When “I’ll get to it soon” becomes “I can’t finish it”

Recently, I hired another small business owner I considered a friend to help with a website project. She assured me it would be done by the end of August. I paid a deposit and trusted her word. Weeks passed. Updates never came. Excuses piled up. Finally, she admitted she could not complete the project and offered to refund only part of my payment because her team had "done some research."