Website worries.

[alexj8100]

Three years ago I paid a professional web designer to make me a website. I invested what is to me a large amount of money in this website. However last year I could not afford the hosting fees and so the website (which was still being managed by the designer) was taken offline and supposedly kept safely until I could afford to host again. The designer has since lost all the files containing my website and so it can never be used again. Can anybody help as to whether I have any rights to ask for a refund or a replacement? Thank you in advance.

[Twenty20]

Do you have it in writing that the web designer was going to store these for you? If you do then you have a case for asking the designer to replace them free of charge.

Depending on how complicated your page/pages were you might still be able to view them here http://web.archive.org/collections/web.html
If they are visible it might help with putting the site back together.