Having read the entire original post, I'm somewhat inclined to agree with you. HN doesn't purport to be a programmer/money matching service, in this case it's

Having read the entire original post, I'm somewhat inclined to agree with you. HN doesn't purport to be a programmer/money matching service, in this case it's pretty unclear what the original payments were for, and what either party expected from it. In all reality, you're better off with dedicated outsourcing sites rather than informal relationships created between usernames found on this site. So the warning stands, but it's pretty irrelevant as someone who has seen fit to create multiple identities would have no problem creating another clean identity to work with. However, I think this post (and the others) are a bad precedent. I'd hate to see an avalanche of 'so and so did me wrong' type posts. The only thing that people should get from this is that you can't trust anyone you 'meet' over the internet until you have gotten to know them better. Trust no-one, verify everything. Don't do business on the basis of IM conversations. Make it clear and understand what you're delivering. A contract doesn't have to be written by a lawyer (although lawyers make better contracts) but any contract should at least state the terms of the agreement. You make x for y$ and ownership belongs to me. Anything else is just he-said she-said complaining.