget they don't know you either and in a World of scammers and rip off merchants, they also have to protect their work and time.

Simple rules of commerce really, you wouldn't send your hard earned to some person who has emailed you out of the blue, so don't do it on here either.

By the way @Slavik , your lawn needs cutting ;)
 
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