CarpetDog

Having experience of using local and outsourced programmers:

Never EVER believe the following from a programmer:

1. Examples of work* (unless on the site of someone you know and they’ve been openly using it for at least 3-6 months)
2. Testimonials (unless from someone you know - see 1 above)
3. Reviews (unless from someone you know - see 1 above)
4. Sites they’ve developed (see 1 above)
5. Certification of ownership/rights (coders can disappear overnight when they are found out)
6. Statistics (PR can be forged, traffic can easily be diverted, forum posts/comments/testimonials can be forged)

My experiences:

Good coders cost good money.
Almost all of the time, when starting a fledgling project, money is tight and you have a deadline - some coders take advantage of this.
Do as much of it yourself - within your capabilities - get your coder to do the coding part.
Just because someone is working in your office - it doesn’t mean that they can actually do what they’ve said they will/can do! They can always walk away…

ALWAYS
Write a full specification document with at least the following:

* Objectives (what the script/program has to do),
* Deliverables (what the programmer has to do)
* Constraints (when you need it by, where you want it installed etc)
* Budget** (If you don’t tell your coder the budget, he won’t know how much to charge you)
* Database requirements (Some/most coders are crap database developers - get advice on normalizing your database - build for future projects too)
* Sourcing (Tell your coder if you want him to code from scratch or if it is acceptable for him to use open source or GPL code) - this WILL affect the price drastically!

NEVER
* Give away your ideas (If you have a great cutting edge idea that you think/know will be valuable in the future NEVER give the whole job to one coder)
* Expect them to deliver on time (Most good coders keep you informed and give you regular updates etc - Lots either pretend they are working and never deliver)
* Pay up front*** (If a coder asks for money up front, delete him from your contact list)
* Wait until the job is delivered before testing it (test it on their server, pay them half, test it on your server, pay them the remainder)

*Some coders steal code and put their name on it - take my word for it, the original coder or copyright owner of the code WILL find out and chase you for their share.
**Budget Lots of people shy away from this - “If I give the coder a budget of $100 - he will say it costs $99.99″ - exactly - more importantly he will know exactly how much you are willing to pay for the work and will work to that budget, he’ll know that if it goes over you won’t pay him)
***If you use a good coder, you don’t pay upfront EVER. If they are asking for money up front, they are either a scammer or they are inexperienced and unsure of their abilities.

Message for both coders and clients
Trust goes both ways - some clients will try to scam coders and some coders will try to scam clients - You have to give and take.
If you are unsure - use an escrow service or use scriptlance/elance etc